Bridge the gulf

Bridge the gulf

Abu Dhabi crown prince's visit should boost India's Middle East outreach.
There's no understating the significance of the visit of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to New Delhi as the chief guest of the Republic Day celebrations. That the crown prince will be only the third leader from the Middle East to grace the occasion highlights the growing synergy between India and the United Arab Emirates. This is welcome since India has long been lukewarm towards the Mideast despite sharing historical ties with the region. In order to truly revive Mideast relations New Delhi needs a strategic partner. And UAE with its modern outlook, hunger for an innovation-driven economy, and substantial Indian Diaspora perfectly fits the bill.
Two-way trade between India and UAE stood at $60 billion in 2014, making UAE India's primary trading partner in the Mideast.
However, there's considerable room for growth. Add to this the fact that UAE today is looking to diversify its economic portfolio beyond oil and gas by leveraging new technologies. This perfectly syncs with India's capacities in the IT sector. It will be recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to UAE in 2015 had seen the latter commit to investing $75 billion in Indian infrastructure. This should receive a fillip with the crown prince's visit, even as New Delhi must scramble to propose projects that will soak up the funds and build its infrastructure.
That said, it's in the security and counterterrorism area that bilateral ties have seen a clear upswing. Both India and UAE face threats from radical Islamist terrorism and groups such as Taliban and Islamic State (IS) are a cause for common concern. Recently, five UAE diplomats were killed in Afghanistan in a bombing attack attributed to the Haqqani network. That should make UAE more amenable to seeing India's point of view on the Haqqani network, Taliban and their Pakistani sponsors. UAE has already deported several Indians linked to IS over the last couple of years. Institutionalisation of such counterterror cooperation is imperative for security in the region.
Overall, it's commendable that New Delhi is now reversing its tendency of viewing the Mideast as a diplomatic minefield with too many political and sectarian cross-currents ¬ which ceded the Gulf to Pakistan as its `natural' South Asian ally. Geopolitical circumstances today also provide India with enhanced opportunities to do so. And UAE can certainly serve as India's springboard to the Gulf.