India-UAE linkage

New Delhi and Abu Dhabi took a leap forward as they inked an accord for an ambitious trade corridor, which will also connect their dots geographically. Riding high on a passionate agenda to rewrite relations, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met UAE President Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan for the fifth time in a year, and agreed to further their 2022 commitment for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, and work for realising a transcontinental collaboration with Europe and the US in the wings. This summit and the cordiality behind it underscore the decisive edge of economics in realpolitik in an era of military alliances.

India has rightly struck the tangibles that it enjoys in its ties with the UAE. Almost one-third of the Emirates’ population are Indians to the tune of 3.5 million, and have an edge in trade. Moreover, the geopolitical shifts had landed both the countries on the same wavelength of the Western nations. Perhaps, this factor has lured the US and India to plan a first of its kind sea-and-landmass connectivity to counter Beijing’s largesse of Belt and Road Initiative. Thus, India playing host to G20 Summit last year boasted the cardinal principle of this inter-continental corridor aiming to link India across the Arabian Sea to the UAE, and onwards to Saudi Arabia and Israel up to the Mediterranean shores.

The UAE and India have come a long way, and it is noticeable that they have shunned the prisms of prejudice, and mean business in a real sense. This must serve as a precedent for many others in the region and beyond, including India, which opts for partiality in burying the hatchet when it comes to immediate neighbours, especially Pakistan and China. This selectivity in foreign policy has scuttled geo-economics and connectivity has almost come to a naught, denying the people the dividends of regionalism. This highlights the necessity that Delhi and Islamabad too must indulge in some introspection to correct their course of action, and relive the geography by boosting commercial, cultural and people-centric relations.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2024.

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