New Delhi must have contingency plans to defend its energy supply lines and workers in the Gulf countries in the event that the Arab uprisings result in calls for US and Nato forces to leave the region.
India’s interests in the Gulf region, known as West Asia in the Indian lexicon, are universally known. The political, strategic and economic implications of what is happening in the wider Middle East region for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Iran and Iraq, saddling the Persian-Arabian Gulf, are clearly of major interest to India.
Whether the peoples’ uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya will impact the Gulf countries is no longer the issue. The GCC countries know it will impact their domestic and regional positions and they have invoked the never-used Peninsula Shield mutual defence agreement to jointly intervene in Bahrain to save the Bahrain regime from capitulating before the Shia-led demonstrations and demands for democracy in Bahrain. The Saudi-led GCC, fearful of the spread of Arab peoples’ uprisings into their countries, have bought American and European Union (EU) silence on sending 2,000 paramilitary forces into Bahrain in return for pushing the Arab League to initiate the UNSC Resolution 1973 to take “all necessary measures”, including imposition of a no-fly zone, to prevent civilian killings in Libya. The only issue is whether internal and regional changes in the Gulf monarchies will be self-regulated and peaceful, or forced by the Tunisia contagion, as is happening in Yemen.
Energy security and energy pricing are two of the most important factors which determine a country’s growth rates. India imports some 75 per cent of its oil and gas requirements from the GCC, Iran and Iraq. Saudi Arabia is our single largest supplier of oil, followed by Iran, and in lesser quantities, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman. All our energy imports are carried on ships which pass through the Straits of Hormuz, whose maritime security is of vital importance to India. Ships carrying oil for India journey across the Persian Gulf into the Indian Ocean, where a new threat to our oil lanes has recently arisen in the form of Somali pirates.
It is true that the GCC countries are relatively less volatile than the North African Arab dictatorships for a number of reasons. The Gulf monarchies have followed the practice of participatory governance through positive interactions between the rulers and the ruled, as against prescriptive governance in Arab dictatorships. They have small local populations who are well looked after, and large expatriate populations indifferent to domestic governance, unlike the repressive treatment of Arab people in North African countries. Yet, the age-old sectarian divide in Islam between Shias and Sunnis has flared up in Bahrain, is threatening to have a potentially adverse impact on Saudi Arabia, and create further tensions between GCC and Iran. There is serious possibility that the political unrest in Middle East will spread to Yemen, Oman, Jordan, Syria and even Saudi Arabia, which will undoubtedly impact India’s interests in the GCC countries.
In addition to our overwhelming dependence for oil and gas on the Gulf countries, India has almost 5.5 million nationals currently working in the GCC, who send back approximately $30 billion to India as official remittances. India expects that in the normal course the presence of Indian professionals and workers in the booming Gulf economies will continue to increase and will be a source of larger remittances to India.
Despite the political volatility of the region from the days of the Iran-Iraq war, we have considered this area a comfort zone for our energy imports and labour exports. It is the accepted practice in international trade that security of trade, commerce and shipping is looked after by countries one trades with and their regional organisations in their territorial waters.
But the Gulf is a comfort zone precisely because the defence and security of the region, and therefore of our energy supplies and workers, has been the responsibility of US and Nato countries’ forces stationed in the region. US, British and French forces have their bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Oman and Bahrain, in agreement with these countries. Saudi Arabia and GCC neighbours have long-standing arrangements with USA, UK and others whereby, in return for the West providing full security cover and ensuring their defence, they fund the huge military-industrial complexes in the West through regular purchase of advanced weapons systems, which the GCC countries never really intended to use. It is in the mutual interest of the West and the GCC to defend the security of the GCC against threats from foreign powers ranging from the former Soviet Union and now Russia, to Iran and the non-State terrorist organisations, as well as to protect their energy resources. They have established a strong naval presence in the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz to ensure that oil shipping moves freely and without interruption to the rest of the world, including India. The US Navy’s fifth fleet has its HQ in Bahrain.
There is insufficient appreciation in New Delhi that the comfort zone of energy imports, labour exports and large remittances from the Gulf has a direct relationship with the presence of American and Western forces in the Gulf. Some of our diplomats in the GCC countries tell me that questions are beginning to be raised about India and China benefitting greatly in terms of energy supplies, labour exports and inward remittances from the GCC without contributing even an iota towards the security and defence of this region. It is unnatural for New Delhi to believe that its comfort zone will remain undisturbed even if dramatic domestic changes take place in these countries following the Arab awakening in the Middle East.
There is an equal possibility that anti-monarchy pressure may grow and less secular, more Islamic regimes may make their impact in the GCC countries.
What would happen if political changes in the Gulf as a result of the Arab uprisings result in calls for US forces to leave the Gulf? Would India join the call? Would we risk creating a security vacuum that will endanger our oil supply lines, the welfare of our workers and the volumes of our remittances? What would happen if the defence vacuum is filled by China to protect its economic interest? With China occupying the dominant heights in Pakistan and maintaining a strong energy presence in Iran, would India risk departure of the Western armed presence and consequent extension of Chinese’s influence in the Gulf region?
Do we have contingency plans to defend our energy supply lines and our workers? Is India’s opposition (abstention in a UN vote signifies that we do not agree with the substance of the resolution) to UNSC resolution 1973 an indicator of the policy we want to adopt with regard to the Western military presence in the GCC? These are difficult questions to answer but they do not seem as distant today as before the Tunisian uprising. India needs to ponder over these issues before it is too late.
The author is former permanent representative of India to the UN and the UN secretary general’s special envoy for Iraq
