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P. R. Kumaraswamy, Md. M. Quamar, India’s Saudi Policy,
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CHAPTER 6Palestine Factor
The Palestinian cause occupies a significant place in the foreign policy
formulations of India as well as Saudi Arabia and has been one of their
shared agenda. The Palestinian statelessness figures prominently not only
in their foreign policy discourses but also in all significant bilateral
statements and communiqués. India’s prolonged absence of diplomatic
relations with Israel was in sync with the Saudi approach towards the
Arab-Israeli conflict, and the post-1992 Indo-Israeli bonhomie has not
marginalized the Palestinian issue in the Indo-Saudi ties. Though not
identical, both the countries followed a similar trajectory of being sympa-
thetic towards the Palestinians.
IndIa and PalestIne
Since the early 1920s, the Palestinian question has been a primary foreign
policy agenda of the Indian nationalists and gradually became a domestic
political contest. In the light of the separate religion-centric nationalism
championed by the Muslim League, the Zionist aspiration for a national
home in Palestine was sucked into the Congress-League competition for
the support of the Indian Muslims. After the partition of the subcontinent
it became a politico-diplomatic contest between India and Pakistan in the
Arab Islamic world.
This resulted in two prominent features in the India’s approach towards
the Middle East, especially during the Cold War years. One, it refrained