India’s another ruling party (BJP) lawmaker, Subramanian Swamy drew flak from the Arab twitteratis for calling Kuwait government as ‘Namak Haram’ (Ungrateful). Prominent activist Mujeel Alshrika said Indians received billions of dollars in remittance and a very brotherly treatment for decades but in return Arabs got ‘abuse’.
The former union minister and BJP Member of Parliament (MP) is known for his diatribes against the Muslim community sparking many controversies in the past. After Kuwait passed a legislation limiting the number of Indians to not exceed more than 15% of the total expat-population, Swamy took to twitter to attack the oil-rich gulf state.
While calling Kuwait Government “Namak Haram”, in his tweet, the BJP leader recalled India’s help during the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq in 1991.
He tweeted “Kuwait Govt. is Namak Haram. In 1991 in dealing with Kuwait’s plight following the Saddam Hussein invasion and annexation to Iraq, at the request of the US, I negotiated on behalf of Chandrashekhar govt. to permit the US Air Force to refuel in India to help Kuwait”.
Reacting on this, social activist and Director of the Center for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law in Kuwait, Mujeel Alshrika blasted Swamy for calling Kuwait government as ‘Namak Haram’. He said earlier BJP MP Tejasvi_Surya first publicly abused Arab women and now another MP using the same language. While threatening response from the Arab world, he reminded that Indian expats get billions of dollars from Gulf countries as remittances.
“While receiving Billions of Dollars in remittance and a very brotherly treatment to Indians for decades the current Hindutva rulers chose to abuse us in return. First their MP @Tejasvi Surya abused our women publicly, now another MP @Swamy39. Calls us “Namak Haram”, we’ll respond.”
Mujeel’s tweet was shared and supported by many Arab twitteratis.
The latest legislation on expats in effect would mean that a substantial number from the 850,000 Indians in Kuwait will be forced to leave Kuwait and come back home where things are not that good from social and economic point of view, including the pandemic.
An economist says, after the outbreak of the pandemic, Indian economy is nose-diving.
The South Asian country is now the third largest epicenter of Coronavirus pandemic globally and the first in Asia with more than 850,000 cases and 22,696 deaths.
In 2018, India received close to $4.8 billion from Kuwait as remittances. The reduction in expats number may affect…and if any other or all GCC countries follow suit, the revenue stream would be affected quite a bit,” says an expert.
If a local media report is considered, nearly 800,000 Indian expats could be forced to leave –due to the legislation. That could potentially mean a $5 billion hit annually.
