Is the Islamic bloc divided on its approach towards India? How does it shape India’s Foreign Policy?
India’s foreign policy determinant with the Islamic bloc. How India’s International relations has been continuously changing for the past few years. #opinion
*/Islamic bloc here refers to the countries which are a part of OIC and doesn’t refer as such on theocratic states. This article is not intended to hurt any personal sentiments or defame their political ideology/*
Foreign Policy is not formulated overnight, it takes years of hard work, consideration of issues, scenarios, domestic policy and much more. Here we will discuss something which has shaped India’s foreign policy on the Middle East, especially the GCC nations and progressive Muslim Bloc which are both parts of OIC. This article is quite relevant as this refers to a few recent incidents which sparked a big debate concerning India on the global stage.
Since 1991, post-Cold war, India lost its major ally the Soviet Union. It was not only a loss to India, but also to several nations like Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Iran etc. The world became a Uni-polar. In India, the congress party was getting weaker, post the death of Indira, and soon by Rajiv Gandhi’s death too. Later we had the economic crisis of 1991 and finally the game saver where Finance Minister Dr Manmohan Singh who liberalised India’s economy which bore the fruits which we enjoy today. That was the wisest thing we had done. P V Narasimha Rao as the PM also laid on a new foreign policy stone by tying up with Israel.
India was never comfortable in the International arena. Nehru tried to balance both US and Russia, and he had quite succeeded in that well; subsequently, we had tough times with the US like the 1971 war. The non- Alignment was also useless in a unipolar world post-cold war. India thus found its partner, ie Israel. Till then India had stood firmly with Arabs because India had excellent ties with Egypt which was also a Soviet ally, so India since a long time had a mere soft-corner for Palestine.
Post-liberalisation, US were quite interested in opening up their companies here, then we had IT boom, manufacturing boom etc and India’s economy grew. India and the US were closer. India since then is seen as a business partner to many nations. Few such nations are the rich oil-producing Gulf states. These are ruled either by monarchs or dictators. There are also sizable Indian population in those countries as well. This is quite like an unbreakable bond, quite costly too.
Two countries controlled OIC ever since it’s formation- Saudi Arabia by wealth and Pakistan strategically. The leverage both has on the same is quite big, like the effect the US has on the UN. They were quite hostile to India, due to Kashmir issue. Each time something happens in Kashmir, Pakistan would eagerly present it at OIC. There was a sole supporter of India in the OIC which saved it multiple times. That was Iran which opposed action against India because it would affect its trade. That was a big victory as far as India was concerned.
The OIC/Muslim bloc is not one. They are divided on the basis of sect-like Sunni/Shia and you have ethnic divisions like South-east Asians, Kurds, Arabs, Africans etc. We have people across countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore which follow Islam in quite a different way than in the gulf. You also have liberal democracies, like Tunisia, Turkey, Malaysia, Azerbaijan etc while you have conservative states like Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. There are also dictatorship states like Syria and Libya and war zones like Yemen, Afghanistan etc. So you have a big mix of countries here and no way we treat it as one.
We will be channelising the discussion on the specific way in which they approach India. You have the first bloc who run their country where Public has a say in policymaking like Malaysia, Turkey and Iran. These are quite okay with India. There are Monarchies like Saudi Arabia and UAE which don’t involve the public in their policy making. The link between the both, as you guess is none other than Pakistan, with its geopolitical leverage.
Pakistan enjoyed extremely good relations with the US and also with OIC. Pakistan is a major non-NATO ally. The US operates its military bases in Pakistan to keep a check on both Afghanistan and Iran. The US also grants Pakistan with military aid, along with Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq etc.
But after India, picked up the pace, the grass turned to be greener on the side of India. Gulf countries, despite political differences, started to recognise India’s impact in Asia, and the western powers wanted India to be a counter against China. The US officially began siding India officially, can say that Israel may have taken an effort in breaking the ice. The US is now India’s top trading partners by becoming a leading importer of aircraft, drones, guns etc.
The nations like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar etc are monarchies and they wanted their oil to be sold and increase business relations with other countries. India was one amongst them. The same is not the case with, cause these are democratic nations, they are not bound by any commodity but purely by public vigour and public opinion.
With the recent issues spurting up tweets from our own Prime Minister is quite fishy.
This tweet doesn’t come with an absolute surprise are indicative of something else. For knowing what this, we have to travel a bit back and also connect something which has some recent relevance. We are not talking about the Kashmir issue which Pakistan was creating tantrums every now and then but no country cared to give any damn. The main reason is that majority of the nations consider the “Line of Control” as the default border between India and Pakistan. This (international) border is a ceasefire line and is accepted as a formal border by neither India nor Pakistan.
The second reason is that the gulf nations don’t give any kind of value to Human Rights or its Violations. The coalition is under attack for its war crimes in Yemen and alleged involvement in smaller nations. Also, the four Arab countries have blockaded their own tiny neighbour “Qatar” for supporting Iran and Free Speech. We can’t expect those countries to even comment on Kashmir. The entire Gulf has also pretty much ignored the Palestinian cause.
Everything was okay with the Progressive Muslim countries also but the twist comes after Article 370 was repealed in August and the State of Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into two. Even this step was welcome to Saudi Arabia and UAE which supported India, saying that this was purely an Internal Matter of India. The shocking comments for India came from Turkey and Malaysia apart from Pakistan. Both these nations have strong ties with Pakistan. Also, Tukey is alleged to be running away from its secular credentials just like India (as it is claimed) and moving to religiously conservative right-wing populism.
Read on Article 370’s abrogation and history of Kashmir
After 4 months, in December Indian Parliament passed the CAA which became quite a topic of discussion amongst the western world, including the UN which claimed the law to be anti-Muslim. The European Parliament also had taken the matter to be discussed which they later put-off. There were protests in many parts of the globe like London, which has a large amount of Pakistanis. The US Commission for Religious Freedom was also concerned about the same.
Pakistan had something to cheer-up temporarily and is claiming that whatever it said in the past is true. The foreign minister of Iran also had expressed his grief over the condition of Muslims in India post- North Eastern Delhi Riots, where he said that Trump had spread Islamophobia in India. As expected Malaysia, also strongly reacted against India, and New Delhi retaliated by cutting off palm oil exports from Malaysia and replacing it with Indonesian.
Malaysia, Turkey and Iran were three countries which had reacted sharply. What is common between these three nations? All these three work on public opinion as mentioned above. The anti-India sentiment may be the least in Malaysia, but still, Turkey and Iran is something India has to look closely. Iran had warm relations with India until India was forced to comply with US sanctions and India had to reduce the imports of Iranian oil and go with Saudis.
As expected Saudi and UAE had not given much importance to this and continue to remain silent. As we know that it is the Saudi which is supplying most of the oil which India had earlier brought from Iran. In these countries, there is actually heed which is paid to public opinion. Otherwise, these local population should have alerted their government on their Operations in Yemen and the condition of Uighur Muslims in China which even Pakistan is not talking because it cannot lose China as it’s important.
This is the China way of doing things adopted by India recently. If you talk about Human Rights violations in your country then we are not going to do any business with you. There won’t be any freedom of press too, just like how China threw out the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and other reporters from various Western Liberal Media outlets. Even India, multiple times starting from Balakot attacks, Article 370, CAA etc called International Media coverage biased, one-sided or even false reporting.
This is a type of diplomatic bullying China has been doing for years, not only with companies but also with countries. Europe is pretty silent on China. Even though Trump may sound harsh on China outside, he is happier than the business deals may go as expected and the trade war is just a way to bring China on a negotiating table. He also had lauded China in the past for winning the fight against Covid-19 and also called Xi a good friend.
This bully style is also coming to be adopted by countries which are wrapped in the cover of right-wing populism like US and India. This is in reference to how India suspended cross border trade with Pakistan and how it increased tariffs on Malaysian Palm Oil. The US has been doing for quite a long time too. Trump warned MBS to decrease oil production else he will cut military aid for Saudi, he also had cut aid to many countries like Palestine, Pakistan, Jordan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel etc. India was also treated the same way by Trump govt after it ordered S400 from Russia and also for importing Iranian Oil. Before, the US had raised tariffs on Indian imports in the US and also declared India as a “Developing Country”.
CAA and NRC discussed including its effect on Indian politics.
Recent updates
On 28 April, US Religious Freedom Commission Panel released its annual report putting India on the list Countries of Particular Concern. This was the very first time India since 2004 had come on the list that amounts countries that have been on the list for years like Syria, China, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, Myanmar etc. The main reasons which backfired India were CAA, the widespread protests and also Delhi Riots.
India and various other countries on the list, as usual, rejected the report with strong words.
INDIA RESPONDS TO USCIRF REPORT
MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said: We reject the observations on India in the USCIRF Annual Report. Its biased and tendentious comments against India are not new. But on this occasion, its misrepresentation has reached new levels. It has not been able to carry its own Commissioners in its endeavour. We regard it as an organization of particular concern and will treat it accordingly.
This also comes amidst the fact that we are in lockdown as a measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Often old tweets by many of the political leaders and celebrities are pulled up and this time the victim was none other than Thejasvi Surya, the Young face of Modi government.
This was later followed by a massive twitter storm where several Arab intellectuals and members of the royal family came out against him and the Modi leadership.
Amidst the outrage, he had to delete that tweet too.
Simultaneously 3 Indians were arrested in UAE for spreading hate comments in the name of religion post the Tablighi Jamaat incident, where several BJP, members and various others on Social Media are running targetted campaigns against the Muslims. Religious discrimination is a crime in the UAE, where such reactions in public or social media is a criminal offence. The biggest flak came from the Princess of the UAE royal family who put the strongest words.
Later the Indian Ambassador to UAE had to clarify on the same.
Now, amidst all this, now let us go back to the tweet by our PM Modi and you will see a better clarity in the tweet and the exact context. It was rather not a plain tweet as we all take it to be. You can also take the timeline of tweets and understand the chronology.
On 5th May, we get a report of an Indian man who lost his job due to Islamophobic tweets in Canada. The trend of rising hate speech or insults on social media has been going up throughout this lockdown period, without borders.
Read on International Politics of Oil
India-Pakistan at this point
India has protested against Pakistan’s Supreme Court’s decision to conduct General Elections in Gilgit Baltistan which is categorised a special region under Pakistani Consitution but claimed by India. This also comes amidst, the ceasefire violations at LOC and killing of LET terrorist in Hindwara, J&K. Indian security forces have killed the Hizbul commander Riaz Naikoo. India is constantly attacking Pakistan on Intl platforms that it is trying to create instability in Kashmir. Despite everything, the cat and mouse game will continue.
We can think about a conventional and nuclear war later because they are highly unlikely. Small military stunts and asymmetric warfare is more of a concern.
India has later started weather forecasting for Gilgit Baltistan and PoK which India claims but controlled by Pakistan. Retaliating to that Pakistani jets made a show of its air power and Pakistani Radio then starts broadcast of the weather forecast of Jammu and Kashmir.
Indian foreign policy
India at any cost will not love to put its friendly relations at risk especially the Arab World. It will not mind losing relations with Turkey or Iran because those two have angered a lot of countries already. India doesn’t have anything to lose. Gone are those when Indian PM used to travel to both Palestine and Israel to show neutrality. Modi, last time came back just after travelling only Israel. Modi is a blunt person, he doesn’t want to hide anything too much, this has brought a lot of cheer at home. Most of the orthodox Hindus have already been supporting Israel for a long time. They may not be much concerned about the two-state resolution or human rights violations in Palestine.
Another important reason to stabilise the relations with Arabs is important not only because of oil but also because of Israel. India is one of the very few countries who have direct flights with Israel going over Saudi Arabia. Arab countries are very strict when it comes to relations with Israel, but now bending rule is always welcome. UAE in 2019 awarded Modi with it’s highest Civilian Award, and with just these Islamophobic tweets Modi would not wish to damage his reputation. In 2016 Modi was conferred with Saudi Arabia’s highest award too. During Prince Salman’s visit to India in 2019, he assured $100 billion worth investments to India. Saudi Aramco is also a big investor in Reliance industries.
It won’t be too well for India to keep its silence on various domestic matters, which it will have to urgently resolve and hope for the best.
Summary
The OIC bloc has had a varied approach towards India at different times. It is not only because of one person or one government but the hard work of multiple successive govts and policymakers.
Two types of blocs exist with OIC, the first one is the Arab League led by Saudi Arabia and the second led by Tukey. Turkey is trying to stitch a new alliance between Qatar, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia and possibly may include Iran too. Each country has taken a tactical way of handling the issues with changes in geopolitical scenarios especially when the world moving towards the right. India despite that is ready to compromise it’s short term goals and go for big long-term goals of establishing full-fletched West aligned India, contrary to a non-aligned position it had in the past.
The only thing that can turn the tables will be a nuclear powered Iran. Already the Arab states have slowly started developing nuclear reactors to counter Iran as well as to reduce dependency on fossil fuels.
The recent social media targeting and Islamophobic tweets landed the govt in big trouble and it had to be unravelled quite carefully.
It is clear that India is moving away from the conventional foreign policy it used to have before 2014. The govt has maximum utilised it to complement this for its own party's political gains like how “Modi is getting awards from various Muslim nations”. Whether we like it or not this is a stark reality that India has reached a position when India can throw back the dirt from where it comes on the international stage just like how China has been doing for decades. India under Modi will not be looking to fall a left-liberal trap of that sweet international image but will rather play the game like an angry bear.
The following article will explain to you exactly how BJP has been able to topple the narrative, against it in its own favour.
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