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Build
bridges across the Gulf
Foreign
Minister Jaswant Singh’s successful visit to Saudi Arabia is
an important new building-block in the architecture of Indian foreign
policy which, along with a series of such other initiatives, must
dispel the impression that there is excessive focus on the Indo-Pak
axis. That such an impression persists is possibly a failure on
the media front to generate debate and discussion, educate the people,
on the striking new initiatives. The absence of popular involvement,
at nodal points across the nation, on the new masonry in foreign
affairs leaves a vacuum, which is then filled up by Indo-Pak (Kashmir)
stories as part of the country’s internal agenda.
The
world has moved at a frenetic pace in the past 25 years. Remember
Belinguer’s ascent to power in Italy; Marchais knocking at
the gates in France; post Franco and Salazar leftward lurch in Spain
and Portugal; Angola and Mozambique slipping into Marxist hands.
Mengestu in Ethiopia, Ortega in Nicaragua.
A popular
comedian in Washington had an amusing image to describe detente:
‘‘It is like going to a wife swapping party and returning
home alone.’’ Patrick Moynihan was describing the UN as
a ‘‘very dangerous place’’.
Came the Reagan counter-offensive putting military pressure on Mengistu,
Ortega, Dos Santos and elsewhere. Hand in hand with Margaret Thatcher,
Reagan’s counter-offensive, in a cumulative sort of way, resulted
in the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The
hollowness of the Soviet system stunned Moscow’s tentative
allies. Let us not forget, the Indian foreign office was totally
divided — a strong element sided with the coup in Moscow in
August 1991. Then it was all over.
The
Gulf War was the first physical manifestation of the new world order
being boldly sketched. It was in preparation for the Gulf War that
Saudi Arabia was brought under the American security umbrella —
which is where it remains but is loosening itself somewhat.
The
70s had been turbulent for the Kingdom: Soviet occupation of Afghanistan
(the fear was Soviet search for the warm waters of the Gulf), the
attack on Haram al Sharief, turbulence of the Iran-Iraq war, the
Iranian challenge to the Kingdom’s supremacy as leader of the
Muslim world.
It
was in these circumstances that Riyadh laid out the red carpet for
Indira Gandhi in 1982. The two countries talked of a strategic partnership.
There was no follow-up action. This is precisely the period when
the Saudis were financing the Afghan war ‘‘by all means’’,
including the support of unbridled Islamic extremists in which the
ISI played a major role with American endorsement.
Indian foreign policy was going through one of its swings. Kissinger’s
Pentagonal design of global security (US, Moscow, Beijing, Japan
and western Europe) left India out. Pakistan’s role in facilitating
Kissinger’s secret visit to China enhanced that country’s
culpability with Washington.
The
Janata government under Morarji Desai’s premiership saw a change
in the American perception. President Jimmy Carter came to New Delhi
with a sketch of ‘‘global influentials’’, of
which India was one. The Shah in Iran, Daud in Afghanistan, Zia-ul-Haq
in Pakistan, Morarji in India, Jayawardene in Colombo — all
westward inclined. If all these regimes could be knit together in
a series of interdependencies, the region would have been secured
for good in the context of the Cold War.
Came
the Saur revolution in Afghanistan, the Shah’s fall, the return
of Indira Gandhi in 1980 — the ‘‘regional influential’’
thesis was in a mess. In a reversal of the Janata policies, Indira
Gandhi actually welcomed the Soviets in Afghanistan.
With
Prime Minister Vajpayee and Jaswant Singh at the helm, New Delhi
has, with uncommon energy, embarked on a project of knitting together
new sets of relationships globally and comprehensively. During the
Riyadh visit, New Delhi’s considerable credit with Israel,
for instance, mattered. Riyadh sees New Delhi as a player with a
stake not just in Gulf stability but in the Middle East, including
the peace process.
Riyadh
paid up its Gulf War dues in 1998. It feels free to strike out on
its own. Islamic extremism, protests by Sunni Wahabi extremists,
bomb blasts in Riyadh and Dammam in the mid-90s, are pressing the
country towards a sort of non-alignment.
Who
knows, the Jaswant Singh visit may by closing an ancient circle.
Only a strip of water divides our west coast from the Arabian peninsula.
Relations predate Islam by millennia. One legend has it that the
wood used in Kaaba was teak from Kerala. Also, do not forget that
the Cheruman Perumal mosque was built in Cranganore near Cochin
while the Prophet of Islam was still alive.
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