Government spokesmen have claimed that India would not have been exposed to humiliation at the Islamic summit at Rabat last September if there had been no communal riots in Ahmedabad and that some of the Opposition parties had deliberately distorted the issue for partisan ends.
The first proposition is quite plausible. India might not have been excluded from the Rabat conference if riots had not broken out in Ahmedabad just at that time. That the sponsors of the conference were reluctant to invite New Delhi even before the tragic events in Gujarat does not quite disprove the official view. The more relevant point in this limited context is that a unanimous invitation was extended to India at the end.
Within Rights
The Opposition parties are certainly within their democratic rights to make the maximum capital out of the Rabat debacle. They do the same in similar situations everywhere. The British Labour Party, for instance, vigorously opposed Sir Anthony Eden’s policy in 1956 even during the hostilities and spared no effort to discredit the Conservative Government in the wake of General de Gaulle’s veto on Britain’s application for admission to the Common Market in 1963. The current anti-Viet Nam campaign in the United States is another instance of how Opposition groups exploit the Government’s difficulties.
Now that Mrs. Gandhi’s Government has weathered the storm in Parliament it should address itself to more basic questions: why has the popular reaction to the Rabat debacle been so sharp? Why have the Jana Sangh leaders been attracting such large crowds to their protest meetings on Rabat in various parts of the country?
There is no simple answer to these questions. But whatever the explanation, there is no point in blinking the fact that opinion among a sizable section of the Hindus has hardened both against the Muslim community at home and against the Arabs. The Ahmedabad riots were an expression of the first and the popular reaction to Rabat of the second. The two developments are the result of different factors but they have unfortunately begun to reinforce each other. It is this deeper connection between Ahmedabad and Rabat that should engage the attention of the authorities.
It will be wrong to construe from this that the widespread disenchantment with the Arabs in recent years has been responsible for the riots in Gujarat in any way. But it is hardly necessary to make the point that in the context of the deterioration in Hindu-Muslim relations the Government’s generally pro-Arab policy has lost much of its appeal despite the rational arguments that are adduced in its support.
In a clash between reason and emotion the former is often at a disadvantage. The China debate in this country from 1959 to 1962 is a case in point. On rational grounds Indian leaders should have been far more cautious in their attitude towards the Tibet revolt, the flight of the Dalai Lama and the border dispute. But even so mature and experienced a leader as Mr. Nehru was from time to time swept off his feet by the tide of public opinion.
The Government has obviously not been sensitive to this shift in public opinion. Otherwise its spokesmen would not have laboured the point that the 60 million Muslims in this country were greatly agitated over the burning of the Al Aqsa mosque, that they strongly urged New Delhi to join with Muslim countries in protesting against this desecration and that it could not possibly ignore the sentiments of so large a minority. It would have been much more sensible for it to ignore this aspect of the affair after the Ahmedabad riots.
Ever since it came into existence the Jana Sangh has been trying to make it out that the Government’s pro-Arab policy is the result of the ruling party’s desire to woo Muslim voters, that a religious minority has been allowed to influence the country’s foreign policy and that this community has been more concerned with its Islamic identity that its national identity. This did not cut much ice with the people earlier. But the situation has changed and all those who are genuinely interested in countering the Jana Sangh’s influence will do well not to lend credence to its campaign. They have acted indiscreetly in recalling Gandhi’s support to the Khilafat movement.
Slow Reaction
It must be said, however, that it is not only the Government that has been slow to take cognizance of the drift of public opinion. When the Ahmedabad riots broke out even secular-minded intellectuals did not show sufficient awareness of the fact that these were symptomatic of a deeper disturbance on the Indian social scene. Their criticism of the authorities should be tempered by a realisation of their own failure.
It is tempting for the political and intellectual elite to blame the Jana Sangh and the so-called Israeli and Western lobbies for the hardening of attitudes towards the Indian Muslims and the Arabs. This may satisfy its secular conscience and spare it the awesome responsibility of undertaking an agonising reappraisal of the national scene. But the escapist course is fraught with grave danger.
The fact must be faced that the prestige of the Arabs in this country has suffered a good deal in recent years. This development deserves to be examined at some length though care has to be taken at the same time to emphasise that India and the Arabs need each other’s goodwill, that this country has a stake in the success of the secular forces there and that its friendship helps elements that are working for change and modernity in those tradition-bound societies.
The standing of the Arabs has suffered in Indian eyes because of the political instability and the dictatorial nature of the regimes in many Arab countries, the bloody purges in Iraq and Syria, the failure of Arab nations to make the slightest progress towards democracy, their inefficiency as reflected in their disastrous defeat in 1967, their subsequent inability to make effective use of Soviet equipment, their extravagant claims and their total refusal to come to terms with the harsh realities.
Strong Case
A strong case can no doubt be made for the Arabs. They have been unjustly deprived of Palestine. Israel has greatly enlarged its territory since it was created by the United Nations. And it has refused to vacate the areas which it seized in 1967. But the fact remains that while these arguments may silence the average Indian they do not always convince him. It does not stop him from wondering whether the Arabs will stop short of exterminating the tiny State of Israel if they had the power to do so.
But such sympathy as he may have for the Jews because of the persecution they suffered in Europe is not the sole or even main explanation for the average Indian’s reaction to the West Asian crisis. Implicit in it is what may legitimately be called a clash of two different political cultures, one predominantly democratic and liberal and the other predominantly authoritarian.
The impression has spread that the Indian intelligentsia is so deeply anti-West and so favourably disposed towards peoples fighting against imperialism and its allies, real or imaginary, that its foreign policy orientation is completely divorced from its attachment to democratic values. This is a gross over-simplification. The Indian response to the outside world is far more discriminating.
In more specific terms the Arabs have suffered in Indian esteem because they have failed to reciprocate India’s unreserved support to them at the time of the Chinese aggression in 1962 and the Indo-Pakistani war in 1965. President Nasser was personally helpful in 1962 but he was extremely cautious and more than anxious not to alienate China in any way. The then Egyptian Prime Minister, Mr. Aly Sabry, in fact endorsed Peking’s case against New Delhi. At the time of the war with Pakistan in 1965 Jordan and Saudi Arabia were positively hostile to India and no other Arab country, not even the UAR, stood by it unreservedly.
During the better part of the Nehru era most people here did not insist on the principle of reciprocity. They were not greatly perturbed if the regimes which their Government supported did not fully endorse their case against Pakistan or China. But since 1962 they have been applying the test of reciprocity with increasing severity. It will be idle to pretend that the Arabs have measured up to it.
All this is not to suggest that the Government’s West Asia policy is basically unsound or that India can afford to ignore the Arabs and leave the field open for Pakistan to spread hatred against this country in the Arab world. But the credibility of its policy has suffered in the eyes of the public. Unless New Delhi takes this into account it will steadily add to its difficulties.
Politics in this country is fast getting radicalised which means that the masses are rapidly moving into the political arena. Foreign policy will not escape their attention for long. This may not be a pleasant prospect but there is no escape from it.
The Times of India, 21 November 1969