The news of the release of eight former Indian Navy personnel by Qatar is an immensely positive development. Seven of the eight men have returned home early on Monday morning, while the eighth too will follow suit after some legal technicalities are taken care of. The seven Indians who returned home, credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for their release and rightly so. It is not easy to get a death sentence commuted to a prison sentence, and then to ensure a full pardon in a place like the Gulf, particularly in Qatar, where the legal process is anything but transparent. Till date it is not known what exactly the charges against the Indians were. There have been only some media reports quoting sources saying that the Indians were convicted for “spying for Israel” in a submarine deal.
Many experts and observers in India were convinced that it would be impossible to secure the release of the Indians, because of the opacity involved in the case, and because of the way the legal system functions in some Gulf countries. In general, there have been complaints of lack of access to fair trial, including restricted access to legal representation, a lack of transparency in court proceedings, and limited rights for defendants. There have been accusations of arbitrary detention, restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly, and allegations of torture or mistreatment of detainees. In this case too, there were some media reports that alleged that the former Indian Navy personnel had been tortured.
In spite of all this, that the eight Indians have been released, is proof of India’s increasing diplomatic heft and Prime Minister Modi’s personal rapport with world leaders. For those who are linking the release of the Indians with the $78 billion deal that India renewed with Qatar Energy for the supply of gas until 2048—that’s why economic heft matters. India is the world’s fifth largest economy in terms of GDP, and third largest in terms of PPP. All that weight should count somewhere, and if it helps India to secure the release of its nationals incarcerated wrongly, then why cannot it be used as a leverage? This is also a case of implementing India’s policy of “no man left behind”, where the Modi government will go out of its way to ensure Indians caught in dire situations abroad are brought home—be it from Yemen, from Ukraine or from Qatar.
A word of thanks must be directed towards Qatar’s ruler, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, as well. PM Modi raised the matter of the arrested Indians with the Emir on the sidelines of the COP28 Summit in Dubai in December 2023, and it was the Emir’s personal intervention that ensured the release of the Indian nationals. Now that Prime Minister Modi is making an unscheduled stopover at Qatar on his way back home from the UAE on 14-15 February, the visit will see the strengthening of India’s relations with this Gulf country. Trade and energy ties are of primary interest to India and Qatar, with the latter being the primary supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to India. This gives India a lot of leverage with Qatar and India is not shy of exercising that leverage. The power of the Indian diaspora too cannot be underestimated in this case.
Qatar is home to around 7.5 lakh Indians, which is not a mean figure for a tiny country of around 26-27 lakh people. Given that Indians have been model residents of the countries in the Gulf—they comprise over 30% of the UAE’s population—and are amongst the most sought after as both white and blue collar workers, the jailing of the Indians in Qatar was a surprise. In fact, anecdotal evidence suggests that Indians are held in much higher esteem in the Gulf and are much more influential than their counterparts from Pakistan. It is in this context that the death sentence given to the Indian nationals may be seen. Initially, after their arrests in 2022, there was no mention of any Israeli angle in the case. Suddenly, after India expressed support for Israel and condemned the terrorism of Hamas in the 7 October 2023 attack, a court in Qatar announced the death penalty, by bringing in the “spying for Israel” charge. The charge seemed to have been deliberately designed to have an impact on Arab minds about the trustworthiness of Indians, by portraying them as working for Israel against Arabs.
Such a charge at the height of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, at a time when Gaza was witnessing thousands of casualties, incensing the Arab-Muslim world, could have negatively impacted the hiring of Indians in the Gulf. Remittances from the Gulf comprise over 30% of the total remittances of US$125 billion—the world’s highest—that the Indian economy receives from Indians based abroad. Remittances fuel the engine of states like Kerala. Any drop in that would have impacted the Indian economy. Hence, some experts are wondering about the kind of influence exercised by the Chinese and Pakistanis to hurt India in the Qatar case. These two countries have been trying to derail India-Gulf relations for a long time, a case in point being the propaganda spread against India as anti-Muslim during the Nupur Sharma controversy. In fact, many Pakistanis were celebrating the death sentences given to the eight Indians. The release of the Indians has dealt a body-blow to such anti-India forces.