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The flow of Indian pilgrims to Hejaz has been noted since the early
days of Islam and in the 1920s some of the political contacts between
Indian and Arab leaders occurred during haj; for example, the Ali
Brothers—leaders of the Khilafat movement—met Al-Haj Amin al-
Husseini, the Arab leader who was fighting the Jewish homeland project
in Palestine during haj (Kupferschmidt 1978 ). Over the years, India has
been sending one of the largest contingents. Following partition,
14,000 Indians performed haj in 1948 and this number has been
increasing since then (Annexure 5 ) and has been helpful in forging
closer socio-cultural bonds especially when the political contacts were
minimal.
Towards facilitating haj pilgrimage, India retained the Vice Consul in
the British Embassy in Jeddah which functioned during the British rule
and in 1948 it was made a consulate. As its diplomatic footprints in the
region expanded, the mission was upgraded as an embassy in 1957. In the
early 1980s, the Saudi government advised all foreign missions to shift to
the capital and the Indian embassy was moved in 1985. Meanwhile, due
to the historical association and economic and haj consideration, the
Indian mission in Jeddah became a consulate and continues to operate in
the port city. More than a foreign policy agenda, haj is a domestic issue for
the Indian government, and hence as early as in 1948 it established a
Central Haj Committee with Mumbai as headquarters and branches in
different parts of the country for local administration. As of 2017, there
are 31 haj offices in the country.
For socio-economic and political considerations the Union Government
has been facilitating haj by arranging international travel and local logisti-
cal support in the Kingdom. While Islam demands the faithful to perform
haj at least once in one’s lifetime subject to their ability, a vast majority of
the Indian Muslims could not afford it. For centuries, most hajis took
boats to Jeddah and this relatively less expensive mode of travel was dis-
continued in 1995 due to MV Akbari, the ship which used to transport
them, growing old. Hence, since 1996 hajis travel by air and this led to
government bearing a portion of the air travel in the form of subsidy.
Responding to a Special Leave Petition filed by the government of
India in a case pertaining to allocation of seats to private operators for haj
pilgrimage in Maharashtra, in May 2012 the Supreme Court ruled against
haj subsidy and ordered the government to “progressively reduce the
amount of subsidy so as to completely eliminate it within a period of 10
years from 8 May 2010” (India, Rajya Sabha 2013a). Though this move
P. R. KUMARASWAMY AND MD. M. QUAMAR