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King Abdullah: Moderate who had to deal with Islamist 'boomerang'
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By C Uday Bhaskar The demise of the ailing Saudi Arabian monarch king Abdullah is a
significant punctuation for the desert kingdom, the Arab-West Asian
region and the extended Islamic world, which in turn has larger global
implications. The royal transition has been effected and King Salman
bin Abdulaziz al-Saud has taken over the reins of the kingdom. In
keeping with local practice, shorn of titles and pomp, Abdullah was
buried in an unmarked grave.
Stability in Saudi Arabia is of
considerable international significance and the first jitters were felt
in the oil market when prices rose as soon as news king Abdullah's
demise of was formally announced - but the expected transition has
calmed the waters.
For India, the Saudi kingdom has multiple
relevance that includes Riyadh's profile as a major energy supplier, the
presence of almost three million Indian expatriates in that country and
the status of the Saudi monarch in the politics and ideologies that
currently animate the Muslim world. At a time when Delhi is preparing to
receive US President Barack Obama as chief guest for the Republic Day
parade, it may be recalled that king Abdullah was the chief guest for
the same event in January 2006 and this was as unprecedented and
noteworthy as the current Obama visit.
Despite Saudi Arabia's
primacy in the oil world, India's hydrocarbon dependency and the magnet
that the desert kingdom is to the Indian expat worker, the high-level
political contact between India and Saudi Arabia has been modest.
The
Abdullah visit in 2006 was a diplomatic landmark in the bilateral
relationship and this was reflected in the Delhi Declaration signed at
that time. The normally reticent Abdullah referred to India as his
"second home" and the content of the agreement acquired greater
resonance in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Saudi role in that tectonic
event. Subsequently then prime minister Manmohan Singh visited Riyadh in
2010 leading to the Riyadh Declaration testifying to the importance
that the two countries attached to the bilateral relationship.
This was further strengthened by the visit of then crown prince and now King Salman in February 2014.
It
is instructive to note that King Salman, after mourning the demise of
his brother Abdullah, in his first remarks, assured both his people and
the world at large that there would be an essential continuity in the
policies of the kingdom and that the Abdullah orientation would
continue. "We will continue adhering to the correct policies which Saudi
Arabia has followed since its establishment," King Salman declared on
state television.
This is an important reiteration both for Saudi
Arabia and its many interlocutors that include its benefactor - the
USA, as also countries like Egypt and Turkey, the Gulf states, Israel, -
and India, amongst others. In keeping with the Saudi practice of
succession, Abdullah became the crown prince and the first deputy prime
minister in 1982 when king Fahd succeeded king Khalid. He then assumed
the throne in August 2005 following the death of king Fahd though he
was the de-facto ruler since 1995.
In summary, Abdullah was both
witness to and a key player in some of the more tumultuous events of the
last three decades that included the overthrow of the shah of Iran and
the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that heralded the end of the
Cold War and the dissolution of the USSR. The Saudi role in funding
the Afghan mujahedin during the 1980s sowed the seeds for many of the
ideological challenges that confronted the Saudi monarchy in later
years, including the enormity of 9/11 and the fact that a majority of
the perpetrators who brought down the Twin Towers were Saudi citizens.
King
Abdullah's political acumen was severely tested in the aftermath of
9/11 and, to his credit, he was able to arrive at an uneasy
rapprochement with the US even while attempting to domestically
quarantine the Osama bin Laden fervor that had engulfed larger sections
of the Arab world.
A tempered moderate who embarked upon a
cautious programme of modernization, king Abdullah, in the last
decade, has been dealing with what has been aptly described as 'The
Islamic Boomerang' in a 2004 volume authored by Vice President Hamid
Ansari (A fromer Indian ambassador to Saudi Arabia). The Sunni-Shia
contestation that has become the tragic Syrian quagmire and the
virulence of the IS (Islamic State) are the most recent manifestations
of the robust propagation of Sunni-Wahabi Islam that began in the
early 1980s with active Saudi funding. The consequences of that
initiative clearly troubled king Abdullah over the years and one can
discern a quiet course correction that he supported with a focus on
inter-faith dialogues and reconciliation.
This was discernible
when then crown prince and now King Salman visited Delhi in early 2014
and the emphasis was on the need to forge a consensus within Islam and
eschew the many fissures that had emerged. As global leaders converge
on Riyadh to offer their condolences to the Saudi royal family, the
backdrop of both Paris and Peshawar serve as reminders of the radical
Islamist 'boomerang' effect. And this perhaps will be one of the
principal strands for deliberation during the Obama visit this week.
(C.
Uday Bhaskar is Director, Society for Policy Studies. The views
expressed are personal. He can be contacted at [email protected])