More Indians in the UAE lose jobs over Islamophobic posts
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, May 3
More Indians working in the Gulf have lost their jobs or were suspended for Islamophobia amidst a social media uproar in the UAE, Kuwait and Oman over some Indian accounts targeting the Muslim community for the spread of Covid-19.
The latest action against three Indians takes the number of sacked or charged expatriates in the UAE to nine.
The Gulf News began a report on the sackings by wondering if the warnings of the Indian missions have fallen on deaf ears as the list of Indian expats facing action over vile Islamophobic remarks on social media keeps getting longer.
Over the weekend, at least three more Indians were fired or suspended after their offensive posts were brought to the attention of employers by social media users. “The men now join nearly half a dozen hate-mongers, who have similarly landed in trouble in recent weeks,’’ said Gulf News.
Targeting Muslims on social media and in TV studios began after several positive Covid-19 cases were linked to a congregation of the Tablighi Jamaat at its New Delhi headquarters.
The government also stated on April 19 that the Tablighis accounted for 30 per cent of the total cases in India — 4,000 of the 15,000 cases. Since then, the Tablighis percentage is negligible in the total count of 40,000. Yet, a social media account in the Gulf noted that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath, on Sunday, again raked up the issue.
The former Indian envoy to the UAE, Navdeep Suri, recalled on Twitter that thousands of Egyptians were deported for suspected Muslim brotherhood affiliation post the 9/11 attack, and again after the ‘Arab Spring’.
“The record of zero tolerance on religious extremism in the UAE is pretty consistent,’’ he said. In 1992, several Pakistani school teachers were deported for holding extreme views on the demolition of the Babri Masjid,” Suri said.
This time, the condemnation is not restricted to Islamic activists such as the Mejbel al-Sharika or the Abdur Rahman Nassar. The OIC, the Kuwait government, and UAE royal family’s Hend al-Qassimi have called out Islamophobic hate speech by Indians.
There have been attempts led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to calm troubled waters. His greetings on Ramzan was prominently posted on social media.
In a separate post, the Prime Minister said Covid-19 did not see race, religion and colour. This prompted three Indian missions in the Gulf region to tweet about tolerance, pluralism and non-discrimination.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat also said it was “not right to blame the entire community for the mistakes of a few individuals.”
India’s trade with the six-country Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is over $100 billion every year and remittances account for $55 billion.
At the same time, a section here has maintained that the outrage was a conspiracy. BJP’s GVL Narasimha Rao said there would be no negative effect on Indo-Gulf ties because “it is part of a propaganda.”
The MEA has also pointed out that fake identities were used by “forces inimical to India, to create divisions within our community.”
