Relevance: GS-2: Important International Institutions, agencies and fora - their Structure, Mandate; India and its Neighbourhood- Relations

Key Phrases: 48th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of OIC, Voice of Muslims, India has 10% of World’s Muslim Population (2nd Largest)

Why in News?

• Recently 48th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was opened in Islamabad on March 22
• The theme was “Partnering for Unity, Justice and Development”

Key Highlights

• Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan lamented about OIC’s failures in Kashmir and Palestine, and regretted that the West did not take the grouping seriously.

‘Voice of Muslims’

• The OIC has reserved its membership for Muslim-majority countries.
  • The Central African Republic, Russia, Thailand, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and the unrecognised Turkish Cypriot “state” have Observer status.

History

• The OIC was established by the First Islamic Summit Conference held in Rabat, Morocco, in September 1969, to marshal the Islamic world after an act of arson at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem that year.
  • The incident had plunged the Middle East into its worst crisis after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
• In 1970 the 1st meeting of the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers (ICFM) was held in Jeddah, which decided to establish a permanent secretariat in that city, headed by the secretary general of the organisation.
• The current secretary general of the OIC is the Chadian diplomat and politician Hissein Brahim Taha

The OIC and India

• Observer status to India:
  • Despite being the world’s second largest Muslim community, India has been denied even an observer status
  • India had been invited to the founding conference at Rabat in 1969, but was humiliatingly ejected at Pakistan’s behest.
    • Then Agriculture Minister Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed was dis-invited upon arrival in Morocco.
  • Thirty-seven years later, in 2006, Saudi Arabia invited New Delhi to join as an Observer.
    • But India stayed away because of a multiplicity of reasons, not least because as a secular country, it did not want to join an organisation that was founded on the religious identity of nations.
• Again, at the 45th session of the Foreign Ministers’ Summit in May 2018, Bangladesh, the host country, suggested that India, where more than 10% of the world’s Muslims live, should be given Observer status.
  • But Pakistan opposed the proposal.
  • Pakistan, as the only Islamic country with nuclear weapons, has had a powerful say in the organisation from the beginning.
• In 2019, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), invited then Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj to address the Inaugural Plenary of the 46th Session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers in Abu Dhabi as the “Guest of Honour”.

OIC’s position on Kashmir

• The OIC has been generally supportive of Pakistan’s stand on Kashmir, and has issued statements criticising the alleged Indian “atrocities” in the state.
• However, New Delhi has long been used to combating these statements, and has consistently and forcefully put forward its position.

Importantly, Pakistan’s position in the OIC aside, New Delhi is hardly friendless in the organisation.

• India has excellent relations individually with almost all member nations
  • India-UAE: CEPA 2022 was signed recently
  • India-Central Asia: 1st virtual meet and invitation to their head of state as Chief Guests at 73rd Republic Day
• And this is a reason why it can mostly afford to not take the statements issued by the group as a whole seriously.

Source: Indian Express

Mains Question:

Q. Mention OIC’s importance in fulfilling India’s regional and global aspirations. Also suggest measures India can take to utilise OIC to become a global superpower.