How the Saudi-Qatar crisis affects India
Intra-Arab world rivalries and Qatar's dalliances with a Shia-dominated Iran, simmering since March 2014, have now exacerbated with seven Sunni Muslim countries (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Maldives) snapping diplomatic ties with Qatar.
The political churning in the Muslim world threatens Indian interests in a big way as 10 percent of six million Indians living in West Asia reside in Qatar alone and Qatar is the biggest supplier of liquid natural gas to India.
Needless to say, of the $63 billion remittances that the six million Indian diaspora in West Asia sent home last year, a considerable chunk came from Qatar.
However, India's cautious and balanced foreign policy in the region for past well over a decade should ensure that the political, economic and people-centric impact of the current turmoil is minimised, though it is going to affect millions of NRIs living in the region in some or the other way with immediate effect.
The biggest setback to the Indian community in the region would be travelling to Qatar as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE have not only severed all diplomatic and consular contacts with Qatar, but also closed ground, sea and air transit. The countries have forbidden all their citizens and residents from travelling to Qatar or residing in the country.
This will inevitably and adversely impact a large number of Indians living in these countries who have friends, families and business contacts in Qatar. More importantly, air travel to and from the country will become tedious and costlier as airplanes will have to take a detour, with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE having closed their airspace for all flights bound to Qatar with effect from June 6.
The extent of the impact for India can be gauged by the fact that Qatar Airways flies 24,000 Indians per week.
However, the impact for the Indian diaspora as well as India's foreign policy would have been much more had New Delhi taken sides in the political rivalries in West Asia, like United States President Donald Trump has done recently. In fact, the Indian foreign policy in the region has always been cautious.
In relatively recent past, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government steered clear of intra-rivalries among major stakeholders in the region and adopted a middle path. The Manmohan Singh government not only continued with this policy but also came up with a stellar contribution by opening up a new chapter in India's relations with Saudi Arabia while continuing to engage closely with the then sanctions-hit Iran, Riyadh's arch rival. Thankfully, the Modi government too has been practising the same foreign policy.
At the core of the current Qatar crisis lies the highly volatile rivalries between Saudi Arabia, a Sunni power, and Iran, a Shia power - both of whom are jostling for increasing their influence in the Muslim world.
Riyadh has been emboldened by Trump's recent visit wherein he committed the US to strong relations with Saudi Arabia at the expense of Iran, which he wants isolated and taught a lesson.
But for this extremely-flawed foreign policy of Trump, Saudi Arabia wouldn't have taken the extreme decision of snapping diplomatic ties with Qatar while ensuring that six of its close friends in the Muslim world too follow suit.
India has consistently maintained a neutral approach in its West Asian foreign policy. New Delhi has done the right thing by steering clear of political landmines like Arab-Israel conflict, Riyadh-Teheran rivalries and such deep divides plaguing the Muslim world as Shia-Sunni, Wahabi-Salafi, Arab-Persian and various instruments of fulminant Islam such as Muslim brotherhood.
Given the current geopolitical churning in the region, it is now more in Qatar's strategic and economic interests than India's to have a more vibrant bilateral relationship with us.
Half a decade ago, the India-Qatar bilateral trade had registered its best-ever figure of $16.88 billion, which has now come down to a little less than $10 billion, largely because of the depressed international fuel prices.
The bilateral trade is heavily in Qatar's favour as Indian exports to Qatar account for only about $1 billion while Qatar's exports to India amount to nine times of that.
Moreover, given its isolation by its immediate neighbourhood, Qatar needs to take proactive steps to take its bilateral relationship with India to a new level.
India and Qatar already have a defence pact since November 2008, which was renewed for another five years in 2013.
Scores of Indian companies and lakhs of Indians are engaged in various work areas for the football World Cup that Qatar would be hosting in 2022.
One immediate way of making the best out of adversity for Qatar would be to loosen its purse strings and invest in India. Qatar has been sitting on sovereign funds running into hundreds of billions of dollars meant for investments, but the Qatar government has been holding back investments.
If this were to happen, the Qatar crisis may well bring a windfall for India. But if wishes were horses! Past experience shows the Arabs are tight-fisted when it comes to releasing investment funds. Haven't we seen the UAE promising $75 billion-worth investment to India but not a penny being released till date?
At present, the biggest foreign policy imperative for India in dealing with the Qatar crisis is to ensure that its impact on the NRIs is minimised in the near future and New Delhi plays its diplomatic cards in such a way that intra-Arab world relations get back on track.
For now, the only moral of the story for New Delhi and the Indian diaspora in West Asia is this: when elephants fight the grass suffers.
Also read: Trump gets lost in deep Saudi pockets