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India over Kashmir, for instance, appear along the Organization’s criticisms
of the Israeli policies vis-à-vis Palestinians. For example, in July 2017 as
Prime Minister Modi was meeting Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, Iran’s
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei spoke of “oppressed Muslims” in different
parts of the world, including Palestine and Kashmir (Chaubey 2017 ).
It is naïve for India to expect that the OIC would ‘abandon’ Pakistan
or adopt a more balanced position on Kashmir. However, over the years
there have been examples when key members of the OIC felt it prudent to
back India on this vexed issue. In April 1994, Iran, for example, urged
Pakistan to abandon its plans to refer the Kashmir issue to the then
UNCHR (later renamed as UNHRC) (Bhadrakumar 2005 ). In October
2016, Bahrain rejected Pakistani depiction of its infiltrators into Kashmir
as “freedom fighters” (PTI 2016 ). Above all, as the OIC was adopting
anti-India resolutions, the trajectory of India’s relations with some of the
critical members of the group, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, has been on
the rise and this at times has unnerved some Pakistani officials (PTI 2017 ).
The reason for the overall improvements in Indo-Middle Eastern and
Indo-Saudi relations since the late 1990s has to be located within a policy
shift that had occurred in New Delhi. While Pakistan has been its principal
security concern, Pakistan-centric approach to the outside world had only
harmed India’s interests as the binary approach only highlighted differ-
ences and sidelined interest convergences. Over the years, Pakistan has
been like a long shadow, and the more India is concerned about it, the
longer it grows. Pakistan has managed to capitalize on India’s anxieties
and apprehensions vis-à-vis the Islamic countries. Moreover, the preoc-
cupation with Pakistan does not tally with India’s power ambitions, espe-
cially since its economic ascendance; rivalry with Pakistan confines it
within the subcontinent and runs counter to its aspirations to be a more
responsible Asian player. In other words, if India were to be a continental
player, it would have to look beyond competing with Pakistan.
Thus, delinking Pakistan from its worldview and engagements with the
Arab-Islamic Middle East has become logical and even inevitable. The late
1990s also witnessed a significant improvement in its economic power. Not
only India weathered the US-led international sanctions over the nuclear
tests, but it also registered a higher growth beyond the traditional ‘Hindu
rate of growth’ that stagnated at 3.5 between the 1950s and 1980s.^2
(^2) The term ‘Hindu rate of growth’ was popularized by Indian economist Raj Krishna in
1970s when despite all the planned development steps India’s growth rate remained stag-
nant. For details, see Virmani ( 2006 , 25).
P. R. KUMARASWAMY AND MD. M. QUAMAR