Retuning India's Relations with Gulf Countries

What is the issue?

• The Gulf States are increasingly taking responsibility for managing the regional order.
• With this, India could not afford to take a purely bilateral approach but must adopt a more integrated regional strategy.

How is India-Gulf relations at present?

• India’s relations with the key Gulf countries have never been as good as they are today.
• Trade - The Gulf is among India’s top trading partners.
• The deepening energy interdependence is marked by growing volumes of energy imports into India.
• There is also the prospect of substantive investments from the Gulf into the Indian hydrocarbon sector.
• The number of Indian migrant workers in the region stands at more than 7 million.

• Security - A high-level engagement between India and the Gulf has blossomed in recent years.
• Top leaders from both sides have travelled frequently to each other regions.
• The expansion of the political engagement has been matched by the growing security cooperation, especially on counter-terrorism.
• India and its Gulf partners are also taking tentative steps towards defence cooperation.

What is the drawback?

• India's political neglect of the Gulf has certainly ended during the last few years.
• But India’s relations with the Gulf have been constrained by focus only on the bilateral relations.
• India is paying too little attention to the growing weight of the Gulf in regional affairs.
• It is also not attentive to the strategic possibilities that the Gulf's regional affairs open up for India.

What are the recent developments in the Gulf?

• Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia has long been a pivotal state in the Gulf region.
• It is one of the world’s largest petroleum reserves and is capable of modulating its oil production.
• By this, it has played a critical role in shaping the world energy markets since the 1970s.
• Also, as the home to Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia has a unique place in the Islamic world.
• Since the late 1960s, it has exercised significant political influence in the evolution of the Middle East.
• UAE - The rise of the UAE, in contrast to Saudi Arabia, has been less noticed.
• But UAE has turned into a strategic actor of consequence in the Middle East and beyond.
• The events of 9/11 and the Arab Spring have convinced the UAE that it must act boldly.
• It is now inclined to generate the capabilities to survive amidst the regional turbulence.
• E.g. It's defence budget is reportedly around $22 billion - nearly 40% of India’s defence spending.
• Notably, the UAE was the fourth-largest importer of weapons during 2013-17.
• The UAE is also a major player in the global logistics market, with the development of Dubai as a major port and aviation hub.
• It is now striving to emerge as a centre of art, higher education and technological innovation.
• As the home to multiple nationalities from around the world, it has become a small but important cosmopolitan centre.

What does this offer for India?

• If India looks beyond the bilateral, it will find two very important axes of potential partnerships in the Middle East.
• “Moderate Arab centre” - The UAE believes that only a coalition of moderate Arab states can move the region out of its current deeply troubled state.
• It sees the construction of such a core around Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
• So the UAE leadership has made the construction of a moderate bloc in the region its highest regional priority.
• It also believes that certain values which helped the Emirates succeed can be extended to other parts of the Middle East.
• These are cultural openness, religious tolerance, women’s empowerment, and economic opportunities for younger people.
• There are many obstacles to the realisation of this ambitious project, especially the deepening divisions within the Gulf.
• But the idea of a moderate Arab centre should resonate deeply with India’s natural ethos.
• India's traditional empathy for modernising forces in the Arab world should favour this.
• Indian Ocean Region - Another potential area is the growing impact of the Gulf countries in the Indian Ocean region. E.g. the Horn of Africa.
• The recent success of the UAE and Saudi Arabia in brokering peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea underlines the positive role of the Gulf in Africa.
• Alliances, military bases, interventions and peace-making have long been considered as the preserve of great powers.
• But Gulf countries are now bringing a combination of financial resources and political will to shape the geopolitics.
• Some of the Gulf countries like the UAE are eager to collaborate with India on development assistance.
• They show interests in the construction of strategic infrastructure in the Indian Ocean littoral.
• So it is essential that India makes the best out of this opportunity.
• India thus needs an integrated regional strategy to secure its ever-rising stakes in the Middle East and the Western Indian Ocean.

Source: Indian Express