© The Author(s) 2019 149
P. R. Kumaraswamy, Md. M. Quamar, India’s Saudi Policy,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0794-2_8
CHAPTER 8Transformation
While the end of the Cold War posed new challenges to both the countries,
as discussed earlier, their responses took time to materialize. India’s
economic ascendance could be noticed only in the early years of the
twenty-first century, and around the time, Saudi Arabia also faced interna-
tional backlash over the September 11 terror attacks. The initial politico-
economic engagements in the mid-1990s began bearing fruits. India
initiated steps that went beyond the traditional triad—energy, expatriates
and remittances—and sought partnership with the Kingdom. Towards
partaking in the Saudi moves in the direction of knowledge economy,
India offered to cooperate in the field of education, and India’s Minister
of Human Resource Development Arjun Singh visited the Kingdom in
May–June 2006. The visit of King Abdullah in January 2006 is often seen
as the turning point and was followed by the visit of Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh to Riyadh in early 2010.
However, a far-reaching transformation of India’s overall approach
towards the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, had to wait until the elec-
tion of Narendra Modi as prime minister. There has been a perceptible
change towards the wider region after 2014. A quantum jump in India’s
diplomatic engagements has fundamentally altered India’s view of the
region and in turn brought about a higher visibility to New Delhi in the
political circles of crucial players. While the long-term sustainability and
hence benefits are too early to foresee, the change is perceptible, especially for
a region that remained geographically closer but politically distant for India.