Organisation of Islamic Cooperation

Study Guide Welcome to OIC at YorkMUN 2021 Your Chairs Honourable Delegates, Head Chair - Tom Holderness: We are pleased to welcome you to YorkMUN 2021, and serve as your directors for the Tom is a third-year student at York, making this his third con- Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) committee sessions. In this committee, our secutive YorkMUN! He studies Social and Political Sciences and mission is simple; we constitute “the collective voice of the Muslim world” and strive is also the Campaigns & Speakers’ Officer at UNA York, helping to safeguard its interests to promote international peace, harmony, and development. bring the society’s events online. An avid MUN-er since school, Increasingly, our work involves conflict prevention. The freshwater shortages observed he is thrilled to be heading up the OIC committee for its unique across the Islamic world – in Central Asian steppes and Sub-Saharan deserts, along the perspective, and is looking forward to seeing how delegates inter- Nile and the Indus – risk exacerbating ethnoreligious tensions, while the proliferation of act with the topics in February. Last year, Tom chaired the UNDP discriminatory and hateful rhetoric in endangers millions of local . committee at YorkMUN 2020.

As delegates, you will be facing these difficult challenges and inventing resilient and polyhedric solutions to them, ensuring that no Muslim populations are left behind. Nav- igating through this herculean task would require considerable attention to detail and understanding of the issues in question and the main stakeholders’ interests. We nonetheless hope that you will find this experience as enjoyable, fulfilling, and intel- lectually stimulating as it can be, and that you make the most of this opportunity to learn new skills and meet new people. A twelfth-century Muslim scholar, Ibn Asakir, once Co-Chair - Dan Mikhalyov: famously proclaimed, “A thorny road leads to greatest self-fulfilment”, and we sincerely Dan is a student at the London School of Economics and Politi- hope that your diligent research, negotiations, and policymaking would leave you with a cal Science, whose primary interests are Middle Eastern and East profound sense of self-actualisation at the end of our conference. Asian politics. Outside university, he is a freelance journalist, covering a variety of current affairs topics, and a policy fellow Feel free to reach out to us with any questions, concerns or suggestions before, and dur- at The Pinsker Centre, a think tank fighting the proliferation of ing, the conference. anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. When Dan is not writing, you might find him trading stocks or watching Tottenham Hotspur Best of luck, miss out on yet another trophy opportunity. Tom Holderness [email protected]

Dan Mikhaylov [email protected] 2 3 Introduction to the Committee The OIC’s mandate is circumscribed, but its profuse membership makes it the world’s second-largest international organisation, which makes its collective decisions impactful The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation was founded in 1972 and is headquartered in and reflective of widespread consensus within the 1.8 billion Islamic community. Cor- Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It has permanent delegations to the United Nations and the Euro- respondingly, its advice to member-states and the wider world on issues from human pean Union as well as an extensive range of partnerships with Islamic universities and rights to sustainable development is indispensable to peace and prosperity. cultural organisations. Currently, it incorporates 57 member-states, most of which have Muslim majorities, excepting , , and some West African nations. The Topic I: Freshwater Shortages in the Islamic World organisation also includes observer-states, among them Russia, Thailand, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which have considerable Muslim populations and historical ties to the Introduction: Islamic world. Ethiopia and India remain excluded, despite being home to 220+ million The 2019 UN World Water Assessment Report posits that global freshwater consump- Muslims. tion has increased by 48.9% since the 1980s owing to population growth, socioeconomic development, and changing consumption patterns. Should it continue rising at the same rate, 4 billion people worldwide would experience freshwater scarcity for at least one month by 2050.

Like the sword of Damocles, the threat of greater freshwater shortages hangs over the Islamic world, half of whose members already experience acute problems. In the Middle East, the list of water-scarce countries increased from three in 1955 to more than fifteen in 2020, including the nations along so precious a river as the Nile. Besides imperilling the consumers, who need at least 7.3 m3 of freshwater annually to meet basic hygiene standards, this hardly bodes well for their countries’ economies. Although the OIC member-states collectively account for close to 30% of the global agricultural area, and many have robust agrarian sectors. Their resources of freshwater are 13.5% of the world total. Understandably, dwindling supplies would obliterate farming communities across Figure 1: A Euler diagram showing the relationships between various multinational organisations within the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation the Islamic world and endanger the lives of subsistence farmers, who comprise the ma- (Wikipedia) jority in underdeveloped areas from Sub-Saharan Africa to Central Asia.

The organisation has been critical of Israeli, Burmese, and Indian discrimination aimed Failure to address these concerns could exacerbate ethnic and religious tensions in what at local Palestinian, Rohingya, and Kashmiri Muslim populations respectively as well as often already form quite volatile regions. Conflicts over water resources have severed of LGBT rights. In addition, it held its first science and technology summit at Astana, historic amity in the past, and there is no guarantee that the extant conjuncture would Kazakhstan, in 2017 and has standing committees on economic and commercial cooper- not prove a harbinger of similar divisions within the global Muslim community (um- ation. mah), The 2018 OIC Water Report recognised this and showed that more than 50% of 4 5 member-states were willing to collaborate on assistive capacity building and technologi- Climate Change cal development. But it is now incumbent that we take further steps to nip this problem It is conducive to worsen freshwater shortages in historically arid areas: Central Asia, in the bud. the Middle East, and North Africa. In the first region, exponentially hotter summers routinely destroy crops, with the 2008 droughts proving so severe that Kazakhstan, the Background: largest Central Asian grain exporter, to suspend its exports altogether. The controversial Doubtless, water is integral to socioeconomic development and energy generation. How- legacy of the Soviet Union, exemplified in the nearly complete depletion of the Aral Sea ever, its shortages have stoked tensions within the international community and contin- due to experiments with irrigation agriculture and the uneven distribution of freshwa- ue to produce popular suffering. ter reservoirs to the advantage of the poorer Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, has resulted in interstate brinkmanship, and presents an additional obstacle. In the second region, water Urbanisation and Demand scarcity has been directly concatenated to public unrest, such as the 2019-20 protests Firstly, increasing – and frequently unsustainable – urbanisation is undermining exist- in Iraq, and renders integrating Syrian refugees in the neighbouring states. In Lebanon ing water preservation and delivery mechanisms. In , 97% of the population alone, 3.7 million are freshwater-insecure. have access to water, but the quality of freshwater remains highly questionable due to river pollution in densely populated areas. Resultantly, almost 80 million Bangladeshis Lastly, the third region contains only 1.4% of the world’s renewable water resources. The are chronically exposed to such poisonous chemicals as arsenic, which are responsible deposition of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi in 2011 and the concomitant NATO bombing of for 8.5% of the country’s total deaths. Similar problems are currently witnessed along the country’s infrastructure erased regional freshwater procurement, storage, and distri- ’s Citarum River that exposes almost 10 million Indonesians to lead levels bution infrastructure and despoiled 28% of Libyan citizens of access to safe water. 1,000,000% higher than the US Environmental Protection Agency drinking water stand- Moreover, political instability following the Arab Spring and economic impoverishment ards, as well as in metropolitan areas of Karachi, Baghdad, Cairo, and Kampala. further diminish the prospects of peaceful co-existence in the future.

Dam Construction The room for progress is enormous, and while the challenges confronting delegates may Driven by the need to find alternative energy resources to mitigate the impact of climate seem pervasive and insurmountable, freshwater improvements constitute a necessity. It change, has precipitated discord among the member-states and between them and other behoves us to act by mustering consensus on better agricultural techniques, best practice countries. Just as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam construction brought Egypt at sharing, financial institutions and mechanisms, and educating world Muslims in respon- loggerheads with Sudan and Ethiopia over fears that creating a reservoir would lower sible consumption among other initiatives. Egypt’s water availability due to temporary reductions in river flow and permanent evap- oration from the reservoir, a comparable dispute promises to destabilise Central Asia. Bloc Positions: The Rogun Dam on the Bakhsh River is a continual apple of discord between Uzbekistan • Desalinators: Their parched climates notwithstanding, the Gulf states and Kuwait and Tajikistan. If built, it would reduce water influx into Uzbekistan and deal a signifi- have used their oil revenue to develop sophisticated desalination plants, which ac- cant blow to the country’s cotton industry, on which its rural communities depend for count for more than half of the worldwide desalination capacity. These nations stand employment and income generation. to benefit from sharing their technologies with other Muslim countries, while learn- ing to reduce water consumption. After all, groundwater continues to sustain their

6 7 farming and inland communities because of the high costs of desalination, and fresh- contemporary freshwater crises, but also any mechanisms to foment wider cooperation water consumption is growing at unsustainable levels across the region. within the Muslim world to avert the fallout from climate change. • : As one of the organisation’s founding members, Turkey wields considerable authority amongst member-states. As the ruling Islamist AK Parti continues steering Amongst other themes, an auspicious resolution will cover the following: the country eastwards, good relations with Central Asian polities could enable Tur- 1. Setting universal and regional targets and priorities key to coordinate a policy of reconciliation and creating a lasting equitable freshwater 2. Creating effective oversight and data gathering institutions to monitor progress resources management scheme. Similarly, Turkish investment in Africa under the 3. Introducing and enforcing cross-regional freshwater management standards for fu- recently founded Turkey-Africa Economy and Business Forum’s auspices, and has ture sustainable development negotiated multiple bilateral agreements with relevant member-states, such as the 4. Facilitating polyhedric exchange of expertise (such as freshwater control, desalina- Turkish-Senegalese 2025 deal. tion, irrigation agriculture, energy generation, sustainable urbanisation, etc.) • Central Asia: Suffering from uneven distribution of freshwater resources and per- 5. Centralising de-pollution efforts, designed to ensure sustainable urbanisation and vasive rural poverty, Central Asian countries depend on fostering cohesion within rural industrial development the OIC to diffuse advice on sharing those resources and optimising agricultural 6. Cooperation with other international bodies (such as the UN Environment Pro- techniques to minimise water losses. The failure of such regional initiatives as Ka- gramme, the International Monetary Fund, the Arab League, the Commonwealth of zakhstan’s Drinking Water initiative, designed to equip all settlements with drinking Independent States, the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development, the water, cannot continue unabated much longer. However, without external funding African Union, etc.) and assistance, both from fellow members and NGOs, altering the situation will be 7. Inclusion of multiple stakeholders in various decision-making and executive process- difficult. es (such as scientists, religious professionals, rural communities, local and national • Egypt: President Sissi’s authoritarian government considers effective water control an state authorities, non-governmental organisations, etc.) integral element of national security. Egypt perceives dam construction on the Nile 8. Providing tools for public education and freshwater project financing across the Is- as undermining its historical leverage in the region and increasing its dependence on lamic world Ethiopia and Sudan. Therefore, Egypt has actively tried to stymie the project diplo- 9. Responding to the threats posed by adversarial states and organisations to safeguard matically and economically. Recent political turmoil the aforementioned countries, the individual interests of the OIC member-states exemplified in the Darfur and the Tigray crises, has provided a further justification for pursuing a hostile foreign policy, but growing water shortages in different parts There is need to treat this as an exhaustive list or fear that your resolution would not of the country are beginning to exert pressure on Cairo to solicit foreign investments relinquish some of these concerns. Just as Rome was not built in one day, so a resolution and restore its relations with neighbours. must prioritise some things over others and gradually expand its scope. We hope that over the course of this conference, more ideas and cutting-edge solutions would spring Questions for a Resolution to Address: to mind and ensure a lasting solution to the freshwater crisis. The problem of freshwater shortages and the corresponding likelihood of conflicts over craved resources leave plentiful room for innovation and agency. Delegates should con- sider not only the individual case-studies and the needs of the countries involved in

8 9 Further Readings: • Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. (2016). 2025 Programme of Action. OIC, Jed- • Adylbekova, Kunduz. (2019). How does Kazakhstan solve the problem of drink- dah. ing water in the era of oil leadership in Central Asia. [online] CABAR. Available at: • Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. (2018). OIC Water Report: Transforming Risk https://cabar.asia/en/how-does-kazakhstan-solve-the-problem-of-drinking-water- Into Dialogue and Cooperation. OIC, Jeddah. shortage-in-the-era-of-oil-leadership-in-central-asia [Accessed 25 November 2020] • UNESCO. 2019. The United Nations World Water Development Report 2019: Leav- • Creel, Liz, De Souza, Roger Mark, and Roudi-Fahimi, Farzaneh. (2002). Finding the ing No One Behind. UNESCO, Paris. Balance: Population and Water Scarcity in the Middle East and North Africa. [online] • Walnycki, Anna and Husseiki, Marwan. (2017) Five Fundamentals to Keep Lebanon’s PRB. Available at: https://www.prb.org/findingthebalancepopulationandwaterscarcit- Water Flowing. [online] International Institute for Environment and Development. yinthemiddleeastandnorthafrica/ [Accessed 25 November 2020] Available at: https://www.iied.org/five-fundamentals-keep-lebanon-water-flowing • Daily Sabah. (2020). Turkish Investments in Senegal to Enhance Ties with Af- [Accessed 25 November 2020] rica. Daily Sabah [online]. Available at: https://www.dailysabah.com/busi- • Wegerich, Karl. (2009). The New Great Game: Water Allocation in Post-Soviet Cen- ness/2020/01/28/turkish-investments-in-senegal-to-enhance-ties-with-africa [Ac- tral Asia. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Volume 10 (2), pp. 117-123. cessed 25 November 2020] • European Parliament. (2018). Water in Central Asia: An Increasingly Scarce Re- source. [online] European Parliament. Available at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/ RegData/etudes/BRIE/2018/625181/EPRS_BRI(2018)625181_EN.pdf [Accessed 25 November 2020] • Hasan, Khalid, Shahriar, Abrar, and Ullah Jim, Kudrat. (2019). Water Pollution in Bangladesh and Its Impact on Public Health. [online] NCBI. Available at: https:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6684462/ [Accessed 25 November 2020] • Human Rights Watch. (2019). Basra is Thirsty: Iraq’s Failure to Manage the Wa- ter Crisis. [online] Human Rights Watch. Available at: https://www.hrw.org/re- port/2019/07/22/basra-thirsty/iraqs-failure-manage-water-crisis [Accessed 25 No- vember 2020] • Mukum Mbaku, John. (2020). The Controversy over the Grand Ethiopian Renais- sance Dam. [online] Brookings Institute. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/ blog/africa-in-focus/2020/08/05/the-controversy-over-the-grand-ethiopian-renais- sance-dam/ [Accessed 25 November 2020] • Tarahita, Dikanaya and Zulfikar Rakhmat, Muhammad. (2018). Indonesia’s Citarum: The World’s Most Polluted River. The Diplomat [online]. Available at: https://thedip- lomat.com/2018/04/indonesias-citarum-the-worlds-most-polluted-river [Accessed 25 November 2020]

10 11 of and remains a region of particular interest for the Muslim world. As a venue Topic II: Islamophobia in India for Arab traders even before the advent of Islam in the 7th century, it was through this Introduction: early international trade that Muslim culture came to spread through the southern coast The Republic of India has been put under international scrutiny in recent months for regions of medieval India. Over the course of the Early and High Middle Ages (from policies argued to be discriminatory against Muslim communities and is said to have the 6th to the 13th century), a variety of sultanates competed with Buddhist and Hindu encouraged the development of an Islamophobic culture under the banner of Hindu rivals for supremacy over the vast and heterogenous region (the so-called Middle King- nationalism. 10% of the world’s Muslim population lives in India, coming after only In- doms). The success of the Delhi Sultanate in conquering the Western half of the subcon- donesia and in its size. As such, the wellbeing of this community is a matter of tinent was particularly notable for its cosmopolitan integration of the Indian and Islamic great concern to Islamic countries worldwide. cultures, resulting in the creation of the Hindustani language and Indo-Islamic architec- ture. In the words of the Secretary-General of the OIC, Dr Yousef Al-Othaimeen: “Islamophobia does not represent a threat to Muslims only. Rather, it constitutes a threat The Delhi Sultanate was later superseded by the Mughal Empire, which also struck a to the very principles of justice, equality, and freedom, just as it represents a threat to se- new balance between local cultures and Persian influences, causing it to become the curity and social harmony.” (OIC Observatory, 2019) world’s largest economy in the 17th century and resulting in fantastic displays of wealth like the iconic Taj Mahal. In the 18th century, this regime was challenged by the Maratha Broadly speaking, Islamophobia is the unjustified fear towards and dislike of Islamic Empire, a confederacy with the aim of securing Hindu self-rule, which found success in culture and Muslims. It is a form of racism. Islamophobia can range from casual instanc- the centre and east of India. Both were ultimately ended by the actions of the British East es to persecution and has been seen across the world. There is no universally accepted India Company and the establishment of the British Raj, which subjugated the entire definition for Islamophobia, nor has the OIC or UN created one. It can be said to exist subcontinent under colonial rule from 1858 onwards. in thought and in action, both in ordinary citizens and government policy. Oftentimes, Islamic culture and people are conflated with modern phenomena, such as immigration, Throughout the 20th century, Hindu and Islamic interests were again complicated by the terrorism, and in the case of India, even Covid-19. The experience of Islamophobia in movement for independence from European crown rule. The Partition of British India the West is not the same as that of other parts of the world, and as such manifests itself in 1947, done on the basis of religious demographics, was deeply controversial: British in different ways. In the 21st century, racial discrimination on the basis of Islam is wide- India became what is now India and Pakistan (which Bangladesh seceded from in 1971), spread, although organisations like the OIC and local community groups do a great deal partially owing to campaigning by the All-India Muslim League which advocated a two- to counter the negative perception that has spread in an era of division, populism, and state solution to the religious divide in India. This movement campaigned on the basis economic inequality. that Hindu classes ‘dominated’ Indian society and was opposed by leading Hindu figures like Mahatma Gandhi, who instead advocated for religious pluralism. Historical Oversight: There were nearly 7,000 incidents of Hindu-Muslim communal violence between 1954 The long history of Islam in the modern-day Republic of India may seem irrelevant at and 1982 (Al-Na'im, 2008). first but is in fact central to the particular cultural context of the modern nation and illustrates why the modern attitude of persecution is a particularly pressing matter. The Indian subcontinent has always been a crucial place for the development and spread 12 13 end-point of the current trajectory of majoritarian politics in India; the character of the state has become Hindu, without formal institutional change being needed to achieve this (Ali, 2019). The policy of Hindu nationalism (at the expense of Muslim minorities) has been manifested in several major policies:

Kashmir Region The situation of Muslims in is further complicated by geopolitical tensions over the administration of Kashmir, a region situated between the extreme north of India, the far east of Pakistan, and the southwest of China. Its demographic composition is complex: there is a substantial Muslim majority of 95% in the Indian-administered Kashmir Valley, but the of Jammu (which was grouped with Kashmir until recently) has just 30% - overall, the population of more than 7 million is Muslim majority, and is the only such region in India. It would be inaccurate to describe the Kashmir dispute as entirely on religious grounds, but it is equally wrong to call it a simple territorial dispute. Figure 2: A map of the prevailing religions in the Indian Subcontinent, 1909 (Wikimedia Commons, 1909)

The Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir existed from 1954 until 2019 as a compromise Today, Islam forms the second-largest religion in the Republic of India, with 14.2% (172 between the nascent Republic of India and the inhabitants of the Muslim-majority re- million) of the country’s population identifying as part of the faith. The majority of those gion, operating under a special status provided by Articles 35A & 370 of the Indian are Sunni (85%), although a sizeable Shia sect (13%) also exists there. Constitution (Al-Jazeera, 2019). It enjoyed autonomy, its own assembly, and distinct cit- izenship rights, whereas it is now federally-administered. Its special status was abolished Modi Administration & Hindutva: after Modi’s re-election, in an apparent effort to bring Kashmir closer to the rest of In- In 2014, Nahendra Modi led the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to gaining a majority in dia – a move that critics say is designed to allow Hindus to settle in the region en masse the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house. This majority has held fast since and has allowed and cause a deliberate demographic shift away from its current Muslim-majority status the government to pursue policies that increasingly lean to the right, engaging in more (Al-Jazeera, 2020). It is now federally-governed. extreme examples of Hindu nationalism that comes at the expense of the country’s large Muslim minority. The BJP are supported by the nationalist volunteer organisation Rash- National Register of Citizens & Citizenship Amendment Act triya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), who heavily influence the former’s policies. Before The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is a census that will list everyone who can prove becoming Prime Minister, Modi was an active member of this group, which has been de- that they arrived in India before Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1971 or scribed as fascist in its aims of cultural hegemony (under Hinduism) and conservatism have otherwise become naturalised. Its purpose is to allow for the expulsion of all “in- (Patnaik, 1993). Faiths and cultures considered native to India – Hinduism, Buddhism, filtrators” by 2024. Depending on one’s faith, the conditions of eligibility for citizenship Jainism, and Sikhism – are encompassed in this project of cultural conservatism, where- vary. Once this register is complete, millions of Muslims may be exposed to detention, as Islam is notably excluded as a non-native faith despite its long history on the subcon- deportation, and statelessness, whereas migrants in similar situations but with different tinent. It could be argued that the creation of a Hindu “rashtra” (nation) is the inevitable 14 15 faiths will be protected from persecution. The harsher standards for Muslim migrants is ings of other faiths had taken place without condemnation (Bisht & Naqvi, 2020). The a result of the Citizenship Amendment Bill. aftermath of the gathering prompted a rise in reports of abuse against Indian Muslims. A In December 2019, the Indian parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill BJP legislator in Uttar Pradesh called for a boycott of Muslim vendors as they were alleg- (CAB), resulting in nationwide protests and controversy (BBC, 2020). The law offers am- edly infecting their produce, and saffron flags have been raised over some stalls to de- nesty to Hindu, Sikh Jain, Parsi, and Christian illegal immigrants from Pakistan, Bang- note that they are Hindu-owned and therefore safe to buy from (Al-Jazeera, 2020). Na- ladesh, and Afghanistan (all Muslim-majority). It also offers migrants Indian citizenship hendra Modi later tweeted that “Covid-19 does not see race, religion, color, caste, creed, by naturalisation if they work in India for 6 years. India’s secular constitution prohibits language or border before striking” in an apparent effort to calm the online outrage. discrimination on the basis of religion and offers equal protection under the law. Several legal cases have alleged that having separate allowances for Muslims and non-Muslims is Love Jihad a violation of these principles. Historian Mukul Kesavan writes: The “Love Jihad” conspiracy theory has also recently been brought into the fold of Indi- “Couched in the language of refuge and seemingly directed at foreigners, the CAB’s main an policy. This alleges that Muslim men are marrying Hindu women for the purpose of purpose is the de-legitimization of Muslim citizenship.” (Kesavan, 2019) converting them, thereby supposedly undermining the moral fabric of the nation (Trive- di, 2020). In November, a new law was enacted in Uttar Pradesh (India’s most populous It serves to reason that if the bill is truly aimed at protecting minorities, persecuted Mus- state and run by the BJP) that banned weddings for the purpose of conversion – a deci- lim groups like the Ahmadis in Pakistan and the Rohingyas in Myanmar would also be sion that will likely enable harassment of mixed couples by the authorities and restrict offered amnesty but are not. individual freedom to marry. Those found to marry for the sole purpose of conversion face up to 10 years in prison. Multiple investigations have debunked this theory, showing “CoronaJihad” & Tablighi Jamaat that, unsurprisingly, there is no concerted effort of Muslim men feigning love to convert In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic in India became an acute source of discrimination and women to their faith. racism against the country’s Muslim population. The popularity of different terms used online like “CoronaJihad” and “Quran-o Virus” imply that Muslims are at fault for the spread of the deadly virus across India, either through ignorance of how the disease Geopolitical Consequences: works or as a conspiracy to cripple the Indian state. India’s power internationally has caused different nations to react to the situation with either scorn or silence. They have pushed to be a part of the OIC on multiple occasions, Some of the supposed evidence for this theory is the Tablighi Jamaat missionary move- but their ascendance to the group is blocked by Pakistan on the basis of human rights ment, who hosted a religious gathering at their headquarters (the Markaz in New Delhi) concerns in Kashmir. The OIC issued a statement on the treatment of Muslims in India in mid-March 2020 that was linked to nearly a third of all Indian cases of Covid-19 with- through its Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) account on in the first month. Most members of Tablighi Jamaat had visited the headquarters before Twitter: travelling all over the country, in an event that was against Coronavirus restrictions of “OIC-IPHRC condemns the unrelenting vicious Islamophobia in India maligning Mus- the time. The organisation was vilified by the media for its “carelessness” as online ac- lims for [the] spread of Covid-19 as well as their negative profiling in media subjecting cusations grew fiercer, including by ruling BJP leaders, but little blame was given to the them to discrimination and violence with impunity […] OIC-IPHRC urges the Indian government’s overall response to the pandemic, and some argued that religious gather- [government] to take urgent steps to stop the growing tide of Islamophobia in India and

16 17 protect the rights of its persecuted Muslim minority as per its obligations under interna- mocracy” (Purna Kambhampaty & Perrigo, 2020) tional human rights law” (OIC-IPHRC, 2020) India responded to this calling it “factually inaccurate and misleading”. India is a huge investor in Afghanistan, with whom it works to fight the Taliban that they assert are being sheltered by Pakistan. Indian relations with Bangladesh are also strong, Within the OIC, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has been the most vocal critic of although some concerns about the security of their shared border remain. Modi’s policies. Its Minister of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly called for Kashmir (and therefore the situation of Muslims within it) to be brought onto the agenda of both the Princess Hend al-Qassimi of the UAE’s royal family has become a strong voice against OIC and UNSC but has been denied on multiple occasions on the basis that it is a ‘bilat- Islamophobia in India, writing a column that implored Modi to not be “another Hitler” eral issue’ between the India and Pakistan to resolve. When a request was made to Saudi and instead act against a “snowballing movement” of discrimination and violence (HRH Arabia to add Kashmir to the OIC’s agenda, Saudi Arabia immediately recalled a billion Al-Qassemi, 2020). However, India and the UAE share a huge amount of bilateral trade. dollars in loans, and refused to renew a deferred payment for petroleum (Kakar, 2020). The UAE is also host to millions of Indian migrant workers. Pakistan has also had frosty relations with the UAE as the latter suspended issuing visas to Pakistanis citing security concerns. Central Asia currently holds good relations with India on the basis of a broad initiative called “Connect Central Asia” that seeks to strengthen economic and political links be- Saudi Arabia has a mutually beneficial relationship with India on the basis of an energy tween the two. partnership, the so-called “Delhi Declaration”, as economic growth has increased de- mand for crude oil. Saudi Arabia supports granting observer status to India. However, The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) avoids discussion of Saudi Arabia is a major strategic partner of both India and Pakistan so has a relatively divisive political issues like Islamophobia, so has not reached a decisive conclusion on high degree of influence over regional issues. how the Indian government has acted. By and large, India’s power has allowed it to es- cape international scrutiny from the West and many Muslim-majority countries. Iran and India share productive relations to the extent that Iran has objected the fre- quency with which Pakistan drafts critical resolutions at the OIC. However, their diplo- Questions for a Resolution to Address: macy is affected by the Iranian nuclear programme, in which India has attempted to stay The divided OIC must come together in a constructive way to address the situation of a middle ground. The Shia sect in India is smaller, but subject to the same persecution Muslims in India. Delegates may create any resolution they see to be appropriate, and and suspicion as Sunni Muslims. some indicatory questions have been put below to ensure that the discussion and resolu- tion are as far-reaching as needed. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has urged the State Depart- • Why have India’s policies come at the expense of Muslim communities? ment to designate India as a “country of particular concern” over “severe violations” of • How can various geopolitical considerations be taken into account when addressing religious freedom (Kuchay, 2020). Relations remain strong between the two, however, concerns in India? on the basis that India claims to be the world’s largest democracy. President Biden has • What message of solidarity, if any, can be given to the Indian Muslim community? spoken out against Modi’s nationalism, calling the NRC “inconsistent with the country’s • Has the current understanding of Islamophobia been sufficient to explain the extent long tradition of secularism and with sustaining a multi-ethnic and multi-religious de- and type of discrimination experienced? Is a more concrete definition needed?

18 19 • How can the situation of Rohingya Muslim refugees in India be improved? • HRH Al-Qassemi, H., 2020. I Pray for an India Without Hate and Islamophobia. • How can the OIC work constructively with the Republic of India? [Online] Available at: https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/i-pray-for-an-india- • What can be done to increase international pressure on the Indian government? without-hate-and-islamophobia-1.71169436 [Accessed 26 November 2020]. • Kesavan, M., 2019. The Greatest Threat to India's Democracy Today. [Online] Avail- Further Readings: able at: https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/nrc-and-the-citizenship-bill-are- Please remember that this issue is of ongoing concern in the real world, and that the the-greatest-threat-to-indian-democracy-today/cid/1695315 [Accessed 20 November sources available online may not be totally accurate or may be written to support a par- 2020]. ticular narrative. Remember to exercise caution in doing your own research on the mat- • OIC Observatory, 2019. 12th Report on Islamophobia, Jeddah: OIC General Secre- ter. Extensive information on this topic can be found in the following resources: tariat. • The OIC’s 12th Report on Islamophobia (2018-19) • OIC-IPHRC, 2020. Twitter. [Online] Available at: https://twitter.com/OIC_IPHRC/ • Declaration by the Annual Coordination Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of status/1251826155939926017 [Accessed 19 November 2020]. OIC Member States on Countering Islamophobia (2010) • Patnaik, P., 1993. The Fascism of Our TImes. Social Scientist, 21(3), pp. 69-77. References: • Trivedi, U., 2020. India's Most Populous State Brings Law to Fight 'Love Jihad'. [On- • Ali, A., 2019. What If This Is the Hindu Rashtra?. [Online] Available at: https://the- line] Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-25/india-s- wire.in/communalism/hindu-rashtra-india-constitution [Accessed 21 November most-populous-state-brings-law-to-fight-love-jihad [Accessed 25 November 2020]. 2020]. • Wikimedia Commons, 1909. File:Brit IndianEmpireReligions3.jpg. [Online] Avail- • Al-Jazeera, 2019. Kashmir special status explained: What are Articles 370 and 35A?. able at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brit_IndianEmpireReligions3.jpg [Online] Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/8/5/kashmir-special-sta- [Accessed 20 November 2020]. tus-explained-what-are-articles-370-and-35a [Accessed 20 November 2020]. • Al-Jazeera, 2020. Kashmir Muslims Fear Demographic Shift as Thousands get Res- idency. [Online] Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/6/28/kash- mir-muslims-fear-demographic-shift-as-thousands-get-residency [Accessed 20 November 2020]. • Al-Na'im, A. A., 2008. Islam and the Secular State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer- sity Press. • BBC, 2020. Citizenship Amendment Act: Court refuses to put controversial law on hold. [Online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-51203104 [Accessed 20 November 2020]. • Bisht, A. & Naqvi, S., 2020. How Tablighi Jamaat event became India’s worst coro- navirus vector. [Online] Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/4/7/ how-tablighi-jamaat-event-became--worst-coronavirus-vector[Accessed 20 November 2020].

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