Two statements by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation tell a fascinating story of hypocrisy and subterfuge

In the first one, a resolution issued in March 2019, the cabal of 57 Muslim countries, including Pakistan, sang a full-throated eulogy on China’s treatment of Muslims.

“[OIC] commends the efforts of the People’s Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens; and looks forward to further cooperation between the OIC and the People's Republic of China,” it said.

The second one was a tweet a year later on 19 April.

“[We] urge the Indian Govt to take urgent steps to stop the growing tide of Islamophobia in India and protect the rights of its persecuted Muslim minority as per its obligations under international Human Rights law,” OIC’s Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission posted.

No nation steamrolls Islam quite like China. In the ‘People’s Republic’, Islam is treated as a crime. In scores of mass detention centres which are euphemistically called ‘re-education camps’, over a million Uighur Muslims are taught that their religion is a mental disease that they have to cure themselves of. About 30 Islamic names like Mohammed, long beards, Ramzan fasts, prayer mats, burkha, crescents at burial sites, and even greeting each other with “as-salaam aleikum” are banned. Islamic terror suspects are executed after summary trials and mosques regularly destroyed.

But China also happens to be largest buyer of crude from Saudi Arabia, a prominent OIC worthy. Pakistan has economically mortgaged itself to China. There are even reports of Pakistani women being trafficked to China to cater to the country's 'bride market'.

Most of the OIC nations are either heavily dependent on China on trade or in deep debt of the dragon. Their love for Islam stops at the threshold of money and might. The more China tramples over the faith, the more OIC sucks up to it.

Double Standards With India

In India, Muslim minorities were apparently being “negatively profiled” and facing “discrimination and violence” in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis, said the OIC human rights panel.

First, it is oxymoronic to utter Islamic nations and human rights in one sentence. None of the Muslim-majority nations treat non-Muslims as equal citizens. Minorities are discriminated against in every Islamic nation. Even in ‘modern and liberal’ Dubai, a non-Muslim has to hide and eat during Ramzan so as to not offend fasting Muslim ‘first citizens’.

So, it is a bit rich of the OIC to lecture India on the treatment of minorities. India has had four Muslim Presidents, four Chief Justices of the Supreme Court, an Intelligence Bureau chief, a chief election commissioner and four cricket captains. The world’s richest Muslim entrepreneur, Azim Premji, is an Indian.

In India, the Muslims are the only population that has grown both in the terms of rate and overall percentage, whereas in Pakistan and Bangladesh, both OIC countries, Hindus and other minorities have shrunk to near-oblivion.

Is Snubbing Tablighis Wrong?

Recently, the single biggest super-spreader of coronavirus in India has been the event of the shadowy Islamic sect Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), which has been under the scanner for global jihad and involvement in terror attacks and radical indoctrination in several countries. Till last week, 65 percent of new COVID-19 cases in India and 33 percent of overall cases were linked to TJ’s Nizamuddin Markaz rally in Delhi in March despite the government-declared lockdown and ban on public gatherings.

To top it, Jamaatis have resisted treatment, reportedly spat on doctors and beaten up healthcare staff. They have done their best to spread the disease, prompting some people to trend #CoronaJihad on social media.

Is That Islamophobia?

To answer that, the OIC must clarify if it equals criticism of the rogue Tablighi Jamaat members as slamming of Islam? Also, if fear of contracting the disease through reckless Tablighis is an irrational ‘phobia’?

OIC Needs A Mirror

In 2012, the OIC passed a grandiose resolution.

It emphasised “the protection of the rights and identity of Muslim communities and minorities in non-OIC Member States is primarily the responsibility of the Governments of those States, consistent with the principles of international law”.

Do governments in Muslim-majority countries practice what the OIC preaches? From Saudi to Iran and Pakistan to Malaysia, Islamic countries still jail and slaughter people under barbaric blasphemy laws. Why should India, or any civilised nation in the world, listen to its lecturing?

India is a massive market and can do business from its point of strength. It is the second largest buyer of crude from Saudi Arabia after China. After Malaysian prime minister Mahatir Mohammed’s unsolicited remarks on India scrapping Kashmir’s special status or bringing the Citizenship Amendment Act, Delhi brought Kuala Lumpur to its knees by banning $1.4 billion worth palm oil imports. It should continue to play hard. Because the China example teaches us that the 57-nation cabal seems to only understand the language of power and money.