The United Nations General Assembly recently adopted a resolution condemning Islamophobia and calling for measures against the same. The draft resolution titled “Measures to combat Islamophobia” tabled by Pakistan and co-sponsored by China was adopted by a recorded vote of 115 in favour to none against, with 44 countries including Bharat, France, UK, Italy, Ukraine, etc. abstaining from voting.
The resolution was adopted on 15th March, the UN-designated International Day to Combat Islamophobia. This day was designated by the UN in 2022 to combat all forms of discrimination and violence against practitioners of Islam based on their religion.
“Adopting the draft resolution titled “ Measures to Combat Islamophobia” ( document A/78/L.48 ) by a recorded vote of 115 in favor to none against with 44 abstentions, the Assembly condemned the incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence against Muslims as manifested in the increasing number of incidents of desecration of their holy book; attacks on mosques, sites, and shrines; and other acts of religious intolerance, negative stereotyping, hatred, and violence. The Assembly also called upon Member States to take all necessary measures – including legislative and policy steps – to combat such hatred and violence and to prohibit by law incitement to violence against persons on the grounds of their religion or belief. It also requested the Secretary-General to appoint a United Nations Special Envoy to combat Islamophobia”, says the UN Press release on the adopted resolution.
Firstly, a resolution condemning Islamophobia co-sponsored by China seems nothing short of a joke. China’s horrendous human rights violations of the country’s Uighur Muslim population is a fact well known. Yet, no Islamic country including Pakistan dares to take China to task regarding this issue. This clearly shows that the so-called Islamic nations don’t give two hoots to the rights of common Muslim people. All talk about Islamophobia” is a mere convenient shield for terrorism linked with Jihad and practiced by radical Islamic terrorist organizations, of which Pakistan is a haven. It’s also being increasingly used as a geopolitical tool by the likes of China to supposedly keep Bharat in check by joining camps with Pakistan and crying “human rights violations of minorities” to blackmail Bharat into succumbing to their pressure tactics and compromising its strategic interests.
First, the United Nations was characterized by a global hegemony and biased against the common issues of the global south. Bharat has been fighting this battle for long, vociferously calling for the reform of multilateral institutions like the UN to make these relevant in the fast-changing geopolitical order. These organizations seem like caricatures of the colonial past still pretending that the world runs on the behest of a few countries and the others should simply listen in awe to whatever they say and decide just like the quintessential praja (subjects) of the olden days. Now with the global south rallying together to challenge the western hegemony of the likes of the UN, they clearly seem rattled, though still unwilling to reform. Yet another thing that characterizes the UN is the hegemony of Abrahamic religions. In a pluralistic and multicultural world, the UN conveniently chooses to overlook the atrocities inflicted on followers of non-Abrahamic faiths like Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Parsis. The UN official document condemning religious discrimination and intolerance refers to discrimination against people following Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, but fails to categorically condemn discrimination against Hindus and followers of various other non-Abrahamic religions. That is, the UN’s Global Counter-terrorism Strategy refers to Islamophobia, Christianophobia, and anti-Semitism but doesn’t include references to violence, hatred, and discrimination against Hindus and practitioners of other non-Abrahamic faiths.
Bharat had raised this issue at the UN in January 2022 as the country’s then permanent representative to the UN, T.S. Tirumurthi emphasized that while the UN had highlighted other forms of religious phobias, it had not yet fully acknowledged anti-Hindu, anti-Sikh, and anti-Semitism threats.
Bharat’s current Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj raised similar concerns on behalf of Bharat as Bharat chose to abstain from voting on the Islamophobia resolution tabled by Pakistan. She emphasized that while Bharat strongly condemned all religious phobias including Christianophobia, Islamophobia, and antisemitism, it was strongly of the opinion that the UN must simultaneously recognize phobias against all religions including non -Abrahamic religions, and not just exclusively focus on condemning phobias against specific religions.
“Clear evidence shows that over decades, followers of non-Abrahamic religions have also been affected by religiophobia. This has led to the emergence of contemporary forms of religiophobia, particularly anti-Hindu, anti-Buddhist and anti-Sikh sentiments,” she said. Ambassador Kamboj also emphasized that while the issue of islamophobia was undoubtedly significant, allocating resources solely to combat Islamophobia while neglecting similar challenges faced by other faiths might inadvertently perpetuate a sense of exclusion and inequality. “ “The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, violations of gurudwara premises, massacres of Sikh pilgrims in gurudwaras, attacks on temples, and the glorification of breaking idols in temples all contribute to the rise of contemporary forms of religiophobia against non-Abrahamic religions,” she added.
Bharat took a rather mild stance by abstaining from voting on the Islamophobia resolution. It should have instead sent the UN a strong message by voting against the resolution. Noted author, scholar, and a pioneer in the research on civilizations aptly raised this point through his X handle:
“ India should have voted against a resolution that protects only one religion”.
Indeed, passing a resolution condemning Islamophobia and allocating resources to combat the same without recognizing the violence, hatred, and biases against practitioners of non-Abrahamic faiths like Hindu Dharma, Sikhism, Buddhism, etc. is akin to legitimizing the atrocities committed against followers of non-Abrahamic religions. The irony is most of the negative stereotyping, vandalization of places of worship, desecration of moortis, and various acts of violence and terror perpetuated against people and institutions of non-Abrahamic faiths like Hindu Dharma are orchestrated by various stakeholders of the Abrahamic ecosystem. In Bharat, the Abrahamic ecosystem is manifest in the form of a full-fledged conversion industry that demonizes Hindu Dharma, plots civil unrest, and manoeuvrers to destroy the plurality of Bharat by pitting people against one another and denigrating ancient Bharatiya culture and civilizational ethos. Derogatory statements against Hindu Gods and Goddesses are made casually every other day, and no one thinks it’s a big deal. Islamic terrorists routinely threaten Hindus and no one thinks that’s an issue.
As per various estimates of the world’s population based on the religion they follow, Christianity is the most widely followed religion with more than 31 percent of followers globally. The second most widely followed religion is Islam with approximately 26 percent of followers globally. With approximately 14 percent of the world ‘s population as Hindus, they form the third largest religion in the world. But more than 90 percent of followers of Hindu Dharma live in the Bharatiya subcontinent ( Bharat, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan ). This makes Hindus a minuscule minority in western countries where Abrahamic religions are the dominant faith. Yet, it is bizarre that the UN doesn’t consider it necessary to condemn Hinduphobia even as it adopts a resolution exclusively condemning Islamophobia and allocating resources for the task. Jews are a minuscule minority in the world, forming barely 0.02 percent of the world’s population, and yet, the UN press release on the Islamophobia resolution quotes the representative of Pakistan in these terms, “ The most egregious current manifestation of such sentiment is Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza, he warned, stressing the need for bold and decisive actions against such phenomenon”. A tiny country whose population consists of a religious community that’s on the brink of extinction due to the historical genocide of its members is being essentially accused of being “Islamophobic” to the world’s second-largest religion in terms of followers and one with a history of practicing terrorism in the name of self-defense, right to self-determination, and the Islamic doctrine of Jihad.
The symbolism is hard to miss. For Bharat, the implications of a resolution condemning Islamophobia tabled by a state that routinely exports terror to Bharat and is the hotbed of Islamic terrorist organizations, are rather grave. A resolution condemning Islamophobia in the absence of an equivalent resolution condemning the factory of Jihadi terrorism and extremism thriving in countries like Pakistan is akin to legitimizing Islamic terrorism and the ecosystem of jihad. That is the real concern for Bharat, and that is why Bharat should have gone a step ahead and categorically voted against this resolution, emphasizing that it’s not a reliable one, coming from a country that has a history of perpetuating terrorism in the name of religion. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t hide behind the supposed doctrines of a religion as an excuse to perpetuate terror, and then when the world starts reacting to all the violence and extremism inflicted, you start shouting “phobia”.
The representative of Belgium had suggested amendments on behalf of the European Union to the text of the document condemning Islamophobia. The amendments suggested many changes including removal of references to the “desecration of holy books’. The representative of Belgium gave the argument that while anti-Muslim discrimination and hatred are unacceptable and violate the principles and purpose of the UN, the UN should be “ religion neutral and not refer to desecration of holy books”. His argument was that protecting a religion or belief or its symbols as such was beyond the scope of international human rights law, and criticism of any religion or its beliefs cannot be prohibited as such.
The prohibition of criticism of any religion goes against the universal mandate of freedom of expression indeed. The Islamists have a track record of applying freedom of expression selectively to suit their purpose. When it comes to denigrating and insulting Hindu Gods and Goddesses, making derogatory statements against Hindu Dharma, demonizing Hindu rituals and festivals, and offending the sentiments of Hindus by depicting Hindu deities objectionably through art and sculpture, freedom of expression suddenly becomes very important. All the wokes of Bharat start holding candlelight protests and demonstrations to “ protect” the freedom of expression of hapless Islamists. But when it comes to Islam, the tiniest bit of criticism can lead to violence, and that violence is justified with the argument that since you hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims, this happened. The UN seems to be going by the same logic and is indeed setting a dangerous precedent by selectively highlighting Islamophobia, closing its eyes to the debilitating impact of Islamic terrorism on Bharat, ever since we gained independence. First, the horrors of partition, then the killings of millions of Hindus in 1971 before the formation of Bangladesh, and subsequently the loss of lives of millions of Bharatiyas in cases of countless terror attacks in Bharat mostly carried out in the name of jihad.
How can the UN choose to ignore the devastating impact of Islamic terrorism and extremism on South Asia? This just goes to prove that it’s an organization deeply embedded in western hegemony and looks at everything from the point of view of the west. The September 9/11 attack on World Trade Towers in the US undoubtedly gave rise to Islamophobia. That surely needs to be condemned. But that does not mean that to absolve its own sins, the US should make countries like Bharat pay the price by putting up with anti-Hindu hate and violence. The world is becoming more and more Islamophobic yes. But the important question the UN missed, why is it so? It’s simply because a whole ecosystem of terrorism flourishes in the name of Islam. Many Muslim people across the world refuse to condemn that ecosystem, even if not outrightly endorse it. That’s why Islamophobia exists. It hasn’t come from a vacuum. Millions of “Kafirs’ have lost their lives for simply being non-Muslims. That’s why Islamophobia exists. It will continue to exist until common Muslim people get the courage to say in the open that it’s wrong to kill innocent people in the name of Jihad, and it’s wrong to wish that people of every other religion convert to Islam.
Moreover, the UN resolution on Islamophobia seems rather vague and open-ended. “ Protecting the religious beliefs of Muslims” could be interpreted as anything to justify all sorts of archaic, exploitative, and anti-women customs like triple talaq, mandatory hijab rule, etc. It could be stretched to argue that Muslims have a right to live by Sharia rule and if any country tries to impose secular law on them, it is being Islamophobic. In Bharat, even criticizing jihadi terrorism is classified as Islamophobia by the woke lobby. Their logic essentially is that if you criticize any activity or system in which Muslims happen to be involved, you are being Islamophobic. One cannot even begin to imagine the kinds of horrors and barbaric customs that could be justified in the name of respecting certain religious beliefs. The Taliban regime of Afghanistan has banned music and dance, education for women, etc. because according to the Taliban, all these things are not permitted under Islamic law. One still gets to hear about the barbaric custom of publicly stoning women in ultra-conservative Islamic societies like Afghanistan. The status of women’s rights in Pakistan is abysmal, to say the least.
The point is who gets to decide what constitutes disrespect of religious beliefs? Perhaps that’s why European countries like the France and UK abstained from voting on the resolution. French law prohibits the display of religious symbols or religious ceremonies in public spaces. Every country has the right to make uniform civil laws for its citizens. But resolutions like these could be used to coerce democratic countries into running the likes of Sharia courts to appease Muslims, and keep them out of the purview of secular laws to avoid trouble and controversy. But is that really possible and justified in the 21st-century world?
According to the United Nations press release on the Islamophobia resolution, “Iran’s speaker underlined the need to ensure that the Organization remains united against attempts to embrace Islamophobia, as well as measures such as Muslim travel bans, the burning of the Qur’an, and bans on the hijab and Muslim symbols”. Has the UN really come to the point that it has to depend on the testimony of a country that brutally tortures its own citizens, putting them behind bars, even executing some of them, because they dared to protest against the suspicious death of a young woman in the custody of Iran’s morality police, for essentially not wearing a hijab. Does the UN really want a dystopic world where everyone constantly lives in perpetual dread of what they have now said or done to offend the radical Islamists?
As far as Bharat is concerned, we have to be proactive and take a lead in forging a consensus amongst like-minded countries for tabling a resolution on condemning Hinduphobia along with phobias of various other non-Abrahamic religions.
Rati Agnihotri
