The Economist June 11th 2022 Asia 39IndiaandtheMuslimworld
Hands off
the Prophet
W
hen antony blinken, America’s
chief diplomat, criticised the decline
of religious freedom in India on June 2nd,
bemoaning an increase in “attacks on peo
ple and places of worship” in the country,
the government’s reaction was defiant. It
slammed his “illinformed comments”
and suggested that America get its own
house in order.
The reaction was rather different when,
a couple of days later, many countries in
the Gulf lodged complaints concerning of
fensive remarks about the Prophet Mu
hammad by two senior officials in India’s
ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp).
The party quickly declared that the
comments of these officials did not repre
sent its official stance. When that failed to
calm tempers, the bjptook action against
the pair. Nupur Sharma, the party’s nation
al spokeswoman, was suspended. Naveen
Jindal, its head of media in Delhi, the coun
try’s capital, was expelled. Indian dip
lomats in the Gulf sought to play the inci
dent down by describing the two as “fringe
elements”, prompting incredulity on Indi
an social media. The foreign ministry ex
plained that their views did not reflect gov
ernment policy. Ms Sharma has been sum
moned by police in Mumbai, the commer
cial capital, to explain her comments.
The unusual contrition reflects the ma
terial importance of India’s relationships
with Muslimmajority countries in the
Gulf. America and its allies are easy to ig
nore because their objections are usually
just verbal. India is important as a geopo
litical counterweight to China, so no West
ern country wants to pick a fight with it.
But when it comes to the Gulf, “we need
them more than they need us,” reckons
Happymon Jacob of Jawaharlal Nehru Uni
versity in Delhi.
Qatar, which was the first to complain,
is India’s biggest supplier of lngand an
important destination for Indian migrant
workers. Gulf countries supply twothirds
of India’s oil and host some 9m Indian
workers. They have both the wherewithal
and potentially the will to do real damage
to India’s interests.
Muslim countries have for years looked
on with concern as the bjpwent about its
goal of turning India into a Hindu state. Yet
these were domestic matters, and India’s
foreign policy remained a mostly religion
free zone. Narendra Modi, the prime min
ister, managed to pull off a delicate balanc
ing act between his majoritarian agenda at
home and cultivating warm relations with
Muslim states (except Pakistan) abroad.
But as public discourse in India has
coarsened—Ms Sharma made her remarks
on a widely watched television debate
show—and the ruling party’s apparatchiks
have become increasingly vituperative, the
balancing act has become harder to sus
tain. Muslim countries stayed silent about
the treatment of minorities within India to
avoid being rebuked for meddling in do
mestic affairs. But “an attack on the very te
nets of the faith is a different category of
offence”, says Mr Jacob.
The government is trying to limit the
damage without appearing weak. It pushed
back against a statement from the Organi
sation of Islamic Cooperation (oic) that
suggested the remarks were representative
of systematic discrimination against Mus
lims in India. Nevertheless, it separately
contacted officials from all oicmember
states to defuse their anger.
However, instead of dying down, the
anger has only grown. Protests have spread
from the Gulf to the rest of the Islamic
world. More than 20 countries—including
Indonesia, Turkey and even the funda
mentalist thugs of the Taliban—have regis
tered their displeasure. A statement pur
portedly released by alQaeda called for re
taliatory attacks in the states of Gujarat and
Uttar Pradesh, both bjpstrongholds, and in
Delhi and Mumbai.
India’s 200modd Muslims, who hope
that the outrage might prompt the govern
ment to treat them with more respect, will
probably be disappointed. The bjp’s tacti
cal retreat to save face abroad is unlikely to
have any bearing on its domestic stance,
reckons Harsh Mander, a civilrights activ
ist. Some of its membersroutinely incite
violence against Muslims.Arepeat of the
incident seems inevitable. nD ELHI
India’s Islamophobia is affecting its
foreign relations
She got the bootSouthKoreaTroubled energy
T
he southgate of Shin Hanul, a nuclear
power station in Uljin on South Korea’s
east coast, does not get a lot of traffic. At
lunchtime on a recent weekday there were
no heavy vehicles to be seen, only a trickle
of cars slowly chugging up to the two new
ish reactors behind it. The reactors were
supposed to have started producing elec
tricity by 2018 but remain dormant after
one of them failed a series of safety tests.
The area could soon see more activity.
Yoon Sukyeol, who took over as South Ko
rea’s president last month, wants to put
nuclear power at the core of energy genera
tion, reversing the phaseout policy of
Moon Jaein, his predecessor. As well as
putting the two existing reactors at Shin
Hanul to work Mr Yoon wants to build two
new ones, a plan Mr Moon abandoned in- He also plans to extend the working
life of 18 existing nuclear power stations
beyond their scheduled closure in 2030. If
Mr Yoon gets his way, nuclear will generate
3035% of South Korea’s power by 2030, up
from 27% in 2021.
The plan has merits. The fallout from
the war in Ukraine has underscored the
dangers of relying on fossil fuels, which
currently generate nearly twothirds of
South Korea’s energy. Breaking the depen
dence on coal, oil and gas is also necessary
to fulfil South Korea’s pledge to achieve
carbon neutrality by 2050, which Mr Yoon
has said he intends to honour. Properly
regulated and managed nuclear power is
green and safe, and could reliably supply
South Korea’s heavy industry. What’s more,
49% of South Koreans think the country
needs more nuclear power, whereas only
40% disagree.
But over the past decade the reputation
of nuclear power in the country has been
tarnished. A series of scandals in which
thousands of counterfeit parts with fake
documentation were found in nuclear
plants resulted in the conviction of 68 peo
ple for crimes including bribery, collusion
and forgery. Poor management caused a
blackout at one facility. North Korea has
hacked into the South’s nuclear databases
on multiple occasions, at least once steal
ing blueprints for reactors.
Reforms in response to these scandals
have improved safety and transparency.
But the improvements have not mollified
critics. Most of South Korea’s nuclear regu
lation originates in American law and has
been simplified in translation, says Park
U LJIN
A plan to revive the country’s
nuclearpower industry faces obstacles