Weeks after the Babri Masjid demolition in December 1992 by crazed pracharaks, a handful of Indian — and Pakistani — expatriates stormed the Krishna temple tucked away in the warren of shops in the Indian quarter of the Gulf city of Dubai. The mob stomped all over the sanctum sanctorum and destroyed the tiny idol.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who became the first Indian Prime Minister in 34 years to visit the United Arab Emirates, may or may not know of the shrine’s desecration, floored as he was by the announcement that the UAE crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, had gifted land for a Hindu place of worship in the capital, Abu Dhabi.
The photographs of the shattered idol never saw the light of day. Dubai’s authorities imposed a news blackout on the Babri fallout, including the mystery fire at dawn that ravaged an Indian-owned store, and the siege of the new Indian consulate by the same mob that was quickly put down. But it was the first time the Gulf nation, tied through the Cold War era to the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as a jihadi counter to the Soviets, felt the heat of the sectarian fires that would consume India as the Bharatiya Janata Party rapidly grew to political prominence.
Though geographically separated by the expanse of the Arabian Sea, the city-state’s rulers were now all too aware of how vulnerable they were to the pulls and pressures of India’s polity. It was rocked further when multiple bomb blasts tore through Mumbai early next year and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, with practised ease, used the opportunity provided by their local linkages forged through the Taliban years, to provide shelter to the terror accused and then surreptitiously relocated them, and notorious mastermind Dawood Ibrahim, to Karachi.
The questionable benefits of terror as an instrument of state policy — used later to bleed India over Kashmir — were further reinforced when one of the 9/11 terrorists flying the aircraft into New York’s Twin Towers turned out to be from the UAE. However, the full import of giving the ISI a free run on the back of their shared religious beliefs didn’t hit home until 26/11 and the brazen sea-borne terrorist attack by Pakistan-born radicalised jihadis on Mumbai in 2008. That Mumbai and Bollywood and the Taj Mahal Hotel were much loved icons in the Arab world was only one small aspect of the collective horror felt by Emirati ruling families. Far more worrisome was what they had signed on to, in being complicit with Pakistan’s “state within a state”.
Indians and Pakistanis had lived together peacefully in the UAE for years. That could well be at risk as the ease of doing business had already facilitated the dodgy “hawala” transactions that funded the intermittent terror attacks that erupted across India. These were executed by disaffected blue-collar NRIs, open to ISI sophistry and arm-twisting. Equally clandestine was the covert import of nuclear weapons technology through front companies into Pakistan via the Emirates’ largely unguarded coastline and ports.
Adding to the security challenge are Gulf states such as Saudi and Qatar that have been drawn into a deadly vortex, in the battle for supremacy with an increasingly aggressive Shia Iran, seeking to secure its proxies in Iraq and Syria, prop up rebels in Bahrain, and in Saudi Arabia’s Achilles’ heel, Yemen, even as unstable regimes across north and east Africa pose a threat to the Gulf states’ maritime borders.
How long the UAE will remain untouched, already buffeted by the failed promise of the Arab Spring and the threat posed by the Islamic caliphate, is unclear. An unprecedented crackdown on a network of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood sympathisers underlined the Emirates’ concern that its emergence as a business hub would be derailed by terror networks operating below the radar.
The UAE that Prime Minister Modi and his delegation visited last week, therefore, is a vastly different place than it was in the 34-year run-up to the landmark visit. Where once every effort by Indian diplomats to place the ISI’s activities on the table would be brushed aside with the gratuitous advice that India and Pakistan must seek to settle their differences over Kashmir first, and anti-India statements by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation were couched in language crafted in Islamabad, the years since 26/11 — set off by the turning point that was the 2005 US-India nuclear deal — dramatically changed the way that India is now perceived in the region. Its fast growing economy clearly made it a preferred investment destination over Pakistan’s inherently unstable military-ridden polity and its remittance and aid-driven economy.
The UAE’s outreach to India has been consistent. Its Prime Minister and ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, visited India twice. Flagship companies like Emaar invested in Hyderabad but, singed by India’s laws, withdrew. Airlines like Etihad and Emirates would like a much bigger footprint. Despite the announcement of a corpus of funds, stalled economic reforms will continue to hold back many from reaching the $75 billion target for UAE investments set out in the Indo-UAE joint statement.
Clearly, before the strategic partnership between the Gulf and the South Asian giant is given the patina of a “Look West” breakthrough, it must be recognised that this is a UAE trying once again to gain traction with a government in Delhi that — unlike its United Progressive Alliance predecessor — will hopefully be easier to do business with.
The agreement that Mr Modi came away with, that centres on counter-terrorism — and energy — has been there for the taking; if the previous Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, had only visited the UAE. Either way, whether or not Iran’s doublespeak on Chabahar port provoked the unheralded visit to Tehran’s rival, Mr Modi in lashing out at Pakistan’s terror network has set the stage for an acrimonious encounter on August 23 between the Indian and Pakistani national security advisers, while drawing a line in the sand on ISI’s continued activity in its old stomping ground.
Pertinent to note, that in the UAE, it’s not Pakistan — ideological ally but a broken, fractured polity nevertheless, and cashing in on a projected threat by the ISIS — that the Emiratis want “a continuous engagement” with. It’s India. Mr Modi’s India. Let’s get it right this time.
