Opinion Gulf imperatives

The plight of about a hundred Indian workers trapped in the worsening turmoil in northern Iraq is naturally a major concern for the people of India. As it focuses on rescuing the Indian citizens in Iraq, Delhi will be making a big mistake if it treats the current crisis as a one-off incident. Given India’s long-standing tradition of exporting labour and the impact of more recent economic globalisation that takes millions of Indians on work and business to distant corners of the world, there is always the danger of some of them being caught in zones of violent conflict or major natural disaster. Even though all of these citizens have travelled at their own risk, the government of India has a definite responsibility to assist them during moments of crisis.

Unlike in the past when India had limited resources to bail out its citizens in crises beyond its borders, its ability to respond has improved in recent years. During the civil war in Libya in early 2011, for instance, India evacuated nearly 17,000 citizens. While the current political attention to the plight of Indian workers in Iraq appears to be driven by television news, it is time that Delhi devised a solid institutional mechanism to cope with what is clearly a recurring challenge. This involves sustained monitoring of gathering crises, warning Indian citizens in time and planning for a variety of contingent actions — diplomatic, political and military — both unilaterally and in collaboration with friends and partners in the region and beyond.

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Creating such a mechanism is only one of the many challenges that India now faces in the Middle East. As the sharpening sectarian conflict undermines the territorial integrity of Iraq and unravels the old political order in the Gulf, India must end its political neglect of the region. Despite the region’s centrality for the Indian economy —  as a major source of energy, market for exports, and as home to nearly seven million workers — Delhi devotes little attention to the Gulf. During his decade-long tenure, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hardly travelled to the Gulf. The Modi government’s lack of interest was reflected in the absence of any reference to the Gulf in the president’s address to Parliament last week. Meanwhile, the Shia-Sunni conflict in the Gulf has already enveloped Pakistan. And the triumph of violent extremism in Iraq will have a huge bearing on India’s own internal security. As it handles the humanitarian challenge in Iraq, Delhi must immediately initiate a comprehensive review of the current dynamic in the Gulf and develop an effective strategy to secure India’s vital interests in the region.