170 i n t e r n a t i o n a l f a c t o r sPanikkar “was appointed to Cairo, Nehru told him to do his utmost to
prevent the Arab countries from identifying themselves with Pakistan.”^22
Similarly, another Israeli diplomat, Eliahu Sasson, observed: “Talking about
politics in general, the Indian Minister [in Ankara, C. S. Jha] brought the
topic of what seems to be the center of gravity of his interest, namely: Paki-
stan.”^23 Indian preoccupation with Pakistan becomes apparent in the
manner in which it handled some of the major developments in the Mid-
dle East. It was largely due to this that India was prepared to endorse
Israel’s exclusion from the Bandung Conference. As Krishna Menon ad-
mitted subsequently, “Indonesia might have been persuaded at that time,
but Pakistan made use of our attitude to Israel’s presence at Bandung in
propaganda with the Arabs.”^24 A far more direct involvement of the Paki-
stani factor became apparent when India gatecrashed the fi rst Islamic
summit in Rabat in September 1969.
Arab- Islamic Infl uence
Even without Pakistan, Islam plays a signifi cant role in India’s
calculations. As one scholar has reminded us, with a few notable excep-
tions, India is surrounded by countries with large Muslim populations.^25
Its vital trade routes to Eu rope and Pacifi c pass through Islamic countries
whose importance ironically increased following the Arab defeat in the
June war and the subsequent marginalization of secular Arab national-
ism. The formation of the OIC and the growing infl uence of conservative
ideas in the Middle East and elsewhere have infl uenced India’s Israel
policy. As highlighted by the Rabat fi asco, commitments to secularism
did not inhibit India from wanting to partake in an explicitly religious
po liti cal gathering.
At least during the initial years of in de pen dence, “the Islamic factor
did not fi gure prominently in India’s dealing with Muslim countries.”^26
There are those who presented the emergence of a North- South dialogue
among developing countries through an Islamic prism. In the words of
G. H. Jansen, “without Islam the Afro- Asian movement would probably
have aborted. And without the Afro- Asian movement there would have
been no ‘non- aligned’ group of nations, and without that group there
would not have been the economic Group of Seventy- Seven, the underde-
veloped South in the current North- South dialogue.”^27 Even though Is-
lamic considerations were not the foundation of the Third World, the