Hinduism in Saudi Curricula. How does Saudi Crown Prince Seek to Get Closer to New Delhi?
Scene 1: Saudi citizen Nouf Al-Marwaai tweets on her Twitter account, April 15, 2021 saying: “My children are proud today in the Department of Social Studies, receiving the concepts and history of Hinduism, Buddhism, Ramayana and Karma, Mahabharata and Dharma. I enjoyed helping them study”.
That citizen promised to teach her children the teachings of Hinduism within the kingdom's schools, within a new vision drafted by “Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman”, under the pretext of developing the curriculum in his country.
Scene 2: A year before that event, chaos prevailed on the outskirts of the Indian capital New Delhi, where stones, glass fragments and shattered cars are everywhere, as well as plumes of smoke rising from burning buildings, particularly from mosques.
Hospitals were surrounded by the bodies of the dead Muslims, and serious injuries among women, children and old people without distinction, this was the situation under the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is close to Riyadh, the nearly 200 million Muslim minority is suffering from racist policies and sectarian incidents, during which dozens fell across the country.
Saudi Arabia has close ties with India’s ruling administration, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he came to power in 2014, after his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led the elections.
The rulers of the kingdom overlooked the extremist ideology that Indian party leaders hold towards Muslims, they established broad political and economic relations with them at the expense of the Muslim minority.
On April 23, 2021, India Today announced that “Saudi Arabia has included some values of Hindu culture in the curriculum, as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's new vision for the kingdom's education sector”.
“Saudi education curricula are emerging, focusing on Indian cultures of global importance, like yoga and Ayurvedic, to expand students' cultural knowledge," She said.
She noted “the students will learn about Ramayana and Mahabharata, the two poetic epics that are an important part of Hindu mythology”.
Why does the Saudi-Indian rapprochement reach the level of the curriculum? Why is “Mohammed bin Salman” so close to India's rulers at the expense of persecuted Muslims? Where is India's arch-rival Pakistan from that rapprochement?
Hindu’s Crimes
"Muslims" represent India's second sect of population after Hindus; however, they are constantly exposed to sectarian violence, especially in the era of Modi's government, whose Hindu-majority Bharatiya Janata Party holds extremist ethnic ideas, which threatens a catastrophic wave of violence in a country such as multi-denominational and multi-ethnic India.
The persecution of Muslims manifested itself on December 11, 2019, when the ruling majority in the BJP's Indian parliament voted on amendments to the Citizenship Act, which requires the naturalization of irregular immigrants from three neighboring countries on condition that they are not Muslims.
The law has raised concerns about the Muslim minority, which reaches nearly 200 million of India's 1.3 billion people, who felt that they were second-class citizens in a country where Hindus make up 80 percent of the population, in recent years, sectarian tension has been strained.
On February 27, 2020, violence erupted in three Muslim-majority areas northeast of the Indian capital Delhi, there was a pro-law group demonstrating 1 km from a demonstration organized by opponents of the law, stone-throwing between the two groups began.
But it soon evolved to bring down 34 Muslims, by Hindu extremist groups backed by prime minister Narendra Modi's government.
During the events, many mosques in the area were burned, the Hindu flag was raised on the minarets of a mosque that had been vandalized, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights “Michel Bachelet” also expressed concern about the information, which indicates that the police are not moving in the face of attacks by other groups against Muslims.
At that time, Riyadh deepened its relations with New Delhi, at the expense of Muslim minorities in India and in Pakistan, who are engaged in a bitter conflict with India over Kashmir.
A treacherous Stab
Saudi Arabia stabbed Pakistan on February 8, 2020, when the Pakistani newspaper “Down” reported that “Saudi Arabia rejected Pakistan's request for an emergency meeting on Kashmir, this is at the level of the foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation”.
The newspaper said: “Saudi Arabia rejected Khan's call to discuss the Kashmir issue”, Pakistan's Prime Minister “Imran Khan” was quoted as saying, he is frustrated by the OIC's silence on the Kashmir issue.
India revoked the special status of Kashmir in August 2019, in September 2019, “Imran Khan” declared that the only reason people in Kashmir suffered was because they were Muslims, this concerns 1.3 billion Muslims, he said, stressing that it is essential that the Muslim world do its part.
In that conflict, Saudi Arabia did not just take a negative attitude, rather a joke in Pakistan has strengthened its rapprochement with its historical rival, Indian Prime Minister “Narendra Modi” visited Riyadh in October 2019, he met with “Mohammed bin Salman”, and signed a strategic partnership agreement between the two countries, what made India come in fourth place after France, Britain and China, as a country that earns such an important place in Riyadh.
On February 28, 2021, India's “The Times of India” reported that since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, his government has established good relations with Saudi Arabia.
She also said: “Saudi neutrality on the Kashmir issue makes New Delhi very happy, but it was another wedge (plot) in the coffin of Riyadh's relations with Pakistan”.
Military Cooperation
Since their independence from Britain in 1947, the dispute over Kashmir has begun between Pakistan (Muslim) and India (Hindu-majority), three wars broke out between them, killing nearly 70,000 citizens on both sides.
On October 27, 1947, India annexed Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan celebrates this date as Black Kashmir Day every year.
However, as a long-standing ally of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia which issues itself as the patron of Sunni Islam in the world, supported Islamabad in its position, but in recent years with the rise of “bin Salman” to the kingdom's reign, India's relations with Saudi Arabia are improving further, considering its emerging economy and because it represents a major global market.
“Michael Kogelman”, Deputy Director of the Asia Program at the “Wilson Center” in Washington, D.C., said on March 3, 2021: That “Saudi Arabia, like many countries, sees India as an important player, and a major market and a state that does not want its hostility, it is clear that Riyadh's reluctance to publicly support the Kashmir issue has helped improve its relations with India”.
Cooperation between Riyadh and New Delhi has even reached direct military cooperation, on December 9, 2020, the Commander of the Indian Army, General “Manoj Mukund Naravane”, made a diplomatic trip to Saudi Arabia, as part of the first visit of its kind to the region by an Indian military commander, in particular these forces have contributed to the bloodshed of many Muslims in their battles with Pakistan and in the Kashmir conflict.
