Princess Hend Faisal Al Qassemi hails from the royal family of the United Arab Emirates and she has recently been in the news for her decision to speak out against hate mongering against the Muslim community in India. The princess has been an ardent critique of the recent attacks on Muslims and the hate mongering that has been melted out to ordinary people from the community in the aftermath of the Tablighi Jamaat case.
Princess Al Qassemi occupied the centre-stage of the public debate on ongoing islamophobia when she called out an Indian for allegedly posting some islamophobic tweets. She went ahead and posted some screenshots of a now de-activated account of someone named Saurabh Upadhyay to state that anyone who was openly racist and discriminatory in the UAE would be fined and made to leave.
After the series of tweets, many influential people from UAE went on to share videos of several Indian political leaders making hate speeches against Muslims on different occasions.
The war on Twitter, promoted Indian PM Narendra Modi followed by several other minsters to respond to the allegations being made by the princess and other eminent personalities in the UAE. The PMO tweeted, “COVID-19 does not see race, religion,colour,caste, creed, language 0r border before striking.” On the following day, Indian ambassador to the UAE Pawan Kapoor tweeted: “Discrimination is against our moral fabric and the Rule of Law. Indian nationals in the UAE should always remember this.”
The Union Minister Prakash Javedkar also decided to respond to the ongoing debate and said that a secular-communal narrative was being deliberately pushed while Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi declared that India had always been a “heaven” for Muslims.
Al Qassemi said that after she had tweeted, there were many Indians who went after her and protested and it was then that she explained the reason behind her controversial tweet. She said, “I noticed an Indian making fun of my religion, my prophet, my country and its achievements, ridiculed its achievements and was threatening us on our land. I was shocked and I felt violated.”
She also clarified that she was in no way defending what the Tablighi Jamaat had done and even when on to say that she had not heard about the group in her life. She said that far from being political, her message expressed a humanitarian concern. She asked what had happened to India and claimed that this wasn’t the India that she had known.
She argued that Hinduism was one of the most peaceful religions of the world, perhaps even more that Islam and Christianity but she was shocked to look at its present crisis. She underlined the fact that she had grown up watching Hindi movies, picking up a little bit of Hindi and being friends with Indian colleagues and classmates and said that she had always admired Hindus and their civilisation.
The princess reported the tweets made by Upahyay to the authorities and said that the UAE wouldn’t tolerate hatred.
