Travellers between India and the Arab world were the vehicles not only for scholarly exchanges but also for cultural interaction at a popular level. Much of the Sufitradition is the result of Indo-Arab interaction and Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti, whose shrine at Ajmer is visited by people of many faiths, was himself an Arab. Over centuries, stories from the Hindu classic the Panchatantra have been retold across the Arab and Greek worlds, blending with the Fables of Aesop and stories from Alf Laila wa Laila or the Arabian Nights. Some Arab travellers to India, such as the Moroccan Ibn Batuta, occasionally found themselves elevated to positions of power by their hosts; Ibn Batuta was, for a while, made the Qazi of Delhi, even though he was unfamiliar with the school of Islamic jurisprudence used in India. Many Arabic words can be found in several Indian languages, particularly in Hindi and Urdu but also in Malayalam and Gujarati.
The adventures of seafarers who have ridden the waves and tides of the Arabian Sea on their dhows are the stuff of legend. I have even heard the story that it was an Indian seafarer who regularly travelled between Kerala and the Arab settlements on the east coast of the African continent who might have guided Vasco da Gama to the Indian coast at Kozhikode. It is for scholars to debate the accuracy of this tale, but what is not debatable is that these ties have hundreds if not thousands of years of history behind them and are responsible for the civilizational intermixture that all Indians have inherited and thrived in.
In 2010, to recreate the magic of times gone by, a traditional sailing boat, the Jewel of Muscat, was built in Oman, in large part by boat builders from Kerala, as a replica of the ninth-century dhows that sailed the waters of the Arabian Sea between our countries. I had the great pleasure of setting foot on the Jewel of Muscat and admiring how, in a desire for authenticity, the builders had sewn the planks together with coir fibre, rather than using nails, which were not in general use at the time. The Jewel of Muscat’s voyage from Oman to Singapore via Kerala and Sri Lanka, on the route many of our forefathers regularly sailed, was an evocative symbol of the seafaring ties that have united our peoples. It reminded me of the formidable reputation of the Kunjali Maricars in Kerala, whose seafaring prowess was so great that many Hindus believed one had to be a Muslim to be a good sailor. (The Zamorin of Calicut even decreed that every fisherman’s family in his domain had to bring up one son as a Muslim, to man his all-Muslim navy.)
The early years of the twentieth century saw a revival of these historic links. Indian soldiers participated (under the British flag) in the arduous military campaigns in Egypt and Palestine in the First World War and in the bloodier battles in Iran, Syria and Iraq during the Second World War. The post — First World War years, marked as they were by the beginning of the end of Western colonialism, witnessed much interest in the fortunes of the Arab and Islamic world within India’s own freedom movement. The Khilafat struggle, led by Mahatma Gandhi and calling for the restoration of the Ottoman Caliphate at the end of the First World War, perhaps best exemplified this: it served as a major unifying force within the Indian nationalist movement, even if its thrust was soon rendered irrelevant by the ascent of Kemal Ataturk to power in Turkey. One of India’s great nationalist leaders, the Muslim divine Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who was president of the Indian National Congress in the crucial years leading up to independence, was born in Mecca and studied at the famous al-Azhar University of Egypt. The leaders of our freedom movement closely monitored developments in Egypt and other countries, a trend that was also noticeable after we gained freedom. The struggle of the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria and President Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal and the Suez crisis of 1956 were two important historical developments that found resonance in India’s support for what were widely seen as fraternal Arab peoples.
Many Arabs, especially from the Gulf countries, lived and worked in India, developing close relations with the country. Before the post-1973 oil boom dramatically increased Arab incomes and widened educational possibilities, many Arabs, again especially from the Gulf, were educated in India. I have come across Arabs of a certain age from Kuwait, Bahrain, the Emirates and Oman who learned English at schools in India, picked up smatterings of Hindustani and habits (such as drinking Indian tea) which they have preserved in Arabian adulthood. Direct knowledge of India is not, of course, necessary for Arabs to enjoy the popular Indian cinema of Bollywood, which consolidated its hold on Arab viewing publics when the political isolation of Egypt after its peace with Israel in 1977 meant that Egyptian films were banned in many parts of the Arab world. Though that ban has long since been lifted, Indian cinema remains popular. I recall meeting the owner of the major cinema theatres of Oman and being told the principal fare on offer was Hindi movies; asked if that reflected a considerable Indian presence in his country, he replied that over 90 per cent of his audiences were Arab. An Indian diplomat serving in Damascus informed me a decade ago that the only publicly displayed portraits in that city that were as large as those of the then president Hafez al-Assad were posters of the Indian megastar Amitabh Bachchan. Such extensive familiarity continues to predispose many Arabs favourably towards India.
A crucial element in consolidating Indo-Arab relations has been the presence of a large, growing and highly successful Indian expatriate community, particularly in the Gulf. India has been a vibrant presence in the political, economic and cultural evolution of the Gulf. For thousands of years, our ancestors sailed the turbulent waters of the Indian Ocean and exchanged goods, ideas and experiences. This interaction over several millennia has left an abiding mark on our civilizational ethos, giving our peoples a similarity of perceptions and cultural mores. With Gulf Arabs thoroughly accustomed to seeing Indians in their midst, India’s presence in the Arab imagination is not just historical or commercial, but involves a far more intimate mutual dependence affecting every sphere of daily life.
This relationship between India and the Gulf has had such sustained resonance primarily because our engagements have been continuously refreshed and revitalized by meeting new needs and requirements. When, in recent years, the Gulf region, awash in new-found prosperity after its discovery of oil and the raising of its price, took up the massive expansion of its infrastructure and welfare institutions, India came forward with its human resources, initially blue collar but increasingly progressing to professionals. The numbers were significant, with Indian workers often exceeding the population of the host countries themselves. It was said in the early 1980s that the largest ethnic group in Bahrain was not Bahrainis but Keralites from India. In the UAE, it is unofficially estimated that 90 per cent of the population is expatriate, and more than 70 per cent of those are Indians. Today, there is no aspect of the UAE economy which has not been touched by an Indian contribution. The people of India in the Gulf and the Arab world have contributed immensely to the economic development of both India and the countries they reside and work in. The remittances that India receives from the nearly 6 million expatriates in the Gulf, many of them from Kerala, in the order of more than $57 billion currently, make a significant contribution to India’s economic development.
In view of the large Indian population in the region, a number of issues come up from time to time in our relations with these countries which relate to our people-to-people contacts and to consular matters. Active steps have been taken and are continually being taken, in cooperation with the countries of the region, to promote the welfare of the Indian community, particularly expatriate workers. Many suffer difficult conditions of work and are not always treated with dignity, but they still feel they can send more money back home than if they had never left India. Memoranda of understanding on manpower have been signed with some countries and are under negotiation with others to improve their lot. These and similar arrangements will enable India and the Arab countries to jointly deal with issues relating to the welfare of the expatriate Indian communities in the region, especially the conditions of service of blue-collar workers.