Modi Diplomacy is Getting Stronger in the World

Parmanand Pandey

Diplomacy primarily depends on the economic strength and military prowess of any country. Think of 1969 when the first summit of Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) was held in Morocco. The venue was changed from Saudi Arabia to Morocco because of the fear of Israel, which had threatened to bombard the venue in the country. India, as everybody knows is the second largest Muslim populated country in the world after Indonesia, which was very enthusiastic to send its representative to the OIC. Mrs Indira Gandhi, in her zeal, decided to send a rabid communal but Cambridge educated Central Minister, the Late Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad to the OIC. By the way, it must be said that It was the same Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad, who as a minister in the government of Gopinath Bordoloi had allowed a large number of Bangladeshis to be settled in Assam, which created demographic misbalance in the state resulting into many violent agitations in the later years.
Coming to the Morocco OIC meeting, Pakistan was represented by its firebrand Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who raised the objection that why a Hindu country, India was invited to meet? Without batting an eyelid, the spineless king of Saudi Arabia asked Faqruddin Ali Ahmad to leave the meeting. Mr Ahmad did not have even the courage to protest to the insult that was heaped on him and the entire country by the petrodollar power drunk Saudi Arabia.
See the difference in 2019. The Saudi Prince’s Mohammad Bin Salman was in India barely a few days before OIC meet and he personally requested the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to send the Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj as the Guest of Honour in the Abu Dhabi meeting. When Pakistan came to know about it, a strong protest was lodged against this invitation by no less a person than Prime Minister Imran Khan himself. The members of the organisation of Islamic countries did not care two hoots to the protest of Pakistan. On the other hand, a warm welcome was accorded to India’s Foreign Minister, who delivered a nearly twenty-minute long speech, which was heard with rapt attention and was applauded by the members.
This is the major achievement of the Narendra Modi Government which has been able to exert the authority of India all over the world, including the Organisation of Islamic Countries. This may also be seen as the Paradigm shift in the policies of the OIC. The OIC, no doubt, is an organisation of intellectually most backward, regressive, feudal and fundamentalist countries. The publically snubbed Pakistan had no choice but to boycott the meeting and cut a very sorry figure.
However, as they say, old habits die hard. In the name of Islamic Brotherhood the OIC, in order to balance, between Pakistan and India, the OIC adopted a resolution on Jammu and Kashmir, which is absolutely an internal matter of India. The Modi government has done well by lodging a strong protest against this uncalled for resolution of the Muslim countries. Hopefully, the leadership of the OIC will soon realise its mistake on passing this resolution on Kashmir. Earlier the OIC used to blackmail the world because of being the biggest petroleum producing countries but now it is no longer in that position.
It must be mentioned here that it is because of the surfeit of oil production from Russia, Brazil and the USA, the Petrol prices had tumbled to 35 US dollar per barrel. The Muslim petroleum producing countries particularly; Saudi Arabia, Oman, Jorden, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait begged the other countries not to reduce the fuel prices to such a cheap level. The fissures have already erupted in the Islamic countries. Iran has offered the diesel and petrol to India in lesser prices that are charged by the Islamic oil-producing countries.
National Interest is the core of the diplomacy and here is the opportunity for India to play its card well. It may be the cause of sadness among most of the Muslim countries of the world that even Pakistan wants to improve its relationship with Israel because that is called the real politic. Those in India, who are opposed to having good relations with Israel, must take note of it. It is an open secret that at one point of time Saudi Arabia was the biggest fund supplier to all Islamic terrorist organisations of the world and Pakistan was the closest military ally to those outlaws.