Indian Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi concluded a two day state visit to Iran on Monday 23 May 2016 where he received a warm welcome by the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. He also met the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Modi and Rouhani together with their business delegations signed several agreements and MOUs to boast business relations between the two countries.
These included a contract to develop the Iranian Chabahar port for which India will invest $500 million, a trilateral agreement on transport and transit corridor signed by India, Afghanistan and Iran, which Modi said could “alter the course of the history of the region”.
These agreements will facilitate India’s easy access to Afghanistan, Central Asia, Europe and Russia. The north-south business corridor offered by Iran will reduce business transport time and cost by at least thirty per cent.
Iranian oil and gas on easy terms and competitive prices will promote India’s industrial growth. India owes 6.4 billion dollars to Iran for oil imports between 2012 to 2015 due to sanctions on bank transactions with Iran
Earlier in April, Modi travelled to Saudi Arabia where he received a royal welcome by King Salman bin Abdulaziz at his Palace. The historic visit paved the way for India and Saudi Arabia to boost economic and business ties.
Saudi business leaders showed keen interest in investing in India’s infrastructure development in areas such as railways, roads, ports, shipping, and energy. Modi also sought deeper involvement of Indian companies in upstream and downstream oil and gas sector projects.
In a sign of Saudi Arabia recognising India’s growing importance on the world stage, Saudi king conferred his country’s highest civilian honour on PM Modi.
In August 2015, Modi visited UAE, first by an Indian Prime Minister in 34 years. The two sides agreed to enhance cooperation in energy and trade and reach out to investors to hardsell India as an attractive business destination. Modi also visited the historic Sheikh Zayed Grand mosque, the world’s third largest and a masterpiece of Islamic architecture.
Modi has also visited several other Muslim countries in past 12 months including a short and surprise visit to Pakistan. More than any political objective, it was also inspired by his business ambitions arranged by the business tycoon Sajjan Jindal, a steel baron who has been active in promoting steel industry ties between the two countries.
Modi’s warming up to the Muslim world is surprising as the current Indian Prime Minister is a hard core Hindu fundamentalist who himself and his political affiliates have a terrible domestic record in relation to the large Muslim minority in the country.
Modi’s infamous role as Chief Minister during riots in his home state of Gujrat can never be forgiven and forgotten by Indian Muslims. He has been criticized heavily for not reigning in his extremist Hindu supporters for creating an intolerant situation for Muslims in India.
He has kept silent after a series of murders of Muslims purportedly linked with the slaughter of cows that his supporters want banned through out the country. His government has also been criticized for rounding up of innocent Muslims on fictitious charges of terrorism, many of whom have been later freed by the courts.
Muslims have also been very critical of closer overt and covert ties with Israel that have been strengthened to a large degree since his Bhatariya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014.
Yet his dream of making India an economic super power is such that he is not reluctant to embrace any counterpart, Muslims or otherwise in the national interest.
Zahid Jamil’s article on Sri Modi’s overtures towards Muslim countries is full of age old prejudices, actively aided and abetted by the so called secular parties, who have successfully held the Muslims of India to ransom and succeeded over decades to keep them backward and out of the mainstream. They jave created a chasm between people of two great religions.
In India such persons like Zahid Jamil have put together a CV for becoming eligible for being political leaders in India.
They should never profess to be Hindus.
They should forever be sensitive to the retrogressive ideas of some Muslims.
They should never profess friendship to Israel though Israel has never interfered in Indian affairs, even when some Islamic countries themselves have befriended Israel covertly. Also it is a matter of fact that some Islamic countries always side with Pakistan by maintaining a silence over Palistan’s many unfriendly acts against India, to put it mildly.
Only so called secular leaders of India can do business with leaders of Islamic nations even when that leader is a leader with extreme approaches where religion is concerned. By what stretch of imagination can we call the Ayotollahs secular, beats a discerning mind.
Regrettably There have been riots many times in India resulting in many deaths of innocent Imdians and both the major religions are at fault for their occurrence. Can you hold any single person responsible for what has happened in a highly complex scenario?
Every time such heinous things happen we do feel the pain and move on.We should not allow that to happen again. Otherwise there is no way we can live in peace. History of the nation for the past 10 centuries has been a mute audience. Many in the majority religion feel very disturbed by the history. But that should not dictate our actions any more, especially since the generations after the dark periods are not responsible for the history. Moreover all sections of the society in India have closely worked for the Independence that was achieved after great individual sacrifices all round.
So let us not flog dead horses.
Recently BJP ministers have talked against arrest of innocent Indian Muslim youth without evidence which is a good step forward.
Just as there are hot heads among Muslim youth, there are some among the Hindus as well. You cannot muzzle everybody all the time. They should not derail the nation building process. That is the bottom line.
There had been stray incidents where regrettably one or two Muslims were targeted for their eating habits. While it is highly regrettable they should not be blown out of proportion.
Sri Modi has been trying his best to lead the country from the morass that the single family dominated party has pushed it into for the greater part of the past 69 years. Let us all support him with an open heart.
Appropos to the article on Sri Modi by Zahed Jamil.
It is a well known fact that some of the leaders of the Islamic nations are themselves guilty of promoting extremism by funding many of such groups for the growth of Islamic religion with indiscriminate zeal. Now they have come back to bite the hand that feeds.
And India is facing some of that heat actively aided and promoted by our neighbor. It’s only DNA is hatred for India probably a little more for people of the majority religion.
Sri Modi is only demonstrating strongly the Necessity to take all leaders of the world along for the sake of our country’s growth. And growth and development are the factors which will take Indians of all hues forward harmoniously. Let us come out of this self centered attitude and self pity. We are one nation be it Hindus, Muslims, Christians or any other religious denomination.