A timely visit
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty visited India for the first India-Egypt strategic dialogue on October 16-17. During his visit he held detailed discussions with his counterpart External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and was also received by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The decision to upgrade India-Egypt bilateral ties to the level of a strategic partnership was taken during the state visit of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in January 2023. India accorded him the honour of inviting him as the Chief Guest for the 74th Republic Day. This was obviously at attempt to impart greater content and momentum to a relationship which was of great consequence to both countries in the past but in recent decades had languished because of their differing priorities and pre-occupations.
Egypt had gone through the instability unleashed by the so-called Arab Spring in December 2010 which witnessed the fall of President Hosni Mubarak’s government in February 2011; he had been in power since the assassination of President Anwar us Sadat in 1981. There was a period of instability in which power was exercised by the army. However, parliamentary and presidential elections were held. The latter led to the coming into power of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi in 2012. However, as he sought to consolidate his rule, he was met with great resistance which was fomented from behind the scenes by the army. Demonstrations ensued which led finally to the army, under its chief el-Sisi, to take over power in July 2013. A constitution, heavily in favour of the army, was put in place. In 2014 el-Sisi won the Presidency by over 96% of vote. He has been in power ever since. He has steered the country further westwards and sought to regain what was once its status in the Arab world but both have difficulties. He also attempted to turn Egypt’s attention to the Global South.
Till the mid-1970s Egypt was the pivot of the Arab world. This was especially so during the Presidency of the charismatic Gamel Abdel Nasser who overthrew the monarchy. He imbued his people with a sense of self-belief and confidence when he nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956 and successfully foiled the aggression by Britain, France and Israel to re-establish status quo ante. Along with Nehru and Tito of Yugoslavia Nasser became one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement. The Nasser years witnessed the closest relationship between India and Egypt. Nasser’s star diminished when Egypt was defeated by Israel in the 1967 war which changed the geography of the region. Indeed, Egypt lost the Sinai Peninsula to Israel.
Nasser died in 1970. Sadat succeeded him. To regain lost pride, he launched the Yom Kippur war against Israel in 1973. After initial successes Egyptian forces were stalled by Israel. Yet the war helped the Egyptian position in the Arab world. Sadat also abandoned the Soviet Union relationship and built one with the US and the West. That helped him in September 1978 to enter into the Camp David Accord with Israel which was brokered by the US. Egypt became a pariah for many years in the Arab world but it regained the Sinai Peninsula.
India went along with the rest of the Arab world which considered the Egyptian move as an abandonment of the Palestinian cause. This developed a hiatus with Egypt. Meanwhile as oil prices rose in the 1970s the oil rich Arab Peninsula states became rich and influential in the Arab and Islamic world. They also began to be courted by rest of the international community. India began to develop major economic interests in these counties which also welcomed Indian professionals and labour. Gradually, India’s orientation to West Asia changed. Egypt remained important because it was the Arab world’s intellectual capital and also because the Al-Azhar university has always been a principal centre of Islam.
But it was no longer the beating heart of Arabism. That position remains today as well—it is still an influential Arab state as has been witnessed by its role over the past two years during the Gaza war after the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023 on Israel. The fact that President Trump met European and Arab leaders after the ceasefire earlier this month in Sharm-el-Sheikh is no accident. It shows that Egypt still has influence and India’s attempts to invigorate its ties with it is a step in the right direction.
In his opening remarks at his meeting with Abdelatty, Jaishankar noted “Our political contacts and coordination have been strong and sustained, including in the multilateral side. Our defence and security exchanges have grown. Trade and investment continues to be promising, and we will discuss how to take them forward. We can also explore possibilities in digital public infrastructure, fintech, pharma, space, startups, and green technologies. As befitting two old civilizations, culture and people-to-people exchanges also occupy an important place in our ties”. In view of Egypt’s traditional orientation to the West and its location as a Mediterranean country too it will not be easy for Indian companies to make great break throughs except in the digital technology areas. That is an area of promise and Indian expertise in this field is well known.
Indian companies can though establish further meaningful collaborations with their Egyptian counterparts in the tourism sector. Egypt is one of the world’s great places for tourism for its centuries old history and the monuments of that history—such as the Pyramids—which are well preserved.
There is also need for greater scholarly and academic exchanges with Egypt.
Abdelatty’s visit was timely.
