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All the three countries offered “huge”
sums in the early 1980s, but the then Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi said a firm “NO.”
Iran asked for nuclear technology as well as
a military training school for its officers somewhere
in India, again offering substantial monetary
compensation for both, but Mrs Gandhi said that
India would not play its friends in the Gulf against
each other.
India had in fact been training Iraqi air force
pilots, thanks to the commonality of the Soviet
aircraft with the two countries. The defence cooperation
had begun well before the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq
war, but Indian instructors, their number reaching
60 at one time, had no mandate except to continue
the ongoing training programme in accordance with
the relevant agreements.
Iran and Iraq were then in the thick of their
long, 8-year war, which cost each side heavy casualties
and meant no victory. Mrs Gandhi’s special envoy
for the Gulf, Mr Romesh Bhandari was then shuttling
between the Iranian and Iraqi capitals of Teheran
and Baghdad to forge peace.
Iraq in fact was supposed to host the Non Aligned
Movement (NAM) summit in 1983, but as Iran was
not willing to participate in it in Baghdad, where
a new conference hotel – Al Rasheed – had been
built by Swedish companies, the venue was moved
to New Delhi at Mr Bhandari’s suggestion.
Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi also wanted
nuclear technology, and when India refused, he
hassled the Indian companies and workers to pressure
Mrs Gandhi. She did not budge.
Many Arab leaders in fact used to regard Mrs
Indira Gandhi as "the only man" among
the Asian leaders, thanks to her statesmanship
and the direction she steered the Non Aligned
Movement into during her life. In 1981, UAE President
Shaikh Zayed reportedly expressed his appreciation
of Mrs Gandhi on these very lines during her visit
to Abu Dhabi in May 1981.
I was a member of her media delegation, and was
told of this observation by a senior UAE minister.
There were similar sentiments about her in Egypt,
Syria, Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and several
other Arab countries which I visited periodically
over the years.
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