These days, it isn't surprising to wake up to a new anti-India campaign on social media.
It is hashtag 'Arab' trending Monday.
The reasons are aplenty. Be it an NRI businessman in the Gulf apologizing for "unintentionally hurting religious sentiments" by posting a poem which never mentioned Tablighi Jamaat but was still alluded to it. Or, BJP MP Tejasvi Surya deleting a five-year-old tweet mentioning Arab women. Or, a sudden jump in social media posts from the middle-east accusing India of being intolerant towards the minority communities.
Surprisingly, all this a less than 48 hours after India delivered a consignment of 5.5 million hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) tablets to treat Covid-19 patients in the UAE and Abu Dhabi. Around 25 million more tablets will be given to the Emirati people by the Indian government.
<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1142" src="https://indianarrative.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/WhatsApp-Image-2020-04-20-at-10.37.08-PM.jpeg" alt="" />
So, are the Arabs really turning against India? Is this Arab summer—if not the spring—all about being anti-India?
Definitely not.
"We highly appreciate the cooperation of the Indian government in facilitating the procedures for obtaining the necessary approvals," tweeted the UAE embassy in New Delhi Saturday.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Under guidance of UAE leadership, <a href="https://twitter.com/UAEembassyIndia?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@UAEembassyIndia</a> succeeded in obtaining the approval of the Indian government to export adequate quantities of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hydroxychloroquine?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Hydroxychloroquine</a> to UAE. <a href="https://t.co/0QEHek9aY8">pic.twitter.com/0QEHek9aY8</a></p>
— UAE Embassy-Newdelhi (@UAEembassyIndia) <a href="https://twitter.com/UAEembassyIndia/status/1251575310421618690?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
That Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoys warm and cordial relations with the Arab world leaders is known well to the world community now.
Only last week, the Prime Minister had a long telephonic conversation with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to jointly fight the coronavirus pandemic.
So, who's trying to pitch the Arabs against India, at least on social media?
Is it that the trolls have just changed their location while the mission to spread hatred and divide India remains the same?
Yes, very much possible. How else would you describe this anti-India rant from even places like Kuwait?
Some posts emerging from the region even accused the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of spreading terror.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/%E0%A4%B8%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%98_%E0%A4%AD%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A4_%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%80_%E0%A4%B6%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A8?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#संघ_भारत_की_शान</a>
RSS is giving them food and they say RSS is terrorist organisation
RSS is pride of india <a href="https://t.co/M93qw2Nnzk">pic.twitter.com/M93qw2Nnzk</a></p>
— Aryan Singh (@AryanSingh_16) <a href="https://twitter.com/AryanSingh_16/status/1252105204973146117?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
"Now Arab intellectuals are calling for the removal of Tejaswi Surya from Parliament. I wonder if the leaders of the Arab world will have this conversation when Modi visits them," a Twitter user wrote.
Filmmaker Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri, quite vocal on such issues, tweeted that 'urban naxals' may have 'created a lot of trolls in the Arab world."
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">WARNING:</p>
A lot of bots/trolls created in the Arab world by Islamist lobby + Indian National Congress + <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UrbanNaxals?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#UrbanNaxals</a>
More united Islamist voices, videos, attacks/arrests on RW handles to come in next few days.
Nobody happy with India’s success in fighting <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Corona?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Corona</a>
BEWARE.
— Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri (@vivekagnihotri) <a href="https://twitter.com/vivekagnihotri/status/1252061307445993473?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Global politics and relations between countries are certainly not run by what trends on social media on a particular day.
However, sometimes the false propaganda damages the image of a country, especially in the eye of a neutral person sitting thousands of miles away, totally unaware of the ground reality.
This is why the Indian government, already fighting battles at many fronts—including the real ones in Jammu and Kashmir as infiltration attempts rise from across the border with the onset of summer—need to check and demolish the agencies trying to create a divide with the Arab friends..
