7Though the records of these princes and Nawabs performing haj have
been scant, the tradition of sending family members, mainly elderly
women, along with emissaries, to Arabia has been recorded in many medi-
eval Indian texts. Many Mughal noblemen who lost favour with the rulers
and were no longer required were sent on ‘goodwill’ haj pilgrimage,
mostly never to return home given the dangerous journey. After indepen-
dence, the number of haj pilgrims persisted and with the advent of mod-
ern amenities and ease of travel, the number continued to increase. Hence,
during times of limited political interests or contacts, haj was a significant
avenue for maintaining bilateral connections between the two peoples.
The second non-official component has been the expatriate labourers.
India has a history of sending migrants to the Gulf, and even in the early
1930s when oil was discovered in the Gulf, some Indian migrants were
engaged in businesses around the nascent oil industry. This is true for the
eastern Saudi city of Dammam, where the oil industry is based at. The oil
boom of the early 1970s opened the floodgates and led to the continuous
flow of Indian workers to the Kingdom. This has not been impeded by
low political contacts and limited interest convergence during the Cold
War. India’s economic liberalization and developing energy trade were
accompanied by growing migration to the Gulf, and currently, there are
over three million Indians who are gainfully employed in the Kingdom.
These were compounded by increasing oil imports from the Kingdom
which enhanced bilateral trade.
Thus, there is a perceptible change in the importance of Saudi Arabia in
India’s foreign policy. Besides energy and expatriate components, the
Kingdom assumed political importance and both sides began exploring
other areas such as human resource development, IT, cultural ties and
above all military-security cooperation. The dilution of the Pakistan factor
enabled both countries to see collaboration in areas such as maritime secu-
rity and combating sea piracy, organized crimes, terror financing and intel-
ligence sharing. The willingness of both the countries to contain the
negative impact of the Pakistani factor resulted in the Kingdom extradit-
ing or deporting criminals wanted by India, including Fasih Mohammed
and Zabiuddin Ansari, both accused in the November 2008 Mumbai ter-
ror attack.
Since 2001 there were regular and high-level political visits between the
two. These include one royal visit by Abdullah in January 2006; two visits
by Salman (as Governor of Riyadh in April 2010 and as Crown Prince in
INTRODUCTION