India woos the Islamic world

By C. Raja Mohan

INDIA IS reaching out and touching the Islamic world. The External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh's recent visit to Iran, and his claim that the two countries are natural partners are part of a new thrust in India's foreign policy. It is based on the belief that there is enormous scope for pragmatic and profitable engagement between India and key Islamic nations. Mr. Singh also plans to travel to Saudi Arabia in the next few weeks. This will be the first visit by an Indian Foreign Minister to the Arabian Kingdom in nearly two decades. Meanwhile the interaction between India and other Gulf kingdoms is also beginning to grow.

The recent trips to India by Turkey's Prime Minister, Mr. Bulent Ecevit, and Indonesia's President, Mr. Abdurrahman Wahid, reflected the new possibilities for cooperation between India and leading Islamic states. Turkey and Indonesia are two major pillars of secular order in the Islamic world and are emerging as valuable interlocutors for India. For too long, India has been diffident in seeking viable strategic partnerships with major Islamic nations. India had given a virtual free-run to Pakistan in mobilising political support from these states, in the name of Islamic solidarity, in its disputes with India. Weighed down by the Pakistan factor, handicapped by flimsy economic linkages with the oil-rich nations, and overawed by the Islamic politics in the Middle East, Indian diplomacy was paralysed.

Three new factors have given India unprecedented opportunities to turn a new leaf in its relations with the Islamic world. One is the rise in religious extremism and terrorism that is threatening peace and stability within the Islamic states. Two, there is a new convergence of commercial interests with the petroleum-rich nations. And three, India's economic potential and its improving relations with the United States and other great powers are altering the perception of the relative weights of New Delhi and Islamabad.

Sensing the new opportunities, India has begun to shed its traditional inhibitions and step forward to a new engagement with the Islamic world. Over the last one year, India has consciously sought to press home, in multilateral forums as well as in bilateral relations, the new opportunities. As the centre of gravity of international terrorism begins to shift from the Middle East to the subcontinent, India's campaign on the issue has begun to pay dividends. Much like India and the Non- Aligned Movement a decade and a half ago, the Arab nations and other Islamic states had in the past generally tended to dismiss terrorism as a problem of the West. But as terrorism came home to threaten the political order within and across the Arab world, there is greater sensitivity now about the need for international cooperation in battling the menace. Turkey, Egypt and Algeria have been among the worst affected by terrorism. Saudi Arabia, too, has been threatened by major acts of terrorism. It is not surprising then that the Arab League for the first time in decades recently passed a resolution condemning international terrorism.

Meanwhile, the rise of religious extremism in Afghanistan in the form of the Taliban and its linkages to the narcotics trade and international terrorism have sharpened the anxieties in the Islamic world. No one in the region appears immune from the new dangers from the Taliban. The Central Asian Republics are shaken by the signs that the forces of destabilisation are spilling across their southern borders with the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Given their fragile political structures and the lack of any experience in dealing with terrorism in the Soviet days, these new nations are in a state of great political vulnerability.

For Iran, the Taliban has become a major source of anxiety at many levels. First, Taliban's claim to represent the most militant form of anti-Western Islamic ideology challenges the leadership role that Iran believes it has in the Islamic world after Khomeini's revolution in 1979. At another level, the extremist Sunni radicalism of the Taliban is seen as a threat to the Iranian revolution steeped in Shia faith. More important, the Taliban's brutal treatment of Shia minorities as well as the Persian- speaking communities in Afghanistan puts Iran at loggerheads with Kabul.

At the secular, geo-political level, the Taliban and Pakistan have sought to cut Iran out of the new great game for the exploitation of hydrocarbon resources in Central Asia. Iran sees itself as the principal gateway to Central Asia from the Indian Ocean. Pakistan and the Taliban have sought to develop pipelines and transportation corridors from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean, with the aim of marginalising Iran.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries are mostly conservative Islamic states. The radicalism of the Taliban and its future impact on the stability and security of their oil-rich region concern them. The Taliban has also given refuge to Osama bin Laden, who has sworn to overthrow the rule of the House of Saud in the Arabian kingdom. The emergence of Afghanistan and Pakistan as the principal sources of destabilisation in the region has created a new community of interests between India and the Islamic states in favour of moderation and rejection of political violence. Over the last one year, Mr. Jaswant Singh has attempted to build on this by focussing on the dangers from the medieval malevolence that is running riot in Afghanistan.

On the economic front, India has initiated what Mr. Singh calls energy diplomacy to create new economic and political relationships with the countries. India has emerged as one of the top five consumers of petroleum products in the world. Its dependence on the Gulf for oil and natural gas is expected to grow dramatically in the coming years. This interdependence, Mr. Singh says, is not a source of weakness, but of strength. The trick, according to him, lies in using India's position as one of the major markets for energy resources to build lasting partnerships with the petroleum-producing nations. Many countries in the Gulf and Central Asia have large reserves of natural gas that are lying unused. They are looking to India as the principal export destination. They are all keen on creating long-term energy relationships with India by building pipelines from the Perisan Gulf to India.

The Persian Gulf is also a major source of hard currency remittances for India from its expatriate labour. A stable and prosperous Gulf will also become an important market for India's manufactured goods and cultural products. The prospects of energy and economic integration between the Gulf and India will have significant consequences for the geopolitics of the region.

Mr. Singh's energy diplomacy must still overcome the problem of Pakistan as a physical and political barrier fusing the economic destinies of India, the Persian Gulf and Central Asia. India can achieve this by either finding a way to go to the Gulf by skirting Pakistan or binding Islamabad in a network of economic arrangements that will force political moderation upon it.

The success of India's energy diplomacy is premised on a rapid economic growth and the ability to deliver greater prosperity to the nation in the coming years. Equally important is New Delhi's commitment and capacity to deepen the respect for the rights of religious minorities within. Success on these two fronts will further differentiate India from Pakistan, raise the commercial interest of the Islamic world in India, and remove the few remaining irritants in the ties between the two sides. The new initiative towards the Islamic world is an important adventure in India's foreign policy and deserves strong domestic political support.

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