The west has diametrically opposite standards for dealing with issues in its own backyard and that of non-western fast-growing economies like Bharat. Not that a western country should technically have a say in Bharat’s internal matters, yet meddling in the internal affairs of Bharat even as their own house goes all topsy turvy and haywire, seems their favorite pastime. With the geopolitical order transforming at an unprecedented pace, the west is fast losing its relevance.
As the world gets wary of the high and mighty attitude of western countries, they are clutching on to the last straws of power, as it were. Lecturing Bharat, a country that was once their colony, perhaps gives them the illusion of still being an imperialist power and calling the shots globally. The west’s attempt to showcase itself as all-important and supremely powerful in a world that increasingly doesn’t give two hoots to its perception regarding this and that is nothing short of farcical. It’s the 21st-century adaptation of Don Quixote chasing the windmills.
But now the west is getting entangled in its mess, and it can’t quite figure out how to escape. Take the case of the UK, for example, It has long lectured Bharat on the Kashmir issue and continues to do so. They have a long history of Islamic appeasement and therefore, many of Bharat’s international issues including the Kashmir issue are routinely raised in British Parliament.
In December 2023, Scottish National Party leader and MP Alison TheWliss raised the Kashmir issue in the British parliament. TheWliss specifically queried the British government’s assessment of the decision by the Supreme Court of Bharat, which upheld the power of the President to abrogate article 370 of the Constitution. The fact that this news was reported by no other media except Pakistani media and the Islamic media of the UK, is telling of the shrinking relevance of this issue. The issue is repeatedly raised in the British Parliament by random MPs but this topic has fast lost its sting. Bharat is becoming increasingly indifferent to these silly tactics of the west plus as we are getting increasingly powerful on the world stage, the UK government too is distancing itself from the rhetoric of the Islamists.
The Scottish National Party has recently been under the scanner for its Islamist ties. In March 2023, the SNP elected Humza Yousaf as its new leader and Scottish first minister. Humza Yousaf is the son of first-generation Pakistani immigrants. He has received repeated criticism for ties to the Muslims brotherhood. Yousaf is the first Muslim in the UK to become the leader of a major UK political party. Therefore, his election was hailed as a testimony to the UK’s multiculturalism by most of the international media.
Although Humza Yousaf doesn’t have an Islamist agenda as such and is largely working on local issues relevant to Scotland, the SNP has increasingly taken a staunch one-sided anti-Israel stance in the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict. Yousaf though has been vocal about the apparent rise of Islamophobia in the UK. The Scottish First Minister reportedly recently called on the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to set up an independent review of anti-Muslim sentiment in the ruling conservative party. His demand came in the wake of Conservative MP Lee Anderson’s comment that the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan was being “controlled by Islamists”.
Lee Anderson has been suspended by the UK’s ruling party for his “Islamophobic comments. Anderson’s suspension from the ruling party of the UK is a testimony to the enormous influence and power Islamists wield in the UK. It’s bizarre that the UK continues to meddle in Bharat’s internal affairs like the Kashmir issue and continues to stroke the anti-Bharat sentiment of Islamists in Bharat even as its own democracy is under threat.
As per various media reports, British lawmakers have been facing numerous threats over their pro-Israel stance over the Israel-Palestine issue. The UK has been in the grip of pro-Palestine and anti-Israel protests ever since Israel’s retaliation following the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.
According to an article published in The FreePress titled “Are ‘Islamists in Charge of Britain’?”, pro-Palestine protests in the UK have turned increasingly aggressive and antisemitic with protestors calling for the end of the state of Israel. The report further says that several Jewish schools in the UK had to close due to safety concerns, and there has been an alarming increase in incidents of antisemitism.
The article further talks about the threats issued to British MPs for their pro-Israel stance on the Israel-Palestine issue. “Only weeks prior, Mike Freer, a Conservative MP who represents a constituency with a significant Jewish population, announced that he would not be seeking reelection because of threats to him and his family over his support for Israel. Explaining his decision, he revealed that he had started wearing stab-proof vests when meeting constituents. In 2021, another Conservative MP, Sir David Amess, was stabbed to death by an Islamist at such a meeting. In 2017, an Islamist terrorist mowed down pedestrians before stabbing an unarmed police officer to death outside the gates of Parliament”, says the article.
The UK parliament recently gave in to Islamist threats as the Scottish National Party presented a motion calling for an “immediate ceasefire in Gaza” and described Israel’s actions since October 7 as “collective punishment”. UK’s main opposition party, the Labour Party then submitted an amendment to the motion, instead calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire to be observed by all sides”. In addition to this, the UK’s Conservative government submitted its own amendment to the original motion calling for an “immediate humanitarian pause” while also asserting Israel’s right to defend itself.
Now, according to the convention in UK parliamentary democracy, if the government tables an amendment to a motion submitted by an opposition party, it is the government’s amendment that will be debated. This means that everybody will have to vote either for the original opposition motion of the SNP which was staunchly anti-Israel or the amendment motion of the ruling party which did not call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. This put the Labour MPs in a fix who rely on the Muslim votes for many of their seats. Therefore, a mix of the Islamic appeasement sentiment and fear of their own safety from the Islamists led these MPs to request the Speaker of the House of Commons to find a solution to save them from this dilemma. The speaker, thus broke convention to allow both the government’s and Labour’s amendment to be debated.
This is apparently a big deal in British politics and sets a new low vis-à-vis the conventions of British democracy and a new high in the UK’s quest for Islamic appeasement. With Sharia courts running in the UK, there is no doubt about the fact that it has indeed become a hub of Islamists. What is incredible to understand though is that even as the UK itself battles the Islamist threat, the media sponsored by the money of British taxpayers is mired in Hinduphobia and spits venom against Bharat and Hindus on every possible issue from Ram Mandir inauguration, to the Uniform Civil Code to anti-CAA protests and the Kashmir issue.
The likes of the UK are caught in their own trap as they find it hard to publicly shed off the cloaks of secularism, they had donned so conveniently to lecture countries like Bharat on the “oppression of minorities”, “Islamophobia” etc. It seems in the process of blackmailing countries like Bharat over the supposed “human rights of minorities” and “freedom of expression”, the west has created a Frankenstein monster out of the Islamist lobby and this monster is now all set to swallow its own creators.
It’s not just the UK that’s grappling with the issue of Islamists. European countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, etc. are all reeling under the threats of Islamists. Yet hardly any of them has the guts to call a spade for a spade and condemn the global Islamist coalition torturing Hindu minorities in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, legitimizing the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits, casually issuing death threats to people in the name of religious freedom, and perpetuating Hinduphobia.
When BJP leader Nupur Sharma became the target of Islamists in Bharat over a statement she made about Prophet Mohammad and was constantly being issued death threats, none of the western countries spoke out in sheer support with the exception of the Dutch politician Geert Wilders who won the November 2023 Parliamentary elections in Netherlands.
Even now, as Islamists are literally wreaking havoc in this country and extreme right-wing political parties are coming to power because of people’s sheer exasperation with the governments of these nations, they still don’t seem to get the message. The west continues to appease Islamists and the media continues to portray Islamists in Bharat as the oppressed and underdog.
The UK passed a new law to curb protests in 2023. The Public Order Act 2023 gives increased powers to the UK police to control protests and arrest protestors based on suspicion. The new act gives the police the power to pass orders that ban people from participating in protests and control their activity and movement. The law doesn’t ban protests per say but it gives the discretion to the police to regulate and temporarily ban protests on certain grounds. If a protest is found to cause serious disruption through tunneling / being present in a tunnel and being equipped for tunneling, interfering with key national infrastructure, or obstructing major transport works, these can be framed as criminal offenses against any of the protestors, as per the new UK law.
“These new measures are needed to bolster the police’s powers to respond more effectively to disruptive and dangerous protests. Over recent years, guerrilla tactics used by a small minority of protestors have caused a disproportionate impact on the hardworking majority seeking to go about their everyday lives, cost millions in taxpayers’ money and put lives at risk. This has included halting public transport networks, and disrupting fuel supplies and preventing hundreds of hard-working people from getting to their jobs. Protests such as these remove police from their regular duties tackling crime in local communities”, according to the official website of the UK’s Public Order Bill.
Now, the provisions of this law seem pretty similar to the steps taken by the UP government under the leadership of Yogi Adityanath to curb disruptive protests that vandalize public property and cause inconvenience to common people. Yet, steps taken by the UP government to curb protests are portrayed negatively in the western media as draconian measures harassing India’s Muslims, bulldozing the houses of the poor, curbing freedom of expression, etc. It’s amazing how the tone changes when it comes to Bharat. A similar law in the UK becomes a much-needed intervention but when it comes to Bharat, it becomes an “oppressive tactic of the BJP government”.
The UK has been mired in protests over the past 2-3 years from protests of NHS nurses to railway workers and farmers. The whole of Europe has been in the grip of farmers’ protests for months now. Yet, none of these issues make the headlines of western media as protests in Bharat do. Unless you dig out all this stuff from the internet, chances are as a person residing in Bharat, you wouldn’t even get to know these protests are happening. On the contrary, as a person residing in a western country, you will get to know everything about protests in Bharat – the facts, not so much but more so, the exaggeration. The western media’s relentless propaganda machinery blowing out of proportion every single protest and disruption happening in Bharat makes sure a normal westerner get their regular dose of “newstainment” (news + entertainment) through the distorted presentation of news concerning Bharat and Hindus.
Yet, it’s amazing that the mainstream English media of Bharat operates largely through a colonial lens and doesn’t even question or critique the outright double standards of west when it comes to issues concerning their own country and issues concerning Bharat. That’s why we continue to critique and interrogate these colonial tactics of the west. The first step towards change is questioning.
