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Winning
Friends
BJP President Bangaru Laxman's eagerness
to woo Muslims may not bring immediate domestic dividends, but it has
already started winning friends for the party in the Arab world.
Ever since Laxman's call to the Muslims at the BJP's Nagpur conclave,
there has been a steady procession of Arab diplomats to the party's Ashoka
Road headquarters in Delhi and Laxman, no mean traveller himself, has
been flooded with invitations to visit some of the Arab countries. Among
the early callers was Dr Mohammad Sahbi Basly, the ambassador of Tunisia,
who not only invited Laxman to visit his country but also called for the
BJP and Tunisia's ruling party, Rally Constitutional Democratic (RCD),
to establish a party-to-party relationship. Basly later said, "The
ties between our countries are very old but there is a need to improve
them at the political level. As an ambassador it's my duty to build a
bridge between RCD and BJP."
Other callers included the ambassador of Morocco, who carried with him
an invitation to Laxman from Prime Minister Abdurrahman Yousoufi to visit
his country. Kuwait sent Laxman a congratulatory message on his election.
Diplomats from Iran also met BJP spokesperson M. Venkaiah Naidu.
In a way, the "enthusiasm" which the Nagpur message generated
across the Islamic world has convinced the BJP leadership that India's
relations with the Arab world are set to enter a new phase. Says Naidu:
"While the party's Nagpur call has led to a churning of thoughts
among the Muslims in the country, it is also being discussed in some of
the Islamic countries."
If Basly is to be believed, some of the Islamic states have now initiated
moves to work more closely with the BJP. "We have got to accept the
fact that the BJP is heading the coalition. There is a lot of confusion
about Islam, fundamentalism and jehad. To remove the misunderstandings,
we must work closer," he says.
Even the
Sangh Parivar appears to agree. "It's good that some of the Islamic
countries are now correcting their perception about India and the BJP,"
says Sheshadri Chari, editor of Organiser, the RSS mouthpiece.
He says that in the past, its political opponents had always portrayed
the BJP to the outside world as a party of kafirs. "But two years
of NDA rule has changed that perception and now everyone is realising
that the party is different from what was being propagated," says
Chari.
In the long
run, such changed perceptions help. For example, Morocco, one of the leaders
of the 53-nation Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), has in the
past always backed Pakistan against India at most multilateral fora. Of
late, however, Morocco has not been known to extend such overt backing
to Islamabad, at least not at India's cost.
The shift
of stance is being credited to India's diplomatic initiatives under the
NDA government which saw Delhi withdrawing recognition from the Saharawhi
Arab Democratic Republic which has been seeking independence for Western
Sahara. That one move helped India acquire a new friend with tremendous
clout in Arab politics. Even "secular" regimes of the past cannot
boast of something similar.
-Farzand
Ahmed
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In
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