A recent statement by Ex-BJP Spokesperson Nupur Sharma has started quite a chain of even first a strong reaction Internationally by Islamic Countries and now violent protest in the country. We are not going into detail of her statement and its validity of it but let’s look beyond the statement and try to understand the bigger picture here. Let’s start from an event couple of days back on June 2nd Antony Blinken at the press release of the annual International Religious Freedom report showed concern about religious freedom in India during his statement he mentioned

“For example, in India, the world’s largest democracy and home to a great diversity of faiths, we’ve seen rising attacks on people and places of worship “

Now although India has never faired any better in these International Religious Freedom report and Modi government has been always silently criticized for Religious freedom but this sudden change of wind from US was a bit shocker even to the leftist who are currently at a high point after recent events.

Well, the wind didn’t start blowing suddenly it just took some time to hit close the home. After Joe Biden came to power in 2020 the US has been slowly shifting the goal posts but the recent Russia-Ukraine war has fastened things and within US power circles there have been constant voices of “handling” New Delhi and India’s stand on Russia-Ukraine war has just made these voices get louder and get heard. First India refused to side with the west in criticizing Russia and continuously abstained from voting on resolutions condemning Russia. If that was not enough to rattle west powers Indian Foreign minister has been using different forums to show a change in India’s attitude towards world policy.

 

 

 

Well, all of this has to be countered to keep a check on India but without the direct involvement and current events presented a  great opportunity for this. Otherwise to think its kind of surprising that Nupur Sharma gave this now considered controversial comment in a TV debate happening around the end of May and the first International reaction came by Qatar on 5th June 2022 what exactly took so long for the Middle Eastern Islamic nation to react on this ? now it should be remembered US still holds very strong clout on the majority of Middle East countries and it cannot be denied that US has used foreign diplomacy as a tool to keep countries in check. Remember this is the same middle east that was completely silent when India revoke section 370 in Kashmir, Pakistan tried its level best to get some support but failed. Even in the present case, Middle East nations are not too interested to do a follow-up and it seems the effort is not a wholehearted one.

 

So is all not well between New Delhi and Washington ? it will be too early to make a statement on this but one thing is for sure New Delhi will be facing new challenges in coming times as the Ukraine-Russia war will stretch world will be more polarized and while India  will like to play neutral powerhouses like US will like to keep India closer but on there own terms. So we will definitely some pressure built up on India by using various tools ranging from naming in various reports like Climate/religion/minority etc. to showing fear of China’s increasing presence on Indian borders. For now all we can do is hope that Indian government will be able to handle all these challenges successfully.

 

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