OIC and the Kashmir Issue: Options for India

Zafar Imam

The organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) was formed in September 1969.

Till the mid-1980s, it remained preoccupied with Arab issues. However, since
then a subtle shift in its orientation and thrust has been noticed; it began to address
non-Arab issues.’ It was during this phase that Pakistan emerged as one of the
main actors within the OIC. As a result, the Kashmir issue has become a regular
item on the OIC agenda, and resolutions supporting the Pakistani stand have been
adopted.
The two-nation theory and the subsequent establishment of Pakistan on the
basis of religion formed the basis of the Kashmir issue. Pakistan used religion as
a basis for claiming that Kashmir legitimately belonged to it and questioned Kash-
mir’s accession to India. As a consequence, Kashmir has become a major issue
between India and Pakistan. Both have tried to influence world public opinion in
their favour by raising the issue in various fora, both bilateral and multilateral.
The formation of the OIC provided Pakistan one such forum. It began to use the
Organization for its own foreign policy objectives, specially with regard to Kash-
mir. Now, although one of the proclaimed objectives of the OIC is &dquo;to promote
Islamic solidarity among member states&dquo;, it was never pursued seriously. But this
is not to deny that it sought to project itself as an organization of Muslim states.
It is precisely this image of being an Islamic organization, which Pakistan has
used to its advantage. In this context, it may be noted that even before the formal
establishment of the OIC in 1969, Pakistan had made the promotion of Islamic
solidarity and the establishment of an international organization of Islamic nations
as one of the primary objectives of its foreign policy. Successive governments
considered this as a logical extension of the very religious basis of the foundation
of the state of Pakistan. Yet, inspite its best efforts, Pakistan failed in its objective
during the 1950s and much of the 1960s, mainly because of the reluctance of the
Arab states which felt threatened by the forces of radicalism in the Arab world led

The author till recently was Professor at the Centre for Russia, Central Asian and East European
Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
1
For details see Zafar Imam, The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC): Continuity and
Change and India (New Delhi: ABC Publishing House, 2000), Chapter 3.

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by President Nasser of Egypt. However, towards the late 1960s, Saudi Arabia
joined hands with Pakistan in promoting the idea of an international organization
of Islamic states. The OIC was eventually formed. It is interesting to note that out
of the 35 invitees to the founding conference at Rabat in September 1969 only 25
attended, out of which only 10 were represented by their heads of state. Some of
the leading Arab nations like Iraq and Syria either declined invitations or ignored
it. India was kept out of the conference at the instance of President Yahya Khan of
Pakistan. As a result, India began to ignore the OIC generally, choosing only to
react against its resolutions on Kashmir.
All the 25 founding members of the OIC had diverse interests in joining it. The
membership of the Organization varied from a secular Turkey to a theocratic-
conservative Saudi Arabia. As a matter of fact, the members of the organization
hardly shared any common objective except paying lip-service to the idea of
Islamic solidarity.
It is essential to keep in mind the difference between the objective of Islamic
solidarity and the idea of Pan-Islamism. The latter had its roots in nineteenth
century Afro-Asia and in the anti-imperialist tradition of Muslim ulema and
scholars all over the world. Jamaluddin Afghani (1839-97) was an ardent advocate
of it. The idea of Islamic solidarity also did not emanate from various Hadith of
the Prophet, where he had repeatedly exhorted his followers to preserve and pro-
mote peace and cooperation among themselves. To further stress this point, one
needs to look at the OIC record itself. For instance, during the 1970s, Arab nations,
led by Saudi Arabia, were concerned essentially with taking a united stand on the
issue of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem as well as on the Arab-Israeli conflict;
Turkey was mainly interested in gearing the support of the Organization in its
conflict with Cyprus; and Pakistan, as has already been pointed out, wanted to
use the OIC as a means of promoting its policy against India, specially with regard
to Kashmir. At the formative stage of the OIC during the 1970s and much of the
1980s, Pakistan was largely successful in its efforts. During this period eighteen
conferences of foreign ministers and four summit meetings passed resolutions on
Kashmir endorsing the Pakistani stand. From tiie mid-1980s onwards, the issue
of Kashmir in fact became a regular item on the OIC summit agenda. In a few
years, Pakistan succeeded in persuading the OIC to form a special contact group
on Jammu and Kashmir. The seventh extraordinary session of the OIC Foreign

Ministers, held in Islamabad in September 1994, formally voted for the establish-
ment of this contact group. Eventually it was set up on 3 October 1994 to &dquo;coordin-
ate the efforts of member states for promoting the right of self-determination of
the Kashmiri people in accordance with UN resolutions and for safeguarding
fundamental human rights&dquo;.2 The members of the group included Pakistan, Turkey,
Saudi Arabia, Republic of Niger and the OIC Secretary General.
The group usually meets periodically at the UN headquarters in New York.
Pakistan takes care to ensure that all matters relating to the Kashmir issue are

2
Ibid., p. 55.

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brought to the knowledge of the contact group and get its approval. The main
function of the group is to prepare resolutions on Kashmir unequivocall-, sup-
porting the Pakistani stand on the issue for approval by the periodic Foreign
Ministers conferences. Later they are endorsed at the summit meetin as of the
Kings, Heads of state and Government of the member states of the <~1C, held
every four years.’ Within the contact group Turkey and Saudi Arabia are known
supporters of Pakistan. It is the normal practice that a member country of the
OIC, which shows direct concern for an issue, is allowed to prepare formal reso-
lutions on it for final adoption by its higher bodies, including the summit confer-
ences. Other members of the group do not seek any change, minor or major, in
draft resolutions and these are adopted in toto at every level. This is facilitated on
the basis of reciprocity. For instance, Turkey gets a resolution on the Cyprus
issue regularly approved by the OIC without any change or amendment. In the
post-1994 period, however, the OIC began to strongly endorse Pakistan’s views
4
on the Kashmir issue.4

Indian policy-makers began to react sharply against the pro-Pakistani stand

and protested against such resolutions on Kashmir at the OIC summits and Foreign
Ministers meetings. At the same time, India also made significant moves towards
promoting close and friendly relations with Arab countries, particularly in the
Gulf. Indian diplomacy generally sought to control the damage done to its interests
by the OIC by focussing on the bilateral relations with its member states. With the
new states of Central Asia and the Caspian region becoming members of the OIC,

this trend is being further strengthened.

However, India’s approach towards the OIC resolution was marked by a degree
of overreaction. Firstly, it attached undue importance to OIC declarations and
resolutions which never reflected the ground realities. As for example, the first
summit in 1969 had passed only one resolution; the second at Lahore in 1974
passed seven resolutions; the summit in 1981 adopted twenty-eight resolutions;
and the eighth at Teheran passed 142 resolutions. The same was true of Foreign
Ministers conferences. Such a sharp increase in the number of resolutions simply
showed that the members were hardly serious about implementing them.
Secondly, even though India staked its legitimate claim of becoming an OIC
member in the founding conference itself, held in 1969, it did not follow it up
later. India certainly had a good case in view of the fact that it had the second
largest Muslim population in the world. Its association in some form or the other,
surely would not have compromised its secular credentials, going by the examples
of secular OIC member states like Turkey and the Central Asian nations. But
India decided to ignore the OIC, leaving the field open to Pakistan.
The crucial question, however, is how India must deal with the OIC in general
and its resolutions on the issue of Kashmir in particular? In this connection, it

3
The last i.e. 9th Summit was held at Doha (Qatar) in November 2000.
4
See, for instance, the 8th Summit Resolution on Jammu and Kashmir. 8th Summit Document
(Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, New Delhi, 1997), IS/8-97/FC.

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would be helpful to refer certain salient features of the OIC and its inner func-
tioning. Firstly, the OIC is not an agency of the foreign policy establishment of
Pakistan, although its pivotal role in the Organization is evident. Secondly, it is
not a religious organization of the world Muslim community; it is more like an
international organization of fifty-five nation-states with a Muslim majority popu-
lation spread over Asia, Africa, and East Europe, having diverse motives and
interests. It is also not a purely secular Organization. Thirdly, the ever increasing
number of resolutions and declarations adopted in its formal meetings do not
carry much conviction. Fourthly, with the entry of new members from the inde-
pendent republics of the erstwhile USSR, as well as in keeping with the primacy
of an economic agenda in global affairs, its focus has been gradually shifting
from political to economic issues. But this is not to deny that the Organization
does serve a demonstrative purpose of togetherness, if not solidarity. In any case,
an organization of such size and strength involving members from three continents,

representing nearly one-third of the UN membership, can certainly be regarded

as an international pressure group. As such it cannot, and should not, be ignored.
After all, several members of the OIC, like Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the
states of Central Asia are traditional friends of India with a close bilateral relation-
ship. To put it differently, there is a vocal group of members within the Organization
on whose support India can count. Moreover, the experience of the last three

decades or so has amply demonstrated that India’s lack of engagement with the
OIC has left the field open to Pakistan to use the Organization as a tool of its
foreign policy and a springboard for its anti-India activities. In such a scenario,
India’s interaction with the Organization in some capacity or the other, be it in the
form of an associate membership or as a special invitee, would certainly go a
long way in countering Pakistani moves in the OIC. Further, India’s engagement
with the OIC, under the changed global situation, can benefit entire South and
Central Asia as one distinct geo-political entity.

January 2001

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