Business ties underpin muted Arab response

Gulf Arab countries have remained mostly silent as India's government moved to strip the Indian-occupied sector of Kashmir of its limited autonomy, imposing a sweeping military curfew in the disputed Muslim-majority region and cutting off residents from all communication and the internet.

This muted response is underpinned by more than $100 billion in annual trade with India that makes it one of the Arabian Peninsula's most prized economic partners.

Regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia urged restraint and expressed concern over the brewing crisis. Other Gulf countries — Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman — do not appear to have issued any statements. The United Arab Emirates has gone a step further by apparently siding with India, calling the decision to downgrade occupied Kashmir's status an internal matter.

Saudi Arabia's response to the Kashmir situation is complicated by its close ties with both India and Pakistan, which have fought two wars over the disputed Himalayan region, as well as its ideological rivalry with Turkey and Iran for supremacy in the Islamic world.

Gulf Arab states are home to more than 7 million Indian expatriates who help drive the region's economy and keep its cities teeming with doctors, engineers, teachers, drivers, construction workers and other laborers.

Nowhere in the region is this relationship more pronounced than in the UAE, where Indians outnumber Emiratis three to one. Bilateral trade surpassed $50 billion in 2018, making India the UAE's second-largest trade partner.

Saudi Arabia is home to 2.7 million Indians and is India's second biggest supplier of oil after Iraq, according to Indian government statistics. Saudi oil exports to India dominated $27.5 billion in bilateral trade last year.

The decision by Modi's Hindu nationalist government carries religious overtones for Muslim residents of the Indian-occupied Kashmir. The revocation of the region's constitutional status, which needs the approval of the ruling party-controlled parliament, means Kashmiris lose their hereditary right to jobs, scholarships and land ownership. Government critics see the move, which would allow Indians from outside the region to permanently settle and buy land, as an attempt to alter Kashmir's culture and demographics with Hindu settlers.

These religious tensions have made Kashmir another field of contest between Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey to champion Muslim causes worldwide, said Hasan al-Hasan, an expert on Gulf-Indian relations at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Turkey, which has less than $7 billion in annual bilateral trade with India, has thrown its weight behind Pakistan. Iran permitted a symbolic protest of around 60 students outside the Indian Embassy in Tehran last week. However, both President Hassan Rouhani and the foreign ministry have issued more tempered statements, calling for dialogue and peace between Pakistan and India.