Millions of workers and thousands of investors and businessmen... How did the Indians establish their own empire in the Gulf?

At the end of May, Nupur Sharma, spokeswoman for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), made statements on a news channel deemed offensive to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the Islamic religion, in conjunction with sarcastic comments on social media, Made by the leader of the same party "Navin Jindal".

These two statements sparked a major crisis between India and the Islamic world in general, and its Arab partners in particular.

Subsequently, Qatar, Kuwait and Iran summoned the ambassadors of India to inform them of the official protest against these statements. The Gulf Cooperation Council, Saudi Arabia and the UAE issued statements of condemnation, and social media ignited with protests under the hashtag “#Except for God’s Messenger, Modi”, while Ahmed Al-Khalili, the Grand Mufti of the Sultanate of Oman described Oman, these statements are “a war against every Muslim,” and the preacher of the Grand Mosque called on the countries of the world to criminalize insulting the prophets and messengers.

The insolent and obscene premeditation of the official spokesman for the extremist party ruling in India against the Messenger of Islam, peace be upon him, and his pure wife, the mother of the believers Aisha, may God be pleased with her, is a war against every Muslim in the east and west of the earth, and it is a matter that calls for all Muslims to rise as one nation pic.twitter.com /T58Ya1dGox

— Ahmed bin Hamad Al Khalili (@AhmedHAlKhalili) June 4, 2022

Attempts to contain the crisis

As the protests escalated, India quickly worked to contain the crisis by taking what it described as "disciplinary decisions" for both officials who made these statements, as the ruling party announced the arrest of its spokeswoman, and the expulsion of the party leader.

The party's official spokeswoman later came out through a group of tweets on Twitter to announce that she did not intend to harm anyone's religious feelings, and that she "withdraws her statement" without conditions.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is known for his extreme right-wing Hindu nationalism (media)

According to Kabir Taneja, a fellow at the Indian Observer Research Foundation, in an interview with CNN, India was "surprised by the great reaction, although sectarian issues are not new in India and there are many previous cases, we have not received Such a response from Arab countries before."

This crisis has once again brought to the scene the details and complexities of India’s relations with Islamic countries, and the Gulf countries in particular, and their sensitivity, especially with the presence of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is known for his Hindu extremist and anti-Muslim tendencies, at the head of the current Indian government, which seems to cast a shadow on India's relations with its Islamic environment in general, and the Gulf in particular, given the Gulf countries' hosting of the largest presence of Indians in the world outside their country.

(1, 2)

Indian country in the Gulf

According to statistics, India is the second largest country in the world in terms of population after China, with a population of about 1.4 billion people, but it is ranked first in the world in terms of the number of expatriates around the world, as the number of Indians traveling outside India reached about 17.5 million An expatriate, according to the 2019 United Nations International Migrants Report. However, many sources suggest that the real number of Indian expatriates is 22-25 million at present.

Most statistics suggest that the number of Indians working and residing in the Gulf is about 10 million (Reuters)

If we rely on the official figure of the United Nations, we will find that almost half of the expatriate Indians reside in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, where their numbers are estimated at about 9-10 million Indian residents, which is the largest gathering of Indians outside their country around the world.

According to the statistics of the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the United Arab Emirates alone has about 3.5 million Indians, while there are two and a half million Indians in Saudi Arabia, more than a million in the State of Kuwait, about 780,000 Indians in the Sultanate of Oman, and 760,000 in the State of Qatar, while There are about 332,000 Indians in Bahrain.

These figures say that the Indian community is estimated at about a third of the total foreign workers in the Gulf countries. According to the Migration Report issued by the United Nations in 2017, the number of foreigners in the Gulf reached about 28 million foreign workers, about 31.5% of whom are from India in the first place, followed by Bangladesh and then Pakistan.

(3)

The significance of the numbers

In the UAE, the number of Indian residents (3.5 million people) exceeds the total number of citizens of the country (2.7 million people), and they alone represent 30% of its entire population.

The meanings of these numbers become more clear if we put them in the field of numerical comparison with the numbers of citizens of these countries.

Looking at the number of Indians in the Gulf countries, we find that their total number is approximately equal to the number of citizens of the 5 Gulf countries combined - the number of citizens of the people of the country and not residents of it - i.e. equal to the number of citizens of the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman combined, whose total number is approximately 8 -9 million people.

In the UAE, the number of Indian residents (3.5 million people) exceeds the total number of citizens of the country (2.7 million people), and they alone represent 30% of its entire population.

While in the State of Qatar, the number of resident Indians is 760,000, which is more than double the number of Qatari citizens (320,000 people).

As for Kuwait, the number of incoming Indians is almost equal to the number of the Kuwaiti people by about one million, and the number of Indians residing in Bahrain (332 thousand) is equal to half of the Bahraini population.

While the total number of Indians in the Sultanate of Oman is close to a third of the Omani population (two million and 700 thousand Omanis).

In a broader view, the total population of the Gulf states with their citizens and residents reached 58 million by the end of 2020, of whom Indians represent about 9 million, a third of the foreign labor force, which is estimated at 25-28 million.

Krishna and Shiva in the Gulf

According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2010, by the end of the first decade of this century, the number of Hindu adherents residing in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries reached about 1.7 million.

The census stated that the majority of them live in the Emirates, with a population of nearly half a million Hindus, then Saudi Arabia with about 390,000 Hindus, then Qatar, where 240,000 Hindus live, then Kuwait, which includes 230,000, and finally, the Sultanate of Oman and Bahrain with about 120,000.

As for the 2010 census, it is likely that the current number of Hindus residing in the Gulf countries may exceed two million at least, with the increase in the number of Indian arrivals to the Gulf Cooperation Council during the past decade, with the expectation that the number of Hindu adherents in the world will increase by 2050 to 1.4 billion people.

The most famous Hindu temples in the Gulf are concentrated in the Emirates, Oman and Bahrain (media)

As for places of worship, the complex of Shiva and Krishna Mandir temples, which was established in 1958 in Dubai, is considered one of the first and most famous Hindu complexes in the Gulf, witnessing all the usual Hindu celebrations, and accommodating thousands of worshipers.

In 2017, the Emirate of Abu Dhabi announced the allocation of a plot of land for the construction of its first Hindu temple, and that it would also include a special site for cremation, a famous Hindu ritual.

In Bahrain, specifically in the capital, Manama, there are two famous Hindu temples, one in the Kuwait neighborhood, and the other in Adliya dedicated to the Krishna sect.

The same is true for the Sultanate of Oman, where there are two ancient temples in Muscat, one dedicated to Krishna in Ruwi, and the other temple to Shiva in Muttrah, and both temples still attract a large number of Hindus residing on holidays.

As for Saudi Arabia, until now it is not officially allowed to build houses of worship for non-Muslims, including Hindu temples, with the possibility of practicing their rituals in private homes and villas.

(4)

labor armies

In a study entitled “Indian Migrant Labor to the Gulf Countries” issued in 2014 by the Indian researcher Neha Kohli and published in translation by the Future Center for Research and Advanced Studies in the UAE, the researcher divided the Indian labor in the Gulf countries into three main sections: The first is unskilled labor, which means the labor that works in construction companies, municipalities, cleaning and farms, including domestic workers.

India is the first in the world to receive workers' remittances from abroad, ahead of China and Mexico.

The second section is semi-skilled labor, which means professional labor that includes doctors, engineers, accountants, nurses, and specialists in administrative jobs in the public and private sectors.

Finally comes the third section, which is businessmen, investors and capital owners who own and contribute to medium or large-sized investments in various Gulf countries.

According to the research statistics, the first and second categories represent most of the Indian community in the Gulf countries, where the number of unskilled and semi-skilled labor reaches about 70% of the total Indians in the region, with a clear increase in the category of semi-skilled labor compared to the past decades.

This large number of Indian workers in the Gulf in various disciplines generates annual remittances from expatriates to their families in India of about $89 billion, which represents 65% of the total remittances of Indian expatriates around the world, and makes India the first in the world to receive remittances of workers from abroad, ahead of both China and Mexico.

(3, 5)

Indian billionaires in the Gulf

As for the third category, the category of investors and businessmen, the Gulf countries, especially the United Arab Emirates, host on their lands a number of senior Indian business and financial tycoons, who founded and managed giant commercial institutions valued at billions of dollars.

According to the annual report of Forbes issued in 2018, the total wealth of the 100 most powerful Indian businessmen in the Gulf amounted to about 26.5 billion dollars.

On top of the most powerful Indian billionaires and businessmen in the Gulf, three businessmen whose businesses are concentrated in the UAE hold fortunes estimated at $12 billion, which is equivalent to half of the total fortunes of Indian businessmen in the region.

At the head of these is the Indian businessman Yusuf Ali, CEO of the giant commercial group "Lulu" specialized in the retail sector, whose fortune is estimated at between 4-5 billion dollars.

As for the Indian businessman, BR Shetty, he began his investments in the UAE in the seventies, and over the decades turned into one of the largest businessmen investing in the health and pharmaceutical services sector in the Gulf, with an estimated fortune of about $ 4 billion. His empire has been dealt a major blow in the last two years after being embroiled in a major fraud case that forced him to flee the country.

Then businessman Ravi Pillai comes as one of the most powerful businessmen in the Gulf, the son of an Indian immigrant to Saudi Arabia, from which he moved to the UAE to establish his first construction and building company at the end of the seventies, then it expanded over time to include more than 20 companies, and Ravi Pillai's wealth is estimated Currently around $4 billion.

(7)

gulf india

According to India Today, the bilateral trade volume between India and the GCC is estimated at $154 billion, with a bilateral trade balance deficit of $67 billion, caused by India's dependence on Gulf oil imports.

The UAE is also India's third trading partner globally, with trade with it amounting to about 7% of the total global Indian trade, after America and China, with a total of $60 billion in 2021.

The UAE announced its selection of India out of seven countries it identified as a core economic partner in the future.

According to data from the Federation of Indian Industries, the total Indian investments in the UAE amounted to about 55 billion dollars, and the number of Indian companies operating in the UAE market reached more than 45,000 companies, making the UAE the largest host country for both Indian employment and investments in the region.

With India signing this year a free trade agreement with the UAE, the UAE announced its selection of India among seven countries it identified as a core economic partner for it in the future. The Indian Minister of Trade and Industry announced that the UAE plans to pump $100 billion in investments in India in various fields. Including manufacturing and infrastructure.

Saudi Arabia comes as India's second trading partner in the Gulf, its fourth largest global partner, and the eighth largest market for its products. The volume of trade between the two countries amounted to about $40 billion, including $6 billion of Indian exports to the Kingdom.

And Saudi Arabia, through Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, stated in 2019 that the kingdom would inject $100 billion in investments in India in the coming years.

(2, 6)

As for Qatar, India, in turn, is a major partner, as Doha is the largest supplier of liquefied natural gas to India, in addition to other major exports, led by oil, chemicals, plastics and aluminum, where the volume of trade exchange between the two countries is about $10.5 billion.

About 6,000 large, medium and small Indian companies operate in the State of Qatar, whose businesses are concentrated in various fields, including infrastructure, information technology, energy, construction and electricity.

As for Kuwait, in 2019, the volume of trade exchange between it and India amounted to about $11 billion, and although this number fell sharply later due to the Corona crisis, trade relations are still going with the same strength.

In 2021, the volume of Kuwaiti investments in India amounted to about $5.5 billion, and it is expected to rise to $10 billion in the coming years.

According to statements by the Indian ambassador to Kuwait, reported by Al-Khaleej Online, Kuwait has more than 100 major Indian companies working in various fields.

In the Sultanate of Oman, the volume of trade exchange with India amounted to $5.3 billion, 33% of which are Indian exports to Oman, with more than 4,700 Indian companies investing in the Omani market.

As for Bahrain, its bilateral trade with India amounted to $1.2 billion, and the volume of Indian investments in the Bahraini market is estimated at $1.6 billion in the tourism, contracting and technology sectors, with the presence of about 3,200 Indian companies in the Kingdom.

The future of Indians in the Gulf

Over the past two decades, the Indian presence in the Gulf has gone through several critical stages, perhaps the most prominent of which was the Indian government's announcement in 2015 to tighten procedures for sending Indian workers abroad, in which the Gulf region represents the lion's share, in the name of protecting its nationals abroad.

The Indian measures were summarized in the necessity of setting a minimum wage for Indian workers working in all sectors, especially craft sectors such as driving, construction, nursing, domestic workers, carpentry and others.

Although these measures have relatively restricted the number of new Indians traveling to the Gulf, remittances to India have not decreased after this measure, but rather increased to about $80 billion in 2018, with the increase in the number of Indians who were able to climb the social ladder during their stay in the Gulf. .

The major crisis was the Corona pandemic, which was considered one of the worst crises for Indian workers in the Gulf, as reports say that about 1.1 million Indians residing in the Gulf returned to their homes, ten months after the outbreak of the pandemic in the first quarter of 2020, which It is considered the largest reverse migration that India has experienced in the last 50 years.

However, with the return of normal life, and despite the current inflation crisis, the Gulf countries are witnessing the return of large numbers of Indian workers again.

In terms of money and investment, according to the Global Indian Pulse report issued at the end of 2021, 66% of Indians residing in the UAE plan to increase their investments in it, and the real estate sector ranked first in the investment concerns of the Indian community, Followed by investment in stocks and securities, and then the tourism and technology sectors.

(8)

In the end, the situation of Muslims in India, who number nearly 200 million Muslims, remains one of the most influential files on the level of Indian-Arab relations, positively or negatively, especially with the increasing frequency of sectarian attacks witnessed by the largest Muslim minority in the world, and the third largest gathering of Muslims. After Indonesia and Pakistan, which explains India's rush to contain the recent crisis in order to avoid Gulf anger, and the damage it may inflict on the broad and complex bilateral relations.

____________________________________________________

Sources: