3the Arabian Peninsula and, according to some, the inheritor of Jaziratul
Arab, both in geographical and psychological sense, is the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia.
Thus, after the partition of the subcontinent, India and Saudi Arabia
emerged as the national inheritors of the two ancient neighbourhood
geographies and civilizations. Ideally, this should have enabled them to
maintain and consolidate their contacts towards evolving a strong political
partnership. Why did this not happen? Or what has been India’s policy
towards the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
Even though both the leaderships tried to continue historical links
through political contacts, they proved short-lived and insufficient.
A variety of factors were responsible for this, but the two most critical were
their different worldviews and the formation of a Muslim Pakistan.
Though the former during the Cold War could have been glossed over if
not ignored, both India and Saudi Arabia allowed the Pakistani factor to
dominate and in the process undermine their interests vis-à-vis one
another. Since independence, India looked at Saudi Arabia primarily
through the Pakistani prism and this lingered on until the end of the Cold
War. Despite intermittent political contacts, the ‘gulf ’ between the two
could not be narrowed, let alone bridged. In a nutshell, the Kingdom
remained on the periphery of India’s overall approach towards the Middle
East. This has been the case during much of the Cold War era.
The disintegration of the USSR brought about an end to the Cold War,
resulting in fundamental structural changes in the global political order.
At that time, scholars termed the unfolding new era as ‘end of history’ or
the heralding of a ‘unipolar’ world dominated by the United States (US).
Though these prophecies proved misleading and wishful, the transforma-
tion of global politics was felt in all parts of the world. India was forced to
come to terms with the new US-dominated world and re-examine the
vintages of its past policies. Russia, the inheritor of the USSR, which for
much of the Cold War era, was India’s close friend, was weak and was
unable to help or influence other countries. Until then India relied on the
Cold War–centric non-alignment and built its reputation and influence by
extending support to underdogs and weaker parties to make its presence
felt. In so doing, it relied on the Soviet Union for nation-building proj-
ects, military capabilities and modernization. The sudden end of the Cold
War and the emergence of a weakened Russia meant that India had to
come to terms with the new world order dominated by the US.
INTRODUCTION