domestic politics 153
recognition of Israel till the outstanding question of (i) settlement of
Arab refugees; (ii) boundary between Israel and the Arab world; and
(iii) Holy places of Jerusalem are satisfactorily settled. The view has
also been expressed that any premature recognition of Israel might
aff ect the position of Indians in Bahrain, Kuwait and other places
in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East. The dis plea sure of Saudi
Arabia may also have serious repercussions on Hajj pilgrimage by
Indian Muslims and thus give rise to domestic diffi culties.^43A “hasty” move toward recognition could upset Saudi Arabia, which
might retaliate by creating hurdles for the annual pilgrimage. This in
turn would generate a serious domestic crisis. It is highly debatable
whether India, with its large Muslim population, could have been the
target of such a reprisal, although it is true that Saudi Arabia has not
been averse to using its unique religious status to further its po liti cal
agenda. Until the late 1970s, for example, Riyadh refused to recognize
Israeli travel documents. This in turn prevented Israeli Muslims from
performing the hajj, one of the fi ve pillars of Islam.^44 If and when the of-
fi cial Indian documents are available, one might fi nd similar candidness
and open admission. Meanwhile, we have other circumstantial evidence.
India’s gatecrashing at the Rabat Islamic conference in September
1969 exposed the secular façade behind its Middle East policy. Refl ecting
on the fi asco, M. S. Agwani lamented that Nehru’s
directive of 1955 outlined New Delhi’s approach to various Muslim
conferences of pan- Islamic character.... Nehru stressed that need to
oppose any Islamic grouping, but added that non- offi cial delegations
might participate in Islamic conferences. Dilution of the latter part of
the directive in the post- Nehru era resulted in offi cial delegations
being sponsored for the various Islamic conferences. That this was
both unnecessary and unwise was subsequently revealed by the dis-
tasteful Rabat episode.^45With the sole exception of apologists within the country, no one ever de-
scribed the Rabat conference’s agenda or composition as secular. The
monarchs of Saudi Arabia and Morocco, the principal protagonists, had
no such pretensions.
In his memoirs published in 1974, Morarji Desai (who became prime
minister in 1977) recollected an incident that occurred in 1967 when he