Context:

This editorial is based on the news “C Raja Mohan writes: In closer ties with the Gulf, a significant win for Indian diplomacy” which was published in the Hindu. This article focuses on the significant transformation in India’s relations with Gulf countries under the current Indian Prime Minister’s leadership. 

Recent Achievements

• The inauguration of the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan (BAPS) temple in Abu Dhabi.
• The release of eight Indian ex-naval personnel held on espionage charges in Qatar. 

Gulf Countries Map

Factors Responsible For Transformation in India’s Relations With Gulf Countries

• Diplomatic Efforts: In the last 10 years, the Prime Minister of India has traveled 15 times to the Middle East. His visit to the UAE in 2015 was the first by an Indian Prime Minister since 1981.
  • Quality of Engagement: The current Prime Minister of India recognised that developing a personal connection with the emirs was key to advancing the ties with the region. 
    • The Gulf monarchs value personal ties at the leadership level and calibrate their national policies based on mutual trust and political give and take.
• Political Domain: The setting up of the I2U2 group in 2022 — with India, Israel, the US and the UAE — and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor underline the radical reorientation of India’s geopolitical engagement with the Middle East. 
  • Earlier India showed little interest in Arab political and economic life. For a long time, there was not much “political” in the Indian engagement with the Gulf beyond India’s public support for “Arab causes”.
• Religious Perceptions: India’s partition on religious lines and Pakistan’s outreach to the Middle East led to an overestimation of the religious factor binding the Gulf and Pakistan, and an underestimation of the depth of goodwill and cooperation in Arabia for India.
  • With the unfolding of social and religious reform in Arabia, it helped to dampen the rise of religious extremism across the Subcontinent and helped restore harmony between different religions and sects.
    • Also, India now has special relationships with the Gulf and Pakistan struggles to build productive engagement with the region. The Swaminarayan temple in Abu Dhabi reflects an important new trend.
• Strategic and Economic Engagements: In the last decade, relationships have moved from purely transactional to strategic in the economic domain. 
  • As the Gulf looks beyond oil and broadbases its economy, it invests big in green energy, space, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence, which has opened unlimited possibilities for long-term economic partnerships with India.
    • Khaleeji Capital: The accumulation of hydrocarbon wealth over the decades has generated “Khaleeji capital” in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, with growing influence around the world (from sports, real estate, banking, technology, etc).
• Defense Domain: The last decade has seen the expansion of counter-terror collaboration between India on the one hand and Saudi Arabia and the UAE on the other. 
• The Gulf countries are trying to diversify their defense partnerships amid the shifting regional geopolitics and are looking to India to redeem its claims to being a regional security provider. 

Conclusion

The cooperation between India and Gulf is becoming stronger and it provides opportunities for both the regions to cooperate and collaborate more for their mutual benefits and the new agenda must include prosperity and peace in the Western Indian Ocean along with economic and defense cooperation.