On September 23, the government of Bangladesh protested Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement in Jharkhand, where he had targeted “infiltrators” and referred to them as Bangladeshis and Rohingyas. Accusing the opposition of sheltering Bangladeshi infiltrators, he had vowed that if the BJP came to power “every infiltrator will be hanged upside down”. Shah’s comments were widely reported in Bangladesh, prompting an angry dissent note from Dhaka and a summons to the Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka.

The protest note by Dhaka “called upon the Government of India to advise the political leaders to refrain from making such objectionable and unacceptable remarks,” stressing that such “remarks coming from responsible positions against the nationals of a neighbouring country undermine the spirit of mutual respect and understanding between two friendly countries.”

A week earlier, in a tweet posted on 16 September, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei clubbed India with Gaza and Myanmar, condemning countries where Muslims are being persecuted. He wrote, “We cannot consider ourselves to be Muslim if we are oblivious to the suffering that a Muslim is enduring in Myanmar, Gaza, India, or any other place.”

The tweet was odd not because accusations of anti-Muslim persecution in India are unfounded, but because the Iranian Supreme Leader mentioned India in the same breath as Israel, Iran’s arch-enemy, which is accused of perpetuating genocide in Gaza. Many Indians readily pointed out that Khamenei had not mentioned Uyghurs and that he was scared of angering China.

As this controversy brewed on social media, the Ministry of External Affairs responded angrily, deploring Khamenei’s remarks as “misinformed and unacceptable”. It advised Iran to look into its own record before commenting on India. This is a standard whataboutism deployed by government sources every time India is questioned about its treatment of minority communities. It was not particularly aimed to dispel any accusations. Rather, the reply satiates a domestic audience that then engages in crude variations of the response.

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In fact, even before the official response, the right wing in India, which had until then been noisily celebrating the pager bomb attack in Lebanon purportedly carried out by Israel, temporarily shelved its revelry and quickly changed gears to launch an all-out online ambush of the Ayatollah. Iranians were showered with the usual anti-Muslim invectives that are, by now, common in India. An influential right-wing account even called for Mossad to deal with Khamenei the way Israel had just struck Beirut.

Growing wedge in the Gulf

Amidst the angry noise and the tit-for-tat official response that is now an indispensable element of our public discourse, we missed an important question: why would Iran, with its long history of strong bilateral ties with India, take such a stance and risk annoying New Delhi? Like China, India has also refused to isolate Iran on multiple occasions, despite strong American pressure. Earlier this year, India and Iran sealed a ten-year deal for the Chabahar port, giving India better access to Afghanistan and Central Asia. A BBC survey done in 2005 showed that 71 per cent of Iranians viewed Indians as friends, a higher percentage than any other country in the world.

Historically, it is not just Iran but people across Central Asia who take a likeable view of India. India imports the majority of its oil from the region and there are over 9 million Indian workers settled in these Gulf countries. It’s therefore fair to say that Indians have a great rapport with Arabs and Iranians. Is that perception changing?

It is easy to point out Iran’s hypocrisy but New Delhi must recognise that Khamenei’s comments are not an isolated or random accusation by just one country. Khamenei is a leader of millions of Muslims, and his word shapes their perception. His comments reflect a growing concern over India’s divisive internal politics and rising incidents of anti-Muslim violence. This is not the first time a foreign power has questioned India about its treatment of minorities. For the past few years, the US has tagged India as a country of particular concern for religious freedom. Just two months ago, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, remarked that there is a “concerning increase in anti-conversion laws, hate speech, demolitions of homes and places of worship of members of minority faith communities”.

In June 2022, over a dozen Muslim-majority nations, many of which enjoy strong diplomatic ties with India, issued condemnations of the derogatory anti-prophet remarks made by two BJP spokespersons. The BJP distanced itself from these comments and said that it did not subscribe to remarks against any particular faith. It marked the first time in a decade that the BJP was forced to retreat on its domestic agenda because a spokesperson’s TV clip went viral. Notably, the party had ignored earlier protests by Indian Muslims and, in some cases, had even targeted and brutalised the protestors. A similar storm has been brewing in Maharashtra over a BJP leader’s hate speech for the past one month but New Delhi seems oblivious to it.

Similarly, in 2021, India faced a backlash from Indonesia after the Tablighi Jamaat was targeted during the COVID-19 pandemic. A media trial and state witch-hunt demonised the group and sparked anger in Jakarta. For similar reasons (spreading hateful propaganda), some Indians were deported from the UAE, Kuwait, and Oman. In 2022, a few Kuwaiti parliamentarians demanded a ban on BJP politicians for their hijab ban politics in Karnataka. It is clear that despite their proximity to India, none of these countries have shown any tolerance for India’s toxic internal discourse against Muslims crossing over into their territory.

Today, the anti-Muslim sentiment rampant among BJP supporters is becoming increasingly apparent to people in Islamic nations that have historically been friendly to India. Be it news of bulldozer violence, lynchings, or the routine hate speeches, they travel beyond India’s borders.

On the other hand, one can argue that Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have given their highest civilian awards to Prime Minister Modi. And that it is an alarmist reading to say that India’s internal politics have shaped India’s perception abroad since Modi has not made any extreme changes in foreign policy despite the internal rhetoric. Also, most governments usually engage with India for their own interests, rather than on moral grounds. While all of this is true, the citizens of these countries do take offence. And beyond a point, even the most authoritarian regime cannot neglect public sentiment, which is why Islamic countries have increasingly banned Indian films or content that have demonising portrayals of Muslims.

For most Arabs, opposition to the atrocities in Gaza is a non-negotiable issue. Historically, India has been viewed as a friend of the Arabs, particularly the Palestinians. Despite its sudden closeness with Israel, India has tried hard to maintain its pro-Arab image and present a neutral stand internationally, even though it abstained on at least two occasions during a vote on Palestine: once in condemning the war in Gaza and once for a two-state solution. The repression of pro-Palestinian protests within India is another issue that shows that India’s image as a friend of Palestine has slowly changed. However, what has actually changed how the world perceives India now—as extremely partisan and Islamophobic—is the huge support the Indian right-wing and mainstream media extends to Netanyahu. Both factions gloat over Gaza’s decimation. This popular front often blurs the official stand.

A messy neighbourhood

This erosion of goodwill is not limited to the Arab, Muslim, and Gulf world. It has spread to the country’s backyard where anti-India sentiment is on the rise. China and Pakistan are not known to be India’s friends but gradually we have lost strong allies in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, Maldives, and Bangladesh as well.

A friend from Dhaka mentioned how anti-India rhetoric has grown louder in Bangladesh in recent years. Several factors contribute to this: many Bangladeshis see India as complicit in Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic rule; there were accusations of border killings by the BSF (Border Security Force); and there was anger at India’s domestic politics around the CAA-NRC (National Register of Citizens). The BJP’s crude electoral fear-mongering about “Bangladeshi infiltrators” has only intensified the distrust.

When, in the aftermath of Hasina’s forced ouster, Bangladesh saw widespread violence, including against Hindu minorities, the Indian right-wing media acerbated the environment with hundreds of fake videos and by claiming that Hindus in Bangladesh were facing a genocide. This happened when the Indian government did not use this terminology in its formal statements about the situation in Dhaka. Such a narrative might serve the BJP’s domestic political interests, but it could widen the differences between Dhaka and Delhi.

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The backlash has been felt in Hindu majority Nepal as well. Several political observers there accuse Indian interventionists of attacking Nepal’s secular constitution and promoting militant Hindutva. Political writer Kanak Mani Dixit observed that the growth of radical Hindutva in Uttarakhand would have an adverse impact on Nepal, which recently experienced religious violence, something that is rare in the country.

Even the government’s standoff with the Sikhs and the protesting farmers resulted in an international spillover that was badly mismanaged by the government. It had responded to the farmers’ protest by creating new fault lines that resurrected the Khalistan bogeyman. Subsequently, the Nijjar assassination episode, the stand-off with Canada, the expatriate Sikh attacks on Indian consulates, and other such events added to the prevailing paranoia.

Foreign actors have learnt to use these divisive narratives to their advantage, and it is in India’s interest to engage with the world as a nation whose biggest strength is its diversity.

India needs to actively de-escalate internal frictions if it wants to regain its standing in the world. The government needs to realise how an unhealthy and divisive internal discourse can harm both India’s internal security and its interests abroad.

Alishan Jafri is an independent journalist based in New Delhi. He writes on human rights, media, disinformation and the rise of extreme politics in India.