Weeks after Obama nudge, Modi govt says Islam has 'position of pride' in India

NSA Doval said that India, being a proud civilizational state, believed in promoting tolerance, dialogue and cooperation to deal with contemporary challenges.

India is a Hindu-majority nation, but secularism is enshrined in its Constitution and the country is a great model for the coexistence of different religious communities, said Mohammed bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, secretary-general of the Muslim World League (MWL), an international organisation funded by Saudi Arabia to promote moderate Islam.

The comment by the MWL chief came just a few weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s landmark state visit to Washington DC came under a bit of a shadow in the wake of former United States president Barack Obama’s comment on the need to protect the rights of the Muslims in Hindu-majority India.

Muslims in India are proud to be Indians, Abdulkarim Al-Issa, who is on a tour to New Delhi, said at an event hosted by Khusro Foundation and India Islamic Cultural Centre in the national capital. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval, joined him at the event and said that Islam occupied a unique and significant position of pride amongst numerous religious groups in India.

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Doval said that India, being a proud civilizational state, believed in promoting tolerance, dialogue and cooperation to deal with contemporary challenges.

“It is no coincidence that despite having around 200 million Muslims, the involvement of Indian citizens in global terrorism has been incredibly low,” said the National Security Advisor. “Terrorism is not linked to any religion, it is the individuals that get misguided and it is probably the duty of spiritual and religious leaders to see that they can belong to any religion, faith, belief system or political ideology, but anyone who takes the path of violence will have to be countered as effectively,” he said.

“Islam is not only about tolerance, but Islam is about forgiving others. India is an inspiration to the rest of the world for being open to dialogue,” Abdulkarim Al-Issa, who earlier served as the Minister for Justice in Saudi Arabia, said, adding that the MWL was open for dialogue with all communities.

New Delhi hosted the secretary general of the MWL just about three weeks after the prime minister’s visit to Washington DC saw as many as 75 Democrat members of the American Congress writing to the US president requesting him to convey to his guest concerns over reports of growing religious intolerance, shrinking of political space, curbs on freedom of the press and erosion of human rights in India. At least six US lawmakers had also boycotted the prime minister’s address to a joint sitting of the US Congress – alleging repression of religious minorities during his tenure at the top office in New Delhi.

Obama too said during an interview with CNN that if the rights of the minority Muslims in India were not protected, the country might someday start to pull apart. He had even suggested that the issue of protection of minority Muslims in Hindu-majority India was worth mentioning if the president of the US had a meeting with the prime minister of India.

Modi did not directly respond to Obama, but the former US president did draw flak from the ruling BJP’s leaders in India, including heavyweights like union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma.

A journalist of Wall Street Journal, Sabrina Siddiqui, was also at the receiving end of a vitriolic campaign on social media platforms as she had asked a question to the prime minister during his joint press conference with the US president at the White House on June 22 about the state of democracy and religious freedom in India. The online harassment of the journalist already drew flak from the White House.