Anirudha Karindalam
At The Week in Kochi, India, February 20, 2024
In July 2022, after a successful visit to Germany, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to make a brief stopover in Abu Dhabi.
Because of the short notice, officials at the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi did not get enough time to prepare. But what surprised them was the decision by President Shaikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to receive Modi at the airport.
The two leaders greeted each other with a hug, before heading out for a quick meeting. The same sequence of events was repeated in July 2023, the only difference being Modi was returning from France this time.
Since he became Prime Minister in 2014, Modi has visited the UAE seven times, making it the most-visited country by him. The UAE is today India’s most notable partner in West Asia and has established itself as an important connection between India and the region.
Pursuing common interests
There has been growth in the bilateral partnership since Modi became Prime Minister.
When he went to the UAE for the first time in August 2015, it was the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister in 34 years, the last was by Indira Gandhi in 1981.
The two countries have many common interests that they will pursue, keeping in mind the ground realities. The focus was to further expand the network of bilateral relationships that have been built up. A central reason for the UAE being India’s closest partner in West Asia is the 3.5 million-strong Indian community, which has been the most significant contributor to the UAE’s economy since the country was formed in 1971.
Last year, India and the UAE completed 50 years of diplomatic relations.
Union Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said that India and the UAE were bound by bonds that predate India’s independence, by values both countries cherish and by interests that they share.
“Today, the UAE is India’s pre-eminent partner in the region in terms of both the strength and the breadth of our partnership. It extends to every aspect of human endeavour, including food security, energy security, counter-terrorism and multilateral cooperation,” he said.
Strong, personal friendship
External Affairs Ministry sources said that the bonhomie between Modi and Nahyan had been a key factor driving the relationship.
“Their friendship has played a very important role in furthering the economic cooperation and mutual trust between the two nations,” an official said.
Not everyone agrees with the point, though.
Former External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said that Modi’s friendship with the UAE President had nothing to do with the growth in bilateral ties.
“If you look at our ties with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Malaysia, or even the UAE, these are transactional ties that will become fragile if something goes wrong. Indira Gandhi enjoyed far better relations with leaders like Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. Those were genuine, close friendships. If one gives credit to the friendship between two leaders for the wonderful ties between two countries, the leaders have to be made accountable for their actions [that hurt the relations] as well,” he said.
Interaction between civilisations
Former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations T P Sreenivasan said that India-UAE relations were an example of the people-to-people ties leading to trust and cooperation between the two governments.
“The centuries of interaction between the two civilisations have generated goodwill and faith, transcending religion. The mutuality came to the fore as Indians contributed to the building of the UAE, and the UAE reciprocated by establishing a strategic bond,” he said.
With strategic bond comes new paths of cooperation, which, in the case of the UAE and India, are across sectors―fintech, clean energy and climate action, food security, digital payments, investments, defence and cyber security. And now there is education. The Indian Institute of Technology Delhi campus in Abu Dhabi, which was announced some months ago, will function as an interim campus at Zayed University in Dubai.
“The IIT campus will be set up in the UAE in two to three years. The aim is to attract the best minds from the UAE and from across the world,” an official said.
Investments through CEPA
The UAE’s investments in India are mostly in sectors such as real estate, transport and warehousing and coal, oil and gas.
Since the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between India and the UAE came into effect in 2022 there has been a 16% increase in trade between the two countries, taking it to US$ 84.84 billion. But what has caught the attention of the world is the memorandum of understanding between the Reserve Bank of India and the Central Bank of the UAE to push cross-border trade using the Rupee and the Dirham.
This, experts said, could bolster the internationalisation of the rupee.
It is also expected to boost bilateral trade and investments in the region and will also help optimise transaction costs for remittances from Indians.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is helping the UAE to develop the first national domestic card scheme (DCS) for the nation.
“Once we implement the scheme, any Indian coming to the UAE with the RuPay card will be able to use it to pay seamlessly. At the same time, any Emirati or a resident of the UAE with a credit or debit card from the DCS can make a seamless payment when they come to India,” India’s Ambassador to the UAE Sunjay Sudhir said.
The relationship between India and the UAE has been built on close cultural, economic and people-to-people ties between the nations. The setting up of the BAPS Swaminarayan Temple in Abu Dhabi is another example of the growing ties.
The UAE government provided land free of cost for the temple.
“People in the UAE know that India is a mosaic culture, with tolerance, inclusivity and diversity. The UAE has always accepted people from all over the world. The message is not new. But messages need symbols. BAPS is one such symbol,” an Embassy official said.
Anirudha Karindalam is a Sub-Editor at The Week, the magazine which carried the above article authorised for sharing by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
