India Invited At OIC

The importance of the invitation to New Delhi lies in the fact that India attended an OIC meeting for the first time since the diplomatic embarrassment at the first Islamic Summit in September 1969 held in Rabat, Morocco. India was invited to be “represented at the government level” to attend the summit but eventually was kept out of the final session which adopted the communique due to opposition by the then Pakistani President General Yahya Khan. The Pakistani leader had taken exception to the participation of an official delegation of the Government of India instead of a representation from “the Muslim community of India”. In 2019, however, Pakistan failed to block India’s participation and, in an unprecedented act of pique, chose to absent itself at the plenary session of the conference. Pakistani theatrics did not cut much ice with either the host UAE or with other OIC members including Saudi Arabia.

The invitation is a recognition of India’s economic achievements and its enhanced status as a rising global power. As a nuclear power and as the world’s fastest-growing large economy, India has certainly come a long way since it embarked on the path of economic reforms in the 1990s. Today, it is the third largest global economy in terms of Purchasing Power Parity. It has enjoyed high levels of sustained economic growth for several years amidst a global economic slowdown. Its diplomatic outreach has been dexterous and well-recognized. India is now a member of most of the important international groupings. It has taken initiatives on issues of global significance such as climate change, building an International Solar Alliance and calling for an international coalition for building disaster-resilient infrastructure. Above all, it has advocated concerted action against terrorism through the early conclusion of a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT). Simultaneously, it has established strong and friendly relations with important global and regional powers, including members of the OIC. That the OIC no longer wishes to ignore India is a logical corollary of these developments.