Indian media people can at times be shocking in their lack of decency. Likes of Arnab Goswami appear to have been conferred a licence to be raucous and rude. Watching him on his widely viewed show, The Newshour at his own Republic TV, one may safely conclude that to him discretion is no virtue at all.

But recently, Indian social media has virtually dwarfed even Goswami in that respect. The BJP leadership is very generous in providing them with newsworthy material to stir up inter-religious acrimony usually to the detriment of the Muslim minority.

Putting all the blame for coronavirus spread on Tableeghi Jamaat and by virtue thereof blaming the epideic on the entire Muslim community is a blatant example of such indiscretion.

A disparaging tweet about Muslim women, allegedly originating from Tejasvi Surya had wide circulation within India before travelling beyond its borders. He is a 29 years old member of Lok Sabha from Bangalore South. His claim to credence and political career is his association with the RSS.

But more importantly, Prime Minister Modi holds him as his blue-eyed boy. He probably thinks, therefore, that he has an inalienable right to be reckless and that he can exercise it with impunity. The content of his tweet reflected how entitled he considers himself to be. It reads, “95 percent of Arab women have never had an orgasm in the last few hundred years! Every mother has produced kids as an act of sex and not love.”

Among the first to slam Surya for his tweet was Dubai-based businesswoman Noora AlGhurair, who said she “pitied his upbringing that has taught him to disrespect women”. She also warned him against “travelling to Arab lands if he is ever bestowed a foreign ministry”.

As if it was not enough, some Indians residing in United Arab Emirates tried to spawn similar adventure and were quickly put in their place. What really pinched Indian government as well as its intelligentsia was a statement from the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), showing concern for human rights violations being perpetrated in India.

It came as a bolt from the blue because Arab countries had been mostly seem pandering to India and its government, even under Narendra Modi. Bestowing on Modi the civil awards and allowing India an observer status at the OIC conference point to the Arab rulers’ favourable disposition towards India.

All that goodwill notwithstanding, the OIC issued a statement about the state of Indian Muslims that would go some way at least in reining in the audacities of the BJP-sponsored media and its politicians.

But a statement from a princess from Sharjah, Sheikha Hend Faisal Al Qassemi, took concerned citizens of India by storm. She voiced her consternation over the insolence towards Arab women being hatched and transmitted on the India social media. “The ruling family is friends with Indians, but as a royal your rudeness is not welcome. All employees are paid to work, no one comes for free. You make your bread and butter from this land which you scorn, and your ridicule will not go unnoticed.”

The reaction was not confined to the UAE, Mejbel Al Sharika, a Kuwait-based lawyer and director of International Human Rights, shared the screenshot of the tweet and urged Twitter to suspend Surya’s account for his racial slur, which “badly wounded” the Arab sentiment. It is said people like Surya, who have yet to cut their teeth in the realm of politics, get such responsible positions and harm the reputation of the country and the government. Here I will say India under the BJP deserve the tongue lashing.

Representatives of the Indian government have said since that the content attributed to Tejasvi Surya was originally a 2015 quote from Mr Tarik Fateh. They are saying that Mr Surya only repeated it. The implication is that Surya stands absolved from the responsibility for regurgitated what Tarik Fateh brayed out.

Fateh is afflicted by Dunning-Kruger effect. He fails to recognise the extremity of their inadequacy. Consequently, he blurts out all that is anti-Muslim. Demonising Pakistan is his specialty and may be the only thing that makes him somewhat relevant in India. Otherwise, the sort of loose cannon he is, Fateh is a baggage, which sooner or later India will consider shedding.

Fateh has been arraigned on numerous occasions for spreading fake news on communal lines on Twitter and has been castigated as “blurring the lines between rational skepticism and contempt toward the Muslim community”. Until now he is being feted by the Indian media and probably enjoys covert support of the Indian establishment, but he is fast losing his clout in the Indian public.

He is wrongly projected as a Pakistani laikhak (writer). In fact, he is an Indian laikhak. Pakistan does not have any love lost for likes of him. He is always seen bending backwards to propitiate the representatives of Indian ultra-right. That Karachi-born Fateh is a pack of contradictions is quite evident from his own statement about himself:

“I am an Indian born in Pakistan, a Punjabi born in Islam; an immigrant in Canada with a Muslim consciousness, grounded in a Marxist youth. I am one of Salman Rushdie’s many Midnight’s Children: we were snatched from the cradle of a great civilisation and made permanent refugees, sent in search of an oasis that turned out to be a mirage.”

Here he is dissociating himself from Pakistan, therefore, India has all the more reason to adopt him. For some time at least he will keep acting like a courtier more loyal than the king, saying gibberish against Pakistan either on his own accord or at the behest of Indian rightwing leadership.

Once the Indian media and state have had enough of him, he can be parcelled back to Canada. His going away for good would not bother anyone. Surya will have many to draw inspiration from, India’s new founding father: Nathuram Godse being the most prominent among them.