Mani Shankar Aiyar writes, From Nehru to Rajiv Gandhi, the careful cultivation of Arab friendships made us the most influential outsider in the Arab world. We began siding with Israel and cozying up to the Americans in Narasimha Raos time (who, I often think, was perhaps our first BJP Prime Minister). By neglecting our relationship with the Arabs for the better part of the last twenty years, we are now virtually without a voice in a region from where we import 70% of our oil and is host to some 7 million expatriate Indians whose remittances fill our coffers. What little influence we had left is now reduced to nil by an inaugural Presidents Address that studiously and insultingly ignores West Asia and a Prime Minister who does not know the difference between Bhutan and Nepal or Ladakh and Thimpu. How then can we expect him to tell between the Farhat and the Dijla? In this gathering darkness, all we have to rely on is the ever-reliable Indian Foreign Service to which I once had the proud honour of belonging. Allah preserve us from the saffronisation of the Indian Foreign Service.
Posted on: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 14:01:06 +0000
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