India And The Gulf - Hardcover

There has been a pervasive and apparently justified feeling that the Government of India, India's corporate sector, the media and even academia, pay far less attention to the Gulf than its importance demands. More of our exports go to the Gulf than to the region that has received so much economic importance in recent years, Southeast Asia. As for imports there can be no comparison: not only does oil from the Gulf dwarf every other import from every other source in value, but the sustenance of India s high growth rates is dependent on it. This dependence will increase; talk of diversification of sources notwithstanding. As for the other economic parameter, investment the foreign exchange reserves of Southeast Asia are small compared to those potential too. As oil prices continue to soar, the coffers of the Gulf oil producers only get larger. Then there is man power export; four and a half million Indians work in the Gulf. They send almost ten billion dollars a year in remittances back to India. Strategically and politically, too, the Gulf is important for India. But India has handled relations with the Gulf as it would to a distant and somewhat forgettable region. This may now be changing. Certainly, the series of crucial developments there the revolution in Iran, the Iraq-Iran war, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, then 9/11 and the US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq have put the Gulf and its surrounding high on the international agenda. India has shown that it is prepared to develop relation with the countries of the region in recognition of their high importance. High level visits from Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates during the last three years suggests that this is so. But far more needs to be done. The question that needs to be examined in depth and detail is that in the light of our ancient cultural, trade and other contacts how exactly would India s interests figure in all these contemporary developments and what should she do to promote those interests.