Roving Periscope: Realizing diplomatic faux pas, Kuwait, Iran, others resetting India ties

Virendra Pandit 

New Delhi: Realizing their hurried and uncalled-for overreaction over the Prophet issue, and that they got carried away because of the dissemination of half-truths by anti-India and anti-BJP lobbies, including Pakistan, the Middle Eastern countries are now on a course correction to reset their ties with New Delhi as diplomatic temperatures cool down on both the sides.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has invested a lot in resetting India’s ties with the Middle East in the last eight years, and has been decorated with the highest civilian awards in some of these countries, will visit the UAE this month. He would, apparently, explain India’s position on the entire issue and how certain lobbies, within and without, are working overtime to tarnish the country’s image by flooding social media with fake news and half-truths.

The first instance of the resetting of ties came from Iran. Anti-BJP lobbies in India and overseas had claimed that National Security Advisor Ajit Dobhal had assured the visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian last week that India would take such a stringent action against those involved in blaspheming the Prophet that “others will remember”.

Nothing of this sort happened, Iran clarified later.

The second instance of course correction came from Kuwait, which has identified many Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi Muslim troublemakers working there. They organized and took part in demonstrations to put pressure on the Kuwait government to go against India. Such Muslim expatriates from the three South Asian countries are being banned from entry forever and repatriated, the media reported on Monday.

In Kuwait, where some stores had taken off Indian products, the government will arrest and deport expatriates who took part in an “illegal demonstration” to protest the controversial remarks against the Prophet.

Kuwait has asked officials to arrest ex-pats from the Fahaheel area who organized a demonstration after Friday prayers last week to support Prophet Muhammad, Arab News, an English-language daily newspaper published in Saudi Arabia, quoted sources as saying.

The protestors will be deported to their respective countries as they violated the laws and regulations of Kuwait, which stipulates that sit-ins or demonstrations by ex-pats are not to be organized in the Gulf nation, it said.

“The detectives are in the process of arresting them and referring them to the deportation center to be deported to their countries and they will be banned from entering Kuwait again,” reported Al-Rai, a Kuwaiti newspaper.

Kuwait was among the Muslim countries that had summoned the Indian envoy over the remarks of the former BJP functionaries and registered “categorical rejection and condemnation” of the statements issued by leaders of the ruling party against the Prophet. Later, it also welcomed the BJP’s statement announcing action against its functionaries.

Meanwhile, India is considering requests for wheat exports from, among others, Indonesia, Bangladesh, the UAE, Oman, and Yemen. Indian wheat is about 40 percent cheaper than other exporting countries.

Nearly 55,000 tons of Indian wheat, which Turkey rejected on bogus grounds, has already reached Egypt and cleared stringent quality tests, the media reports said.

Reports suggest Turkey ‘rejected’ the Indian wheat on political grounds. Ankara has sided with Pakistan, Malaysia, Iran, and other non-Arab countries to wrest leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.

Turkey’s rejection of Indian wheat on wild claims was aimed at tarnishing New Delhi’s image. Ankara had been supporting Pakistan on issues like Kashmir, Article 370, and other matters.

Egypt found the wheat consignment in order.

According to reports, India did not directly export the wheat consignment. The ITC, an Indian conglomerate company, had sold it to a Netherlands-based trading house. The Dutch company shipped it to a Turkish firm.

Recently, Turkey refused to send a Turkish national as the CEO of Tata Group-acquired Air India.