Relevance : GS Paper II ( Polity & Governance)
Theme of the article
India’s solidarity with Prince Salman’s reform agenda back home is important.
Why has this issue cropped up?
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s is to visit India this week — as part of a larger tour of Asia including Pakistan and China.
Significance of the visit
It should mark the consolidation of two important trends and help initiate a significant third.
- The first relates to the trilateral dynamic with Pakistan.
- The second relates to the deepening of the bilateral relationship between Delhi and Riyadh.
- The third is about extending support to Prince Salman’s agenda for “reversing 1979”, when tumultuous regional developments and the Saudi response to them began to alter the equation between religion and politics in the region, destabilise India’s neighbourhood and change South Asia’s inter-state relations for the worse.
Analysing India’s historical relation with the West Asia
- The Subcontinent’s historic relationship with the Gulf is deep and civilisational.
- In the colonial era, the British Raj in undivided India became both the provider of security and the facilitator of the region’s economic globalisation.
- Partition injected a particular complexity to India’s engagement with the Arabian Peninsula.
- After Partition and Independence, Pakistan sought to mobilise political support from the Middle East in the name of shared religious identity.
- Although India was a preferred security partner for some Gulf countries, non-aligned India had little interest in continuing the strategic legacy of the Raj.
- Given its preference for “secular republics” in the Middle East, an element of defensiveness inevitably crept up in India’s relations with the religiously conservative monarchies, especially Saudi Arabia.
- Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s hostile rhetoric on the Kashmir question (at the instigation of Pakistan) congealed the perception in Delhi that Saudi Arabia and the conservative monarchies were “pro-Pakistan”.
- There were other issues that limited India’s possibilities in Saudi Arabia. These included growing divergence over regional issues such as Afghanistan, India’s embrace of the Soviet Union, the deep dependence of the Gulf kingdoms on the West, and Saudi support for radical Islam beyond its borders since the late 1970s.
- The end of the Cold War, India’s economic reforms, and the growing economic interdependence — thanks to India’s ever growing oil imports and manpower exports — generated greater interest in the Gulf monarchies, including Saudi Arabia, for limiting the political differences with India and expanding bilateral economic partnerships.
- As the gap in national economic capabilities between India and Pakistan began to widen since the 1990s in favour of Delhi, Saudi Arabia was happy to de-hyphenate its engagement in South Asia. That, in turn, allowed Delhi to stop viewing the Saudi kingdom through the political lens of Pakistan.
Opportunities that the recent visit provides
- Prince Salman’s visit now is an opportunity for Delhi to construct a solid and comprehensive partnership on the foundation laid over the last decade.
- Beyond the traditional focus on strengthening cooperation in the hydrocarbon sector, there are many new possibilities from Prince Salman’s ambitious agenda for modernising the economy of the Saudi kingdom.
- Equally important has been the expansion of the bilateral agenda for cooperation to counter terrorism.
- Saudi Arabia is also interested in bilateral defence cooperation and eager to develop bilateral strategic coordination on regional affairs.
- Prince Salman has often proclaimed his commitment to reverse the hugely negative consequences of 1979. Many observers, especially in the West, are sceptical of the potential for real change in Saudi Arabia. Delhi, in contrast, has every reason to strongly support Prince Salman. After all, India continues to suffer the consequences of 1979.
Conclusion
Far more important than the number of MoUs that India will sign with Saudi Arabia this week is Delhi’s visible and unstinted solidarity with Prince Salman’s reform agenda at home and his effort to promote religious and political moderation in the region.
