Because India’s dependence on Gulf oil will increase in the coming decade, the Gulf states will continue to be central in India’s foreign policy. This raises the question of what, if anything, India can do to ensure the security of its energy supplies from the region, especially at a time of diminishing Western interest in expending resources for the security of the region (since high oil prices have made a number of alternative sources of oil and gas affordable for the West). India’s ability to control and protect the flows of energy that these states supply to India is limited, since it would require a strong ‘blue water’ navy with effective submarines and long-range aviation to help keep ‘choke points’ like the Straits of Hormuz open. These are capabilities the Indian Navy must acquire, and is in the process of doing so.
The geopolitical environment of 2012, as these words are written, is fraught with possibilities. The traumatic changes of the Arab awakening (known to the West as the ‘Arab Spring’) have created new political realities within each of the affected states. New regimes are still in the early stages of consolidating themselves in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya; all have witnessed the rise of Islamist parties, though all also profess to be interested in pursuing their religious agenda within a democratic political space. How the societies around them — and their military and intelligence services, all formed and deployed in more secular times — will react to the new-found prominence of the Islamists is still unknown. The Western countries that led the intervention in Libya (and are clamouring for a similar outcome in Syria) are themselves in the process of becoming less and less dependent on Arab oil and gas, which could reduce the intensity of their fervour for intervention and at the same time give them less to lose in adopting a bold course of action. In all this, the role of non-Arab Iran, whose geopolitical influence across West Asia has increased dramatically after the Iraq war, remains a complicating factor. Its apparent quest for nuclear weapons has raised alarms not only in Israel and the United States but also across the Sunni Arab world. India, which enjoys reasonably good relations with Iran as well as with its Arab neighbours, will have to tread lightly, but it cannot afford to be indifferent to the evolving situation. It does not wish to see another nuclear power in the region, but it rightly fears the regional and global consequences of any military intervention against Iran. Nor can it be insensitive to the concerns of Saudi Arabia, a country it can ill afford to antagonize.
So far India has handled the transformations reasonably well; it managed to avoid antagonizing both sides (the recognized government and the emerging democratic forces) in the convulsions that changed three regimes, and it is proceeding gingerly in advocating accommodation in Syria. The government did a highly commendable job in managing the evacuation of some 18,000 Indians from Libya under ‘Operation Safe Homecoming’. India’s key interests in the region will undoubtedly continue to be defined along the familiar verities: the promotion, to the extent possible, of security and stability in the region with a view to ensuring a stable supply of hydrocarbon supplies; extensive cooperation and engagement with the countries of the region in order to enhance trade relationships and boost trade and investment levels; and safeguarding the interests, as well as promoting the welfare, of the 6 million Indians living in the region.
To summarize: there are many dimensions to Indo-Arab relations, some very old and some very new. India and the Arab world share a close and historical relationship marked by similar values. The Arab world has left an indelible imprint on India’s history, on our culture and on our civilization. As a student of history I can argue with confidence that the past has built us an excellent platform for the future. There is a genuine partnership and synergy existing between India and the Arab world, which we are collectively endeavouring to strengthen further. The paradigm realignment that has accompanied changes in the global economic order, particularly after the financial meltdown, has compelled both sides of the relationship to move towards a major rethink on how we should cooperate to face the challenges in front of us. Happily for both of us, the framework for cooperation is readily available. The nature and level of our cooperation is constantly deepening and widening. Progress is undeniable. While its pace could be faster, a critical mass has already developed to take us into a qualitatively upgraded relationship.
In today’s era of globalization we have to take into account the changing world economic scenario and equip ourselves appropriately. Our endeavour should be to leverage our comparative advantage to build alliances, develop partnerships, create new avenues of growth and development and strengthen the existing ones. We need to enhance our mutual investments, joint ventures and project participation in the region and in India. Our engagement must be multifaceted. Our geopolitical aspirations are entirely compatible with those of the countries of the region. There is no reason why our efforts should not dovetail into each other’s.
One important aspect of India — Arab relations has been a similarity of views on a number of political questions of global import, notably New Delhi’s consistent position on the issue of Palestine. India’s solidarity with the Palestinian people and its attitude to the Palestinian question reflects, perhaps more than any other issue, the enduring nature of Indo-Arab ties. It was as early as in 1936 that the Congress Working Committee sent greetings to Palestine and on 27 September 1936 Palestine Day was first observed in India. The 1939 session of the Indian National Congress adopted a resolution on Palestine and looked forward to the emergence of an independent democratic state in Palestine in which Jewish rights would be protected. India was a member of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. In 1974, it became the first non-Arab country to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. In March 1980, the Government of India announced in Parliament India’s decision to accord full diplomatic recognition to the PLO office in New Delhi. It was after this that Yasser Arafat paid a three-day official visit to India, during which he described India as ‘an eternal friend’. In 1988, India recognized Palestine as a state. The Indian government has constructed the Palestine embassy building in New Delhi, as a gift of the people and Government of India to the Palestinian people.
India has had an unwavering record of support for the Palestinian cause since the days of our own freedom struggle. In November 1938, Mahatma Gandhi had written on the subject of persecuted Jews seeking a homeland in Palestine:
My sympathies are all with the Jews …. But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like 20 other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood? Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs.
This was a more or less consensual position in the Indian nationalist movement, though Jawaharlal Nehru, moved by the treatment of Jews in Germany, proposed in 1936 that they be allowed refuge in India. The belief was that the Jews deserved humanitarian relief for their suffering, but the issue of their mistreatment in Europe could not be solved at the expense of Arabs, by relocating them to Palestine. It was for this reason that India voted against the creation of Israel in the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. Though India subsequently recognized the new state of Israel in 1950, relations were maintained at a low-key consular level for four decades thereafter.