Bridging the Gulf

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to Saudi Arabia is hopefully the first step towards a more intensive Indian engagement with one of the world’s pivotal states. It is more than two years since King Abdullah came on a historic visit to India, the first by a Saudi monarch in half a century. Despite the success of that visit, New Delhi has been inexcusably slow in following through. The entire world sees the growing importance of Saudi Arabia — from the war on terror to the global management of energy security, from promoting peace in the Middle East to the stabilisation of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Riyadh also holds the key to the future balance of power in the vital Persian Gulf region amidst the continuing turmoil in Iraq and the assertion of Iranian power. The UPA government’s failure to grab the unprecedented opportunities in Saudi Arabia marks a strange neglect of the region.

After nearly four years in power, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has not found the time for a bilateral visit in this region to any nation other than Afghanistan. The UPA government’s failure to put the Gulf at the top of India’s foreign policy agenda might not have been deliberate. All action and inaction, however, have inevitable political consequences. The negative fallout from the government’s neglect is not limited to the all important issues of energy and economic cooperation. It has tainted the image of India’s foreign policy. Inadequate attention to the Arab Gulf has lent credence to the facile argument that the UPA government is only interested in improving ties with the United States. It allowed the confrontation between Washington and Tehran to distort the domestic discourse on India’s policy towards the Islamic world.

After Mukherjee, the deputy chairperson of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, travels to Saudi Arabia next month to concretise a new agenda for bilateral economic cooperation. Together they would have prepared the ground for the first visit by an Indian prime minister to the Saudi kingdom in nearly three decades. The prime minister must now seize the opportunity to build a strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia, for long the missing link in India’s national security strategy.