Saudi Cables highlight Riyadh’s concerns over Iran’s influence in India

[Serpentine]

In WikiLeaks, how Saudis wanted to match Iranian influence over India | The Indian Express

Written by Sushant Singh | New Delhi | Updated: June 24, 2015 2:15 am
Saudi Arabia is worried about Iran’s growing influence in India and Tehran’s outreach to the Shia community in the country, according to diplomatic documents released by WikiLeaks last week. Secretariat General of the Muslim World League (Mecca), a controversial organisation with terror funding links, had requested Saudi Arabia to establish the organisation’s Salafi/Wahhabi centres in India, the documents show. And while Riyadh desired to improve relations with India, it was also cognisant of issues that may be sensitive to Pakistan.

In Saudi WikiLeaks, Delhi theft and S American ‘Hindutva’

The dump of diplomatic documents that these revelations are part of, allegedly from the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), were released by WikiLeaks on Friday. These documents are in Arabic and provide a greater insight into Saudi Arabia’s thinking on India than the English-language ones, which feature routine diplomaticcommunications.

Rohan Joshi, US-based Fellow of The Takshashila Institution, who studied these Arabic-language documents, says, “While the English-language documents that appeared on WikiLeaks tended to be mundane diplomatic exchanges between the Indian Embassy in Riyadh and Saudi Arabia’s MOFA, the Arabic-language documents (many authored by Saudi Arabia’s Embassy in New Delhi) appear to underscore Saudi Arabia’s deep concern over Iran’s increased economic and cultural engagement with India and India’s Shia community.”

The information on increasing Iranian influence in India comes from two separate reports. The first one is from the Saudi Embassy in New Delhi, dated January 23, 2012; the other is from the Saudi MOFA. The date on the second memo is left blank; but going by the body of the report it appears to have been drafted in 2011-12.

Both these reports clearly show that the Saudis very closely monitor Iranian and Shia activity in India.

The January 2012 report (incomplete) from the Saudi Embassy in New Delhi harps on Iran’s growing influence in India by providing examples of outreach by Iran to Shia communities in the country. It gives examples of seminars and events organised in India by the Iranians. The report also talks about Iran’s plans to establish a large number of cultural centres in India.

As per the 2001 census, Muslims form 13.4 per cent of India’s population. Though no official numbers exist, Pew Research Center has estimated that 16 million to 24 million of India’s Muslims are of Shia denomination. Iran has had linguistic, cultural and historical ties with India which go back to the Mughal era. These relations have not been limited to Shias in India, and Iran’s ability to mine that familiarity and goodwill seems to be troubling the Saudis.

Unlike the Arab countries, differences between Shias and Sunnis in India are doctrinal, and mainly in areas such as ritual law, theology and religious organisation. Relations between the two sects in India have largely remained unaffected from the blowback of the violent conflicts unfolding in the Middle East.

The undated Saudi MOFA report is a partial review of India’s foreign policy in the region. It says that India considers itself a competitor to China and is cosy with the West, but there is a powerful lobby in India to maintain strategic independence in foreign policy. It dwells over Iran-India cooperation, especially in trade. India and Iran may work together in Afghanistan to curtain Pakistan’s influence after the US leaves, the Saudi MOFA report adds.

India has always maintained a friendly relationship with Iran, even after Western countries had imposed sanctions against Tehran for pursuing nuclear enrichment. Besides being a lead supplier of crude oil, a friendly Iran provides India with access to landlocked Afghanistan, which has been denied by Pakistan.

Another memo from the Saudi MOFA, written in 2010, harps on the importance and priority that Saudi Arabia places on improving relations with India. It also underscores the fact that the directive to improve relations with India does not contradict the need to take into account issues that may be sensitive to Pakistan.

Another (incomplete) document is on the establishment of a Salafi Centre in India is a request to Riyadh from the Secretariat General of the Muslim World League (Mecca). The date written isn’t clearly legible, but looks to be 2012. The league was looking to establish an institution called The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Centre for Salafi Studies in India, along with opening more such centres in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Muslim World League is a controversial Saudi government funded charity, which has earlier been linked with international terror financing.
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@Saif al-Arab

I thought you said we are too obsessed with Arabs. If Saudi cables proved anything, it's exactly the opposite.

PS: It seems Saudis tried to create another Taliban in India, but they have failed by now.

 

[Skull and Bones]

Saudis can shove their plans to open Salafi/Wahabi centers in India, up their arse.

 

[chhota bheem]

we only want KSA's money,petrol and regarding schools or cultural centers,thanks but not thanks

 

[Saif al-Arab]

In WikiLeaks, how Saudis wanted to match Iranian influence over India | The Indian Express

Written by Sushant Singh | New Delhi | Updated: June 24, 2015 2:15 am
Saudi Arabia is worried about Iran’s growing influence in India and Tehran’s outreach to the Shia community in the country, according to diplomatic documents released by WikiLeaks last week. Secretariat General of the Muslim World League (Mecca), a controversial organisation with terror funding links, had requested Saudi Arabia to establish the organisation’s Salafi/Wahhabi centres in India, the documents show. And while Riyadh desired to improve relations with India, it was also cognisant of issues that may be sensitive to Pakistan.

In Saudi WikiLeaks, Delhi theft and S American ‘Hindutva’

The dump of diplomatic documents that these revelations are part of, allegedly from the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), were released by WikiLeaks on Friday. These documents are in Arabic and provide a greater insight into Saudi Arabia’s thinking on India than the English-language ones, which feature routine diplomaticcommunications.

Rohan Joshi, US-based Fellow of The Takshashila Institution, who studied these Arabic-language documents, says, “While the English-language documents that appeared on WikiLeaks tended to be mundane diplomatic exchanges between the Indian Embassy in Riyadh and Saudi Arabia’s MOFA, the Arabic-language documents (many authored by Saudi Arabia’s Embassy in New Delhi) appear to underscore Saudi Arabia’s deep concern over Iran’s increased economic and cultural engagement with India and India’s Shia community.”

The information on increasing Iranian influence in India comes from two separate reports. The first one is from the Saudi Embassy in New Delhi, dated January 23, 2012; the other is from the Saudi MOFA. The date on the second memo is left blank; but going by the body of the report it appears to have been drafted in 2011-12.

Both these reports clearly show that the Saudis very closely monitor Iranian and Shia activity in India.

The January 2012 report (incomplete) from the Saudi Embassy in New Delhi harps on Iran’s growing influence in India by providing examples of outreach by Iran to Shia communities in the country. It gives examples of seminars and events organised in India by the Iranians. The report also talks about Iran’s plans to establish a large number of cultural centres in India.

As per the 2001 census, Muslims form 13.4 per cent of India’s population. Though no official numbers exist, Pew Research Center has estimated that 16 million to 24 million of India’s Muslims are of Shia denomination. Iran has had linguistic, cultural and historical ties with India which go back to the Mughal era. These relations have not been limited to Shias in India, and Iran’s ability to mine that familiarity and goodwill seems to be troubling the Saudis.

Unlike the Arab countries, differences between Shias and Sunnis in India are doctrinal, and mainly in areas such as ritual law, theology and religious organisation. Relations between the two sects in India have largely remained unaffected from the blowback of the violent conflicts unfolding in the Middle East.

The undated Saudi MOFA report is a partial review of India’s foreign policy in the region. It says that India considers itself a competitor to China and is cosy with the West, but there is a powerful lobby in India to maintain strategic independence in foreign policy. It dwells over Iran-India cooperation, especially in trade. India and Iran may work together in Afghanistan to curtain Pakistan’s influence after the US leaves, the Saudi MOFA report adds.

India has always maintained a friendly relationship with Iran, even after Western countries had imposed sanctions against Tehran for pursuing nuclear enrichment. Besides being a lead supplier of crude oil, a friendly Iran provides India with access to landlocked Afghanistan, which has been denied by Pakistan.

Another memo from the Saudi MOFA, written in 2010, harps on the importance and priority that Saudi Arabia places on improving relations with India. It also underscores the fact that the directive to improve relations with India does not contradict the need to take into account issues that may be sensitive to Pakistan.

Another (incomplete) document is on the establishment of a Salafi Centre in India is a request to Riyadh from the Secretariat General of the Muslim World League (Mecca). The date written isn’t clearly legible, but looks to be 2012. The league was looking to establish an institution called The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Centre for Salafi Studies in India, along with opening more such centres in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Muslim World League is a controversial Saudi government funded charity, which has earlier been linked with international terror financing.
------------------------------
@Saif al-Arab

I thought you said we are too obsessed with Arabs. If Saudi cables proved anything, it's exactly the opposite.

PS: It seems Saudis tried to create another Taliban in India, but they have failed by now.

Who says that Wikileaks are to be trusted completely and you must be naive to believe that Iran are not combating KSA on similar fronts. Wake up, there is a proxy war going on. You do realize that the speeches of your leader are translated to the whole world nowadays and what your politicians are saying? Each week they are talking about KSA or at least alluding to KSA. Either that or Israel or the "evil West".

Yes, Iranians in general are more obsessed about Arabs than vice versa for historical reasons that I don't have to elaborate on here. Nowadays though both camps are equally obsessed with each other as we can all see in the ME.

Saudis can shove their plans to open Salafi/Wahabi centers in India, up their arse.

There is nothing called "Wahhabi" and KSA itself is the birthplace of Islam and India already has 200 million Muslims (almost) so the "game" is lost if the goal was to limit Muslim presence.

Sufism is from Arabia/Arab world too and the first Muslims who settled in India were Arabs too from Arabia.

Islam in India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are still Arab Muslim communities in India to this day which you might know about.

Dawoodi Bohra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (now mixed with locals of Northwestern India mostly, not even sure if many can speak Arabic still)

In India you have Deobandism or what it is called which is indigenous if you want to play those games. I am sure that @jamahir can help me here.

we only want KSA's money,petrol and regarding schools or cultural centers,thanks but not thanks

Aside from billion big investments, billions in remittances due to Indian workers in KSA etc. Or being a observer state in the Arab League or dealing with other GCC states or the Arab world.

In return KSA is mostly importing rice and food products.

Listen Saudi Arabians have no major problems with Indians. In fact what is now Arabia and India/Pakistan have traded with each other for millenniums. It was very normal for Arab and Indian traders to do trade until not long ago by sea and in fact many South Asians ended up settling in what later became KSA due to that and Hajj, Umrah etc. Which is why surnames such as Al-Hindi are quite common in certain regions of KSA.

@Skull and Bones @chhota bheem

Trade and cultural links between ancient Arabia and ancient India date back to third millennium BC.[1]

Heptulla, Nejma. Indo-West Asian relations: the Nehru era. Allied Publishers, 1991. ISBN9788170233404.

The Hanbali fiqh (which you call "Wahhabi") is followed by less than 35% of Saudi Arabia's population although it remains the standard madhhab of the Najdi dominated Ulama based in Riyadh.

@ranjeet @Cherokee

KSA/GCC/Arab world and India have normal ties. Mostly trade which everyone is contend with. We don't ask for anything more, not sure about Indians.

Our ties with China are much closer and should be the priority. The ancient Sino-Arab ties should be revived even further. 250 billion dollars of mutual trade yearly can be improved further.

 

[Shapur Zol Aktaf]

Gathic and Avestan people, proto-Indo-Iranians ties goes back 4000-5000 years ago and close minded Islamic republic officials think only about building ties based on shia Islam. So Iran should not think about building ties with China almost no shia there.

 

[bsruzm]

Saudi cables also highlighted how Iran puts pressure on assad regime to ally with YPG (Syrian branch of PKK) against Turkey.

 

[Kaniska]

Economically SA assist India moreh than even Iran..So Indian should appriciate SA in this context...But in general the perception of Iran is more positive and friendly in India because, SA is considered close to Pakistan...Apart from that there is not manything that separates perception of an oridinary Indian for Iran and SA...And the most important thing is that SA and Iran even do care less about what Indian think about them too....

 

[Saif al-Arab]

Economically SA assist India moreh than even Iran..So Indian should appriciate SA in this context...But in general the perception of Iran is more positive and friendly in India because, SA is considered close to Pakistan...Apart from that there is not manything that separates perception of an oridinary Indian for Iran and SA...And the most important thing is that SA and Iran even do care less about what Indian think about them too....

Saudi Arabians let alone Arabs do not hate Indians as they have no reason to do such a thing. The old generation in Arabia, especially those that were engaged in trade, mostly have fond memories of India. Vice versa too.

Over 1 million Indians live and work in KSA too. Many were born in KSA.

Cultural exchanges have also emerged.

Today ties are based on economy and common interests (state wise). All the rest is bullshit frankly and just sweet talk. In the end we are egoistic creatures especially the leaders and those running whole states.

The people of the ME have seen it first hand in terms of leaders. People to people relations are another thing though.

In general Arabs know little about India (talking about the average Ibrahim) and I guess it's the same vice versa other than Indians maybe knowing the GCC better due to trade, aviation, Islam and then I guess that Indians know about the ancient pre-Islamic cultures found in the Arab world. Or at least some of them.

The more you get to know each other the better the ties can become so the reason why many developing states have few ties among each other in the developing world is mostly bound in ignorance and irrational fear.

I don't know about South Asia but the MENA region needs cooperation first and foremost. Considering what I see on PDF it seems to be the case too in South Asia.

 

[Bang Galore]

Saudi Arabians let alone Arabs do not hate Indians as they have no reason to do such a thing. The old generation in Arabia, especially those that were engaged in trade, mostly have fond memories of India. Vice versa too.

Over 1 million Indians live and work in KSA too. Many were born in KSA.

Cultural exchanges have also emerged.

Today ties are based on economy and common interests (state wise). All the rest is bullshit frankly and just sweet talk. In the end we are egoistic creatures especially the leaders and those running whole states.

The people of the ME have seen it first hand in terms of leaders. People to people relations are another thing though.

In general Arabs know little about India (talking about the average Ibrahim) and I guess it's the same vice versa other than Indians maybe knowing the GCC better due to trade, aviation, Islam and then I guess that Indians know about the ancient pre-Islamic cultures found in the Arab world. Or at least some of them.

The more you get to know each other the better the ties can become so the reason why many developing states have few ties among each other in the developing world is mostly bound in ignorance and irrational fear.

I don't know about South Asia but the MENA region needs cooperation first and foremost. Considering what I see on PDF it seems to be the case too in South Asia.

India's relations with KSA have improved in the last decade & a half. The improvement started in 2001 when Jaswant Singh, the Foreign Minister of PM Atal Behari Vajpayee went on a visit & met the then crown prince, later King, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and the two men formed a very unlikely personal relationship. Jaswant Singh's very regal bearing & proud Rajput behaviour seemed to connect with the crown prince who even introduced his son to Jaswant Singh, saying to his son that "he is not like the others, he is like us, like an Arab" and then took him to his stud farm & gifted him two Arabian thoroughbreds, The close ties with India continued through his reign, even after there was a change of government in India.


"Saudi Arabia's respected Foreign Minister Saud bin Faisal broke with protocol to greet the Thakur from the desert state of Rajasthan on the tarmac of King Khaled International Airport rather than in the reception area. Singh was received by King Fahd bin Abdulaziz, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques at Al Yamamah Palace.

Crown Prince Abdullah was so charmed by the minister that he invited him back after formal talks to his farmhouse for a luncheon with over a hundred dignitaries. And to seal the newfound friendship the Crown Prince presented the horse-loving Singh with not one but two Arabian thoroughbreds – a colt named Jarrah and a filly, Sameera.

Prince Miteb bin Abdullah paid his father's guest a compliment that left the minister who is known for his way with words, speechless. The prince told the gathering as the horses were presented that his father had told him he trusted Singh completely because he embodied the Bedouin qualities of his desert people."

 

[Saif al-Arab]

India's relations with KSA have improved in the last decade & a half. The improvement started in 2001 when Jaswant Singh, the Foreign Minister of PM Atal Behari Vajpayee went on a visit & met the then crown prince, later King, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and the two men formed a very unlikely personal relationship. Jaswant Singh's very regal bearing & proud Rajput behaviour seemed to connect with the crown prince who even introduced his son to Jaswant Singh, saying to his son that "he is not like the others, he is like us, like an Arab" and then took him to his stud farm & gifted him two Arabian thoroughbreds, The close ties with India continued through his reign, even after there was a change of government in India.

Thank you for the very nice story. People of Najd (where the House of Saud are from) have an affinity of horses so that's a big gift.

I hope that we can all cooperate and make business (MENA + South Asia) and try to improve our regions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India–Saudi_Arabia_relations

KSA and Iran should also improve their relations as neighbors as should India and Pakistan as neighbors.

I personally know a few Indians from Kerala and Gujarat and they are all good people. Noticed surprisingly many similarities too even with cuisine but that's another story.

Indians and Pakistanis actually have cordial ties in the GCC mostly and visit each others restaurants so that's good to see.

Anyway must go to bed (Ramadan) and this thread will probably turn into trolling in a few hours.