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Since the end of the Cold War, India's Middle East diplomacy has undergone some major and indeed radical changes. As the direct consequence of a generational change in its leadership as well as its market liberalisation efforts at home, Indian diplomacy is now based on realism and neo-liberalism whereby national interests are prioritised over anti-western or anti-imperialist ideals, while economic engagement and cooperation is seen as critical in securing geopolitical interests. Today, therefore, India seeks to establish close and constructive ties with every single regional state, particularly with the resource-rich monarchies of the Persian Gulf.
As Indian economy continues to expand, New Delhi's is under immense pressure to secure lucrative and preferential deals for its energy companies, and thus its dependency on the GCC oil and gas is destined to deepen. This is especially the case given that current tensions between Iran and the West over Tehran's nuclear ambitions have made it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for India to maintain and strengthen its trade ties with Iran. As such, Indian government has been seeking ways to improve its standing and expand its influence in the Persian Gulf subregion. Its efforts on this front, however, have been greatly hampered by the unfortunate convergence of its interests with those of its arch strategic rival, China.
India is interested in the GCC as a source of oil and an oil services market, so is China. Indian elites and businesses are keen on pursuing opportunities in investment, sale of consumer goods, and tourism, so are their Chinese counterparts. New Delhi is eager to improve its ties with Saudi Arabia so to improve its standing amongst its Muslim population and the Muslim world, so is Beijing. Finally, Indians seek to utilise the GCC support in order to boost their power base in the UN, so do the Chinese. Lacking China's monetary muscles, India is indeed lagging behind, and thus New Delhi urgently needs to curve a niche and strategic market for herself in the region if it is to deny free rein to the Chinese in the Persian Gulf. And here, cooperation in the field of Information Technology (IT) and cybersecurity offers the best prospect.
The GCC as a whole has witnessed a phenomenal growth in Internet connectivity in recent years. Yet, this increased connectivity has been followed by a parallel increase in cybercriminal activities. Although some member states have begun to address the subject, both citizens and corporations' awareness of internet security is dangerously low. In the meantime, governments are proving helpless in their attempts to articulate internet-specific laws. The Arab Spring has politicised the cyberspace, and hence those governments that have sought to regulate the internet are using emergency and/or criminal laws as a form of combating cybercrime.
Meanwhile, the GCC states have all been striving to position themselves as attractive centres for doing business. In order to enhance their attractiveness, it is imperative that they improve regulation and implement processes to better protect business and consumer assets from cybercrimes. What is more, Gulf economies are gradually reaching a stage where hydrocarbon-based growth alone will not be sufficient to create capacities to provide systemic sustainability. These economies need to move beyond the rentier mode even if the global oil prices continue to rise. They need to establish knowledge-based economies in order to open up new employment opportunities for their younger generations. A knowledge-based economy, in turn, requires a strong and viable information and communication technology industry. This explains why the GCC governments are investing in IT and software sectors.
As an "IT superpower", India is well positioned to play a major role in helping the GCC states in realising their long-term strategic desires of becoming major financial hubs and commanding knowledge based economies. Since the late 1975, when the government of India envisioned a role for itself as a leading global IT power, India has earned valuable expertise in services such as packaged software implementation, systems integration, network infrastructure management, and IT consulting. India has successfully increased "internet literacy" amongst its own population by developing software programmes in regional languages. It can therefore help GCC states to do the same by producing internet security softwares in Arabic the lack of which has been commonly cited as one of the main reasons for both businesses and locals' unfamiliarity with cybersecurity issues. It can also assist GCC states in their attempts to regulate the internet. As one of the first countries to realise the inadequacy of "the laws of the industrial age" in the information era, India has made great achievements in regulating the internet in areas such as pornography, protection of privacy, universal access, internet education, consumer protection, internet gaming, and effective censorship.
India has a lot to gain by expanding its cooperation with the GCC in the field of Information Technology and cybersecurity. Establishing joint applied research and development programmes between scientific institutions in India and the GCC and/or forming technology-based joint ventures between small and medium size Indian companies and their GCC counterparts not only create employment opportunities for both Indian and GCC citizens, but it also secures more GGC investment in India's IT industry, thereby helping it to grow further. In the age of cyberthreat/cybersecurity, more importantly, collaboration in this field can facilitate defence and intelligence cooperation between New Delhi and the Gulf block. In this endeavour, India's 'electronic commerce network', which was set up by the government in 2000 in order to "catalyze India's IT trade and represent her e commerce interests internationally", ought to be empowered to lead the efforts alongside the Indian diplomats.
