“Suez is as dear to Egypt as Kashmir is to India” These were the words of former Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasar during the early years of India-Egypt friendship. Taking the cue from Nasser the Egyptian media blasted Pakistan and its close alliance with the United States with an unprecedented anti-Pakistan campaign and branded the latter as “the number one enemy of Cairo and Arabs”. Nasser’s statement had irked the Pakistanis so much to the extent that in an editorial, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper wrote that “It is nevertheless a matter of deep regret that in the veins of this turbulent egoist not the blood of Islam should seem to flow but the turbulent waters of Nile”. Such was the bondage between Nehru and Nasser when both leaders championed Afro-Asian solidarity and were highly critical of western imperialism during the Cold War era.

Historical connections and political friendships

One could find many parallels between India and Egypt. The Indus valley and Nile civilizations had close contact with each other for several centuries. The Egyptian mummies, some of which are up to 4000 years old, were wrapped with muslin cloth brought from India. Following World War I, the Wafd party of Egypt had interactions with the Indian National Congress and expressed solidarity with each other in their fight against the common enemy i.e., British colonialism.  In the initial years after independence, India’s West Asia policy was mostly Cairo centric that has championed the Palestinian cause. Both Nehru and Nasser were socialists who adopted a non-alignment path in their foreign policies and yet became closer to the Soviet Union. The India-Egypt friendship treaty was signed in the year 1955. 

During the Suez crisis in 1956, Nehru condemned the tripartite attack by Britain, France and Israel on Egypt and called it “naked aggression”. Nasser returned this favor to India when he refused passage to Portuguese ships through the Suez Canal during India’s liberation of Goa in 1961 and toned down a pro-Pakistan resolution against India at the Arab Summit in Casablanca during the India-Pakistan war of 1965.

India’s changed priorities and realignments

Egypt’s military defeat in the 1967 war tarnished Cairo’s image as the champion of the Arab world. The new equations which developed in the region in favor of the GCC nations prompted India to reorient its Cairo-centric policy. Nasser’s death in 1970 witnessed a relative decline in Indo-Egypt relations. Nasser’s successor Anwar Sadat went forward with the Camp David peace treaty with Israel in 1978 following which Egypt was expelled from the Arab League. 

The treaty which was mediated under the United States brought Egypt closer to the Western camp. The relations with the United States prompted Sadat to adopt the famous open-door policy or ‘infitah’ which opened the doors of the Egyptian economy to the rest of the world. This was even carried forward by his successor Hosny Mubarak following the assassination of Sadat in 1981. 

The 1980s saw few interactions between India and Egypt as by then India began to focus more attention on the GCC nations rather than its traditional friends in the Arab world such as Egypt, Syria and Iraq. The GCC nations became India’s main source of energy imports and a favorite destination for India’s labor migration. In the post-Cold War era, India too underwent major economic reforms and opened a new chapter with the United States and began to engage with Israel. 

The year 2011 witnessed huge public protests in both countries which gained international attention. While in Egypt the protests at Tahrir Square lead to the fall of the Mubarak regime, in India the demand was for the passage of a strong anti-corruption bill led by the activist Anna Hazare which in the course of time brought about the downfall of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. 

Indo-Abrahamic Alliance and I2U2

The term “Indo- Abrahamic Alliance” was coined by Mohammed Soliman, an Egyptian scholar based in Washington DC. The idea of adding the prefix Indo with the Abrahamic alliance postulates India taking full advantage of the normalization of relations between Israel and Arabs. During his nine-year tenure Prime Minister Narendra Modi has won many friends in the Arab world. If Pakistan can capitalize on its close relations with Turkey in organizations like the OIC over the issue of Kashmir, India should look for possibilities to strengthen ties with its old friend Egypt whose leader Sisi has good relations with the United States, Israel and UAE. In other words, a new UAE- Israel- Egypt- India axis can be an alternative to the Pakistan- Iran-Turkey axis in an emerging global order. 

Egypt is a country that India cannot afford to alienate owing to its geostrategic location which connects the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Indo-Pacific.  If ever the I2U2 is expanded, Egypt must fit into the grouping as the most suitable candidate owing to its geography, demography, economic potential and military power. The bilateral trade volume of $7.26 billion in 2021-22 could be increased several-fold by strengthening and finding new areas of cooperation in maritime security, cyber security, counter-terrorism and curbing religious extremism, food security, agriculture, climate change, space technology, health, tourism and higher education.

Potential of defence cooperation

The recent visit of India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to Cairo had set the ball running in defense cooperation, Egypt has expressed interest in purchasing New Delhi’s Tejas Light Combat Aircraft.  With a population of over 100 million, Egypt is the largest Arab country in terms of population and the largest importer of wheat in the world.  As the Russian-Ukraine conflict intensified, India supplied nearly 1 million tons of wheat to Egypt last year. 

After years of minimal political engagement, it is now time for India to strengthen its ties with Egypt by continuously engaging at the political level, increasing economic assistance, sharing Indian expertise in various sectors, enhancing defence cooperation, and accelerating India’s soft power through institutions like Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture in Cairo. In 2016 the Indian embassy in Cairo celebrated the 155th birth anniversary of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. While India and Egypt are celebrating their 75th anniversary, has President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s visit as chief guest at Republic Day set the stage for the revival of the Nehru-Nasser days? This is a question to be asked as re-engaging with an older ally is easier than winning a new one. 

(The author, an alumnus of the Centre for West Asian Studies, School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, at CMS College Kottayam, Kerala. His MPhil dissertation was on food security in Egypt. Views are personal. He can be reached at ashokalex@cmscollege.ac.in)