JUNE 2009

Indocentric view

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From the Editor’s Desk Egypt’s association with the Non-Aligned Movement has a chequered history. From the time Gamal Abdel Nasser ascended to power and was enthralled by the rhetoric of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism, Egypt’s path in the international arena was chalked. Nasser’s close connections with Jawaharlal Nehru helped embed some of these beliefs even more in the context of contemporary global situation. Egypt’s pan-Arabic advocacy of the 1950s was tinged with the progressivism of the time. Their pronouncements on the Palestine issue created a global awareness about the problem at a time when the world itself was going through the convulsions of the birth of new nations and new systems. As many of the writers of this issue have mentioned in the writings, Egypt effectively used the platform of the NAM to highlight the plight of the Palestinians in periodic resolutions. The war of 1967 that Egypt fought with Israel was on the issue of Palestine and the destiny of the Arab diaspora. Called the Six Day war, though the conflict gave prominence to the utter lack of military preparedness amongst the Arab nations, it still emphasised Nasser’s commitment to the Palestine cause. Though it hurt his ability to lead the Arabs as their natural leader, Egypt’s pre-eminence was only marginally diminished. For, the civilisational influence of Egypt was something that no one could deny. In that too there were deep connections to India. As one of the writers of this issue of World Focus has detailed in depth, India was a major trading partner of the Pharonic Egypt. Many of the cultural totems of the respective civilisations travelled the seas and found a place in the other country. Nehru’s keen sense of history could not have missed these commonalities when he invited Nasser to be one of the founding fathers of the NAM. After Nasser, though Anwar Sadat tempered Egypt’s possibly premature pitch for a pan-Arabic role – with him concentrating on making accretions to the country’s national power – he still did not ignore NAM in charting the new path for Cairo. On the other hand, he made Egypt a keen leader within the NAM in terms of seeking a development dialogue with the developed North. As another of our writers have detailed, when Indira Gandhi took the initiative for creating the G-15 grouping on economic issues, Egypt could not be ignored as a keen participant. President Hosni Mubarak, though witnessing the birth of seeming ‘unipolarity’ in the decade of the 1990s did not count out NAM from his scheme of international affairs. On the contrary, he and Egypt continued to take the leadership roles that were sought from them periodically by the other NAM nations. The hosting of the impending Fifteenth NAM Summit to be held in the city of Sharam El Sheikh from 11 to 16 of July 2009 is one such occasion. The publication of the issue of World Focus on the current theme precedes the historic NAM Summit at Egypt as the commemorative volume. We hope our issue of World Focus on the subject can only deepen the understanding about the umbilical linkages between the Movement and the leading nation of the African continent. We are thankful to Professor A K Pasha of JNU for co-ordinating the issue as the Guest Editor. New Delhi G. Kishore Babu June 2009 Editor

India and Egypt: Political, Economic and Cultural Cooperation

A K Pasha

It is remarkable that the ancient Egyptians worshipped the same Gods as Indians. Indian textiles were familiar in Egypt. During the Roman period Egypt was an important link and India prospered due to export of spices and other products. In ancient Egypt, perfumes utilising various Indian aromatics played an important role in worship, which in turn led to brisk trade. Due to the long sea coast both India and Egypt derived considerable revenues from trade in ancient times. Egypt and India greatly benefited from trade with the Roman empire. Many Arab Egyptian merchants settled on India’s western coast like Gujarat, Konkan and on the Coromandel Coast. Jeddah became an important link for trade between India and Egypt. During the Fatimid period in 10^th century AD the Egyptian merchants were famous as El Karemia who traded mostly in Indian spices. In Egypt, Saad Zaghlul Pasha, through the Wafd party worked for independence and in India Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad and many others through the Indian National Congress, intensified the freedom struggle, with went a long way in establishing cultural and political relations between India and Egypt.

How India and Egypt Strengthened

the Nam?

P.S. JAYARAMU

Under Indira Gandhi, Indian nonalignment also moved away from its classical phase to a dynamic phase. Her efforts to strengthen India’s security situation resulted in India signing the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Co-operation with overtones of defense co-operation in 1971. Gandhi justified this shift in the interests of promoting of national security. Her decision earlier not to sign the NPT in 1970 and carry out peaceful nuclear explosion in 1974, were aimed at strengthening India’s security and power profile. It is however pertinent to recall that a great majority of the nonaligned countries signed the NPT and committed themselves to Nuclear Disarmament. No wonder, Indira Gandhi called NAM the biggest peace movement. Gandhi’s regime was also marked by India’s commitment to take up the issues of economic growth with equity and justice. She galvanized the NAM to project the need for the establishment of a new international economic order with the objective of promoting the economic independence of NAM countries to add meaning and content to their political freedom.

Egypt, India and Non-Aligned Movement

Dr. Ankush B. Sawant

As against 1980s when India’s economic crisis was downwards, India today is seen in Egypt as a rising economic and knowledge power. In November 2008 President Hosni Mubarak visited Indian to lay “a sound basis for a vibrant strategic partnership” and “to boost strategic partnership between the two countries”. Both President Mubarak and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed that “all conditions are ripe for transforming relations to correspond to contemporary realities”. They further declared “we have agreed to make up for lost time and to elevate our relations to a level that reflects our mutual strength and complementarities”.

India and Egypt sought to transform their ties into strategic partnership by signing five pacts including an extradition treaty and agreed to jointly combat terrorism during President Mubarak’s visit to India in November 2008. The other pacts the two countries signed related to use of outer space areas of trade and technical cooperation, and enhancing cooperation in the field of health and medicine. In the words of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh President Mubarak’s visit (to India) opened a new chapter in our relations.

Cultural Relations between India

and Egypt An Overview

Priyamvada Sawant

Among the major and ancient civilizations of the world, the three ancient civilizations, the Mesopotamian, Egyptian and the Indus valley civilization shared relations with each other though the Indus valley civilization developed greater ties with the Mesopotamian civilization as compared to that of Egyptian