Home arrow Archives arrow Round the World arrow Round The World 2012 arrow Krishna’s Egypt Visit:KEEPING PACE WITH ARAB SPRING, by Monish Tourangbam, 6 Mar, 2012
 
Home
News and Features
INFA Digest
Parliament Spotlight
Dossiers
Publications
Journalism Awards
Archives
RSS
 
 
 
 
 
 
Krishna’s Egypt Visit:KEEPING PACE WITH ARAB SPRING, by Monish Tourangbam, 6 Mar, 2012 Print E-mail

Round The World

New Delhi, 6 March 2012

Krishna’s Egypt Visit

 KEEPING PACE WITH ARAB SPRING

By Monish Tourangbam

Research Scholar, School of International Studies (JNU)

The Foreign Minister SM Krishna’s recent visit to Egypt to attend the 6th India-Egypt Joint Commission meeting came at a critical phase of Cairo’s experiment with democracy. As Egypt takes the first steps towards fashioning a post-Mubarak Government and builds its political image anew, New Delhi needs to find its own narrative of relationship with the new powers emerging in this North African country.

Significantly, Krishna’s visit was an exercise at examining the changes and continuities in Egypt which will help India find its feet in the shifting sands of Arab politics in the region. But post the revolution which forced long-time autocrat Hosni Mubarak to step down and inspired a wave of upheavals around the Arab world, changes and reform have been slow and laced with hurdles. The caretaker Egyptian military that was initially lauded for siding with the Arab awakening has now been accused of scuttling reforms and preventing changes which were promised.

It is too early to predict the political fate of Egypt, but recent Parliamentary elections clearly show a predictable dominance of Islamist forces whereby New Delhi needs to keep itself abreast of the new developments in Cairo, specially vis-a-vis  its impact on larger West Asian and North African politics.

The Indian Foreign Minister met a host of Egyptian leaders, the stand-out being the one-to-one with Mohamed Morsy, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, Freedom and Justice Party, which emerged as the largest force in the first post-Mubarak Egyptian Parliament. The meeting was an exercise to understand and build ties with the new political force emerging as Egypt goes for Presidential elections this May.

Importantly, the legitimacy which the Muslim Brotherhood has gained would have larger political and strategic repercussions in the Arab world. The dominance of Islamist forces in Egypt, a predominantly Sunni Muslim country would add another sub-text to the larger Sunni-Shia rivalry evident in the Arab world, which has been largely indentified with the Saudi Arabia –Iran tussle.

Arguably, would the rise of Islamist forces in Cairo add more complexities to this rivalry, impacting the developments in countries like Syria and Bahrain? One can only wait and watch. India’s approach to these countries should be mindful of these developments, but not determined by the Shia-Sunni divide.

Undoubtedly, New Delhi’s relations with Arab countries, at this juncture, should be based on mutual interests born out of secular, pragmatic grounds of policy-making where countries come together via practical globalized business-interconnections.

Indeed, Egypt is India’s gateway to the African Continent and has enjoyed a good working relationship. Recall, India and Egypt enjoyed an enviable relationship during the Nehru-Nasser era and were joint exponents of the Non-Alignment policy during the heydays of the Cold War which brought the two countries together. This nostalgia is often repeated in defining relations between the two.

Interestingly, the dynamics of international politics and power re-arrangements have not affected the relations adversely. Since the 1980s, there have been four Prime Ministerial visits to Egypt: Rajiv Gandhi (1985); Narasimha Rao (1995); Gujral (1997); and Manmohan Singh (2009). Dethroned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak visited India in 1982, 1983 (to attend the NAM Summit) and in November 2008.

Also, India’s economic growth in the last decade and increasing public and private sector investments should be good reason for any Government in Cairo to augment pragmatic ties with New Delhi. In fact, this was exactly the tone and theme of Krishna’s visit. Rather than trumpeting the glorious past, his visit seemed to be more future-oriented and forward looking vis-à-vis the political set-up in Egypt.

Significantly, Egypt has been an important trade partner and this trend fortunately has not been affected by the upheaval therein. Interestingly, some Indian companies started new production facilities there last year. Besides, as the political map in Egypt and the Arab world continues to be redrawn, India’s credentials as one of the largest and most resilient growing markets could potentially serve as shock absorbers for any unforeseen changes in power configurations.

The India-Egypt Bilateral Trade Agreement, based on the Most Favoured Nation clause has been in operation since March 1978 and the Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement entered into force in November 2000. Total trade increased from US$ 1.9 b in 2006-07 to US$ 3.2 b in 2010-11. India has a total investment of approximately US$ 2.5 billion in about 50 companies/ projects.

Indian companies are providing direct-indirect employment to 35,000 Egyptians and have launched a Pan African e-Network Project, with an E-learning Centre in operation at Alexandria University since July 2009. The Oberoi group owns two hotels and runs cruises, Essar, Reliance, and Tata’s are also planning investments there worth over $20 billion. Krishna’s also signed several agreements, including a MoU on cooperation in the environment protection field, cultural exchange programme for the next three years, a work plan for agricultural cooperation and another MoU between Egyptian Organisation for Standardisation and Bureau of Indian Standards. Krishna also unveiled Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s portrait at Cairo’s famed House of Poetry.

Pertinently, Krishna also met the Arab League Secretary General Nabil El Araby with which differences persist over how to handle the Syrian crisis. New Delhi’s recent vote on the Syrian issue, favouring the Arab League resolution raised a lot of eyebrows but since then India has continuously reiterated it did not vote to oust the Assad regime but was something to be decided by the Syrian people and not by pre-judged external intervention.

However, India’s ties with Arab nations, more so the Gulf countries is evident in the approximately 6 million Indian expatriates who send large remittances, accounting for roughly 50 per cent of money transferred from the Gulf; not to mention India’s energy dependence on these countries. As such, despite failing to find a common ground on the Syrian issue, New Delhi and Cairo agreed to step up economic ties, in preparation for the upcoming India Arab Investment Projects Conclave in Abu Dhabi.

All in all, India’s ties with Egypt and Arab countries at large needs to be structured keeping in mind the vital stakes that New Delhi has in the stability of these nations. Its ties should not be regime based but be built so as to withstand any sort of power re-arrangement therein. New Delhi needs to define its own narrative in its relations with the Arab world, rather than being restricted to saying “yes/no” to other’s engineered plans! -----INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

< Previous   Next >
 
   
     
 
 
  Mambo powered by Best-IT