I had the unique opportunity to work in Dubai for 9 years. During the
years I worked there, I had marveled at U. A. E’s wealth, riches,
broad-mindedness, simplicity, and great vision for the future. Thanks to the
oil wealth, not only the U.A.E, but the entire Gulf region became highly
prosperous. Thanks also due to many visionary rulers, they had spent their
wealth on productive and futuristic assets. They attracted the best talents
from all over the world, benefitting mainly the under-developed and developing
countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Philippines, and several African
nations. They had converted a desert into an oasis.
Some of these Arab nations, especially those like Abu Dhabi and Saudi
Arabia, had been sitting on tons of oil wealth. Not able to find lucrative, yet,
safe investments, a substantial portion of this wealth found their way into
investments in highly developed nations like the USA, U.K etc., and
substantially, in real estates too. Of course, a lot of money was getting
wasted too.
During my stay there, I had always wondered why our India was unable to
exploit our traditional bonding with the United Arab Emirates and their wealth
for our productive developments. I had dreamed about a possible change in our
country-to-country relationship. I had vocalized my feelings during casual
conversation with many.
Remember, until a couple of decades back, our country and our banking
system had always suffered from shortage of financial resources. Other than
receiving substantial help by way of remittances from expat Indians in the U.
A. E there was hardly any noticeable government-to-government bonding between
India and the U. A. E. We could have constructively exploited our historical
connections with them for infrastructure development in India during the
eighties and nineties. India is known for honoring financial commitments and
have never defaulted on our international commitments.
U. A. E prospered because of physical and intellectual labor of Indians
for a substantial part. Our engineers, accountants, finance professionals,
salesmen, and manual labor had helped Gulf countries, including U. A. E build
their nations. We had enjoyed trade relations with them for thousands of years.
We had never tried to rub these Arabic nations on the wrong side, so much so
that, we were scared of even uttering the word ‘Israel’ in public. Indians are
a much respected lot among the Arabs for their sincerity, loyalty and
dependability. Many Arabs spoke freely Hindi and even, Malayalam. Everything
was just ripe in our favor.
Probably, India missed some golden opportunities in the past.
I believe, the same story goes about our association with Israel too. We
had failed in the past to use Israel’s superior knowledge, strategy, and
technology for our benefit.
I now see an honest, strategic effort to rectify the past mistakes and
build a fruitful relationship with U. A. E and Israel, not-withstanding our past
ambivalent approach to Arab-Israel bilateral issues and conflicts. At least, a
delayed realization and effort. We should only pray that the new approach brings
positive results for India.
My dream about India – U.A.E relationship never found its way into a story,
sadly though.
There is one more issue I must write about. That is about the North
Eastern India. That might have to wait for a couple of days more….
