Temple in the desert: PM Modi's launch of project in UAE raises questions

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to West Asia, during which he visited three nations, including the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank, demonstrated, in some ways, the continuities of Indian foreign policy. Mr Modi paid his respects at Yasser Arafat’s memorial and reiterated support for the Palestinian cause, in spite of the visible bonhomie between the Indian and Israeli establishments when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited New Delhi earlier this year. Such symbolism is, of course, important, and Mr Modi understands the value of signifiers — few details, surely, of such visits and the programmes around them have not been given some thought. It is in this context that one perturbing aspect of the prime minister’s visit should perhaps be highlighted: He launched the foundation stone-laying ceremony for the first Hindu temple in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, home to over 3 million people of Indian origin. Should this have been part of an Indian prime minister’s official duties, especially abroad?

This concern has nothing to do with any prime minister’s right to visit a religious shrine of his or her choosing. After all, in Oman Mr Modi visited a Shiva temple and the Grand Mosque. Nor does this concern minimise the importance of the new temple in Abu Dhabi, a long-standing demand of many members of the South Asian community in the UAE and a sign of increasing openness on the part of the Emirati leadership. However, the signals sent out by the prime minister’s blessing, as it were, of a religious ground-breaking ceremony are not completely desirable. Indian foreign policy is not religious in orientation. Naturally, it is not divorced from the sociological reality of religion as a large part of the priorities of Indian citizens. India’s attitude to Iran takes into account the views of its Shia minority, for example. Outreach to East and Southeast Asia on the basis of a shared Buddhist cultural heritage has been an important and productive track of the “Act East” policy of the Modi government. And religious freedom everywhere is naturally in the interest of a liberal democratic government.

Yet there is something substantively different between these acts and launching a ground-breaking ceremony. It will subtly add to the notion that India is conducting a “Hindu” foreign policy, which is not in any Indian’s interest. Already, in India’s attitude to the Rohingya crisis, a tint of this had crept in. Mr Modi has himself recognised how a somewhat more religious inflection to foreign relations would be perceived, in remarks he made some years ago after he gifted the Emperor of Japan a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, which he said would irk secularists back home. He made a similar statement after being greeted by Irish children chanting Sanskrit in Dublin. Both these statements, as indeed also the launch of the temple ground-breaking in the UAE, were made in front of an audience of local members of the Indian diaspora. It may help the Bharatiya Janata Party’s overseas fund-raising and activities, but the basic issue is about keeping church and state separate, because India does not have an official religion, even if 80 per cent of the country is Hindu.