Textbook Indias Saudi Policy Bridge To The Future P R Kumaraswamy Ebook All Chapter PDF

India's Saudi Policy: Bridge to the
Future P. R. Kumaraswamy
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/indias-saudi-policy-bridge-to-the-future-p-r-kumarasw
amy/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
Persian Gulf 2018: India's Relations with the Region P.

R. Kumaraswamy
https://textbookfull.com/product/persian-gulf-2018-indias-
relations-with-the-region-p-r-kumaraswamy/
The Palgrave Handbook of the Hashemite Kingdom of

Jordan P. R. Kumaraswamy
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-palgrave-handbook-of-the-
hashemite-kingdom-of-jordan-p-r-kumaraswamy/
Energy Transitions and the Future of the African Energy

Sector: Law, Policy and Governance Victoria R. Nalule
https://textbookfull.com/product/energy-transitions-and-the-
future-of-the-african-energy-sector-law-policy-and-governance-
victoria-r-nalule/
Autobiography of India Brand Bharat 5 Vol Set Made In

India Roots In India Unique To India Lead From India
Future From India 1st Edition D. K. Hari
https://textbookfull.com/product/autobiography-of-india-brand-
bharat-5-vol-set-made-in-india-roots-in-india-unique-to-india-
lead-from-india-future-from-india-1st-edition-d-k-hari/
International Economics Theory and Policy 11th Edition
P R Krugman M Obsteld M J Melitz
https://textbookfull.com/product/international-economics-theory-
and-policy-11th-edition-p-r-krugman-m-obsteld-m-j-melitz/
Coulson and Richardson’s Chemical Engineering, Fourth

Edition: Volume 3A: Chemical and Biochemical Reactors
and Reaction Engineering R. Ravi
https://textbookfull.com/product/coulson-and-richardsons-
chemical-engineering-fourth-edition-volume-3a-chemical-and-
biochemical-reactors-and-reaction-engineering-r-ravi/
The Future of Higher Education in India Sudhanshu

Bhushan
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-future-of-higher-education-
in-india-sudhanshu-bhushan/
Sustainable Buildings and Infrastructure Paths to the

Future 2nd Annie R. Pearce
https://textbookfull.com/product/sustainable-buildings-and-
infrastructure-paths-to-the-future-2nd-annie-r-pearce/
Pakistan or the Partition of India 2nd Edition B. R.

Ambedkar
https://textbookfull.com/product/pakistan-or-the-partition-of-
india-2nd-edition-b-r-ambedkar/
India’s
Saudi
Policy
Bridge to the Future
P. R. KUMARASWAMY
AND
MD. MUDDASSIR QUAMAR
India’s Saudi Policy
P. R. Kumaraswamy
Md. Muddassir Quamar
India’s Saudi Policy

Bridge to the Future
P. R. Kumaraswamy Md. Muddassir Quamar
School of International Studies Institute for Defence Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University & Analyses
New Delhi, India New Delhi, India
ISBN 978-981-13-0793-5 ISBN 978-981-13-0794-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0794-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018947394
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
Cover credits: thedafkish / Getty Images

Booblgum / Getty Images
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Singapore Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore
189721, Singapore
To our guru Professor M. S. Agwani
With respect and gratitude
Acknowledgements
On the late afternoon of 23 March 2018, an Air India flight from New
Delhi arrived in the Ben-Gurion International Airport just outside Tel
Aviv and made history. The direct flight between India and Israel had an
interesting twist as it flew over the Saudi airspace. Since the early 1960s as
part of their boycott policy, Arab states have denied flights from or to
Israel accessing their airspace. As a result, flights touching Israel often take
more circuitous routes incurring cost and time overruns. The Saudi will-
ingness to bestow a rare privilege upon India’s national carrier underscores
the transformation that is taking place in India’s fortunes in the wider
Middle East, especially vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia. What are the main drivers of
the Indo-Saudi relations?
Initially, the idea was to capture various aspects of the bilateral relations
within the broad historical context and India’s engagement with the most
critical Gulf Arab country. As things progressed, it was evident that the
pace and depth of the relations were shaped and influenced by New Delhi.
The ups and downs as well as the transformation have largely been due to
certain shifts in India’s priorities and approaches towards the Kingdom.
Despite many inherent advantages, for long, there was an absence of
warmth between the two, and gradual transformation has primarily hap-
pened when New Delhi began viewing the Kingdom and its strengths and
limitations without the Pakistani prism. Hence, it is more about India’s
policy than relations with Saudi Arabia.
Such an endeavour not only is a time-consuming exercise but also
requires the support, understanding and encouragement of family, friends
and colleagues. Besides, many individuals have inspired both the authors
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
and the prime credit goes to Shri Hamid Ansari, former vice-president of
India. For nearly two decades he spent a considerable amount of his time
in sharing his knowledge and understanding of the vastly complex Middle
East.
We wish to register our gratitude to Director-General of IDSA
Ambassador Jayant Prasad for his continuous support in pursuing our
research. Special mention is reserved for Deputy Director General Maj.
Gen. Alok Deb (retd.), Meena Singh Roy S Kalyanraman, S. Samuel
C. Rajiv, Rajeesh Kumar, Adil Rasheed, P. K. Pradhan and Hitakshi in the
library.
D. Shyam Babu was instrumental in both suggesting, and then training
us in, the use of Zotero for collecting and organizing academic materials.
We are thankful to Dr. Saud al-Sati, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia to India, for his help in tweaking the subtitle of the book.
We thank the library staff of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Institute for
Defence Studies and Analyses and Indian Council of World Affairs. The
online MEA collection is an information mine.
We are grateful to a host of scholars, academics and diplomats who
directly or indirectly enriched our knowledge, including Professors
Girijesh Pant, Gulshan Dietl, P. C. Jain, A. K. Pasha, A. K. Ramakrishnan,
A. K. Mohapatra, and Bansidhar Pradhan and Ambassadors Ishrat Aziz,
Talmiz Ahmad, Sanjay Singh, and Ramaiah Rajagopalan. We are also
thankful to scholar friends, including Avraham Sela, Badrul Alam, C. Uday
Bhaskar, Efraim Inbar, Hayat Alvi, Hussein Solomon, Joseph Kechichian,
Muhammad Gulrez, Noor Ahmed Baba, P. K. Muraleedhar Babu, Rajesh
Rajagopalan, Santishree Pandit, Saud al-Sarhan, Saud al-Tamami, Sean
Foley, Sreeradha Datta and Vivek Mehra.
It is our privilege to have a host of well-wishers, especially Kalpana
Shukla, Jose Mathew, Alvite Singh and U. Marimuthu, who during differ-
ent times have encouraged our research pursuit.
We recognize a host of friends, including Minakshi, Dipanwita, Chetna
and Manjari, who were helpful in different stages. It is the persuasive
power of Sagarika Ghosh and her team at Palgrave which resulted in this
work reaching its logical conclusion.
Above all, the work could not have been completed without the uncon-
ditional love and support of our families and the dedication to work we
inherited from our parents.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ix
Professor M. S. Agwani, the doyen of the Middle Eastern studies in the

country, has been our guru who passed away as the work was in progress
and we dedicate this volume to him with humility and gratitude.
As the ancient Indian scripture says, You are your friend and you are
your own enemy, all errors and omissions are ours. Ours alone.
Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 The Nehru Era 11
3 Drifting Apart 33
4 Islamic Dimension 53
5 Pakistan Factor 83
6 Palestine Factor 109
7 The Shift 129
8 Transformation 149
9 Energy, Economics and Expatriates 169
10 International Factors 195
11 Challenges 215
xi
xii Contents
1. List of Indian Ambassadors to Saudi Arabia 223
2. Nehru-King Saud Joint Statement, 1956 225
3. Indo-Saudi Arabian Economic Cooperation Agreement,

1981 227
4. India-Saudi Joint Communiqué during the Visit of Indira

Gandhi to Saudi Arabia, 1982 229
5. Number of Haj Pilgrims from India, 1947–2017 237
6. Delhi Declaration, 2006 239
7. Riyadh Declaration, 2010 243
8. Joint Statement on the Occasion of the Official Visit of

Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence
Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to India, 2014 247
9. India-Saudi Arabia Joint Statement during the Visit of

Prime Minister to Saudi Arabia, 2016 251
References 259
Index 321
About the Authors
P. R. Kumaraswamy is Professor of Contemporary Middle East Studies

in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. From 1992 to 1999
he was a research fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the
Advancement of Peace, Jerusalem. Since joining JNU in September 1999,
he has been researching, teaching and writing on various aspects of the
contemporary Middle East. His works include India’s Israel Policy (2010);
Historical Dictionary of the Arab Israeli Conflict (2015, second edition);
and Squaring the Circle: Mahatma Gandhi and the Jewish National Home
(2018). Prof. Kumaraswamy has edited many of volumes, and his research
articles have been published in a number of refereed and non-refereed
international journals. He regularly contributes to Indian as well as inter-
national media outlets. In February 2010 he set up the virtual Middle East
Institute, New Delhi (www.mei.org.in) and serves as its honorary director.
He is the editor of Contemporary Review of the Middle East and the series
editor of Persian Gulf: India’s Relations with the Region.
Md. Muddassir Quamar is an Associate Fellow in the Institute for
Defence Studies & Analyses, New Delhi. He holds a Ph.D. in Middle East
studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University. His doctoral thesis examined
social developments in Saudi Arabia between 1991 and 2010 within a
conceptual framework of Islamic modernism. Dr. Quamar’s areas of inter-
est include politics and societies in the Gulf, Middle East strategic affairs
and political Islam. His research papers have appeared in leading interna-
tional journals such as Contemporary Arab Affairs, Digest of Middle East
Studies, Journal of Arabian Studies and Journal of South Asian and Middle
xiii
xiv ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Eastern Studies. He has co-edited an anthology titled Contemporary

Persian Gulf: Essays in Honour of Gulshan Dietl, Prakash C. Jain and
Girijesh Pant, contributed chapters to edited volumes and regularly con-
tributes opinion articles on strategic developments in the Middle East and
India-Gulf relations. He was a visiting fellow in King Faisal Center for
Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh, and serves as associate editor of
Contemporary Review of the Middle East.
List of Figures
Fig. 9.1 India-Saudi Arabia Bilateral Trade. (Source: Directorate General

of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce & Industry,
Government of India and World Bank (https://wits.worldbank.
org/CountryProfile/en/IND))172
Fig. 9.2 Saudi Arabia’s position in India’s foreign trade. (Source:
Directorate General of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce
& Industry, Government of India) 173
Fig. 9.3 Saudi share in India’s total foreign trade. (Source: Directorate
General of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce & Industry,
Government of India) 173
Fig. 9.4 Saudi share in India’s total petroleum imports. (Source:
Fig. 9.5 Petroleum imports from Saudi Arabia in quantity. (Source:
xv
List of Tables
Table 9.1 India-Saudi Arabia bilateral trade (US$ million) 171

Table 9.2 India’s energy imports from Saudi Arabia (in US$ million) 177
Table 9.3 India’s crude oil imports (million tonnes) 178
Table 9.4 Import dependency for crude oil (in million tonnes) 180
Table 9.5 Share of energy in India’s foreign trade (in US$ million) 181
Table 9.6 Top five energy suppliers of India 182
Table 9.7 India’s energy-related exports to Saudi Arabia (in US$ million) 183
Table 9.8 Categorization of Saudi companies based on percentage of
Saudization under Nitaqat in wholesale and retail sector 187
xvii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Jaziratul Arab! This expression, literally meaning the Island of Arabia, has
been a common parlance in India for centuries. In that respect, the Arabian
Peninsula and Arabs have occupied a significant place in its psychology,
common sense and world-view long before the modern age. This is primar-
ily due to the strong historical linkages and cultural interactions between the
Indian subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula. Trade ties, land and maritime
forays, acquisition and dissemination of knowledge and spirituality were
some of the forces that brought the two land masses and their populations
closer and paved the way for the exchange of people, cultures, languages
and ideas. For example, Kalila wa Dimna, the most popular text for chil-
dren commonly used in the Arab world, is a translation of the ancient Indian
fable Panchatantra that travelled to the Peninsula through Arab and Persian
traders and travellers and eventually became integral to Arab folklore.
Similarly, the influence of Arab culture on southern coastal regions of
Malabar has been due to constant people-to-people contacts, and many
Arabic words and expressions are part of the common parlance in the local
vernaculars. Indeed, the expression ‘India’ is an Anglicized version of the
name that the Arabs gave to the lands beyond River Sindh, that is, Hind.
Some Arab authors also claim that India’s ancient name Bharat was also
given by the Arab traders and travellers who used to visit to the lands espe-
cially for trading spices, which in Arabic is called baharat (singular bahar).
Most interestingly, many traditional spice markets in the Arab world are
still known as souq al-hind or the Indian Market!
© The Author(s) 2019 1

P. R. Kumaraswamy, Md. M. Quamar, India’s Saudi Policy,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0794-2_1
2 P. R. KUMARASWAMY AND MD. M. QUAMAR
Cultural and civilizational associations between India and Arabia

flourished primarily because of geographic proximity. The Deccan
Peninsula of India is separated from Arabia only by the Arabian Sea, thereby
making Arabia India’s maritime neighbourhood. In the pre-partition era,
the north-western part of India had land contacts with Arabia through Iran
and Mesopotamia, what is now known as Iraq. Hence, trade links between
the two flourished centuries before Christ.
These geo-historic interactions were strengthened with the advent of
Islam, and the new faith arrived on the Indian shores shortly after the
death of Prophet Mohammed. Since then the contacts between the two
transformed into cultural, religious and societal linkages, and under the
British they assumed strategic dimensions. Primarily to safeguard its com-
mercial interests in India and through the Suez Canal, Britain formulated
a policy towards the Persian Gulf which was administered and at times
shaped by its interests in India. British India having the largest concentra-
tion of Muslims added a religious dimension vis-à-vis Arabia.
The partition of the subcontinent and India’s independence in 1947
cut off direct land contacts with Arabia, and the formation of new king-
doms and sheikhdoms in the Arabian Peninsula changed the way India
and Arabia engaged. The political distancing between the two accompa-
nied the loss of geographical continuity. Driven by strong anti-imperial
and anti-colonial sentiments of the nationalist phase, independent India
and its leaders were not prepared to build on the British interests and
influence in the Gulf Arab countries. Due to their fragile domestic situa-
tions and regional threats, especially from the more powerful imperial
Iran, some of the Arab countries sought external support and patronage.
These, in turn, contributed to the psychological distance between India
and Arabia. The communal partition of the subcontinent resulted in the
former taking a negative view of religion-centric national identities. The
strong religious and traditional outlooks of the new Arab monarchies
radically differed from the modern, secular and multi-national state that
Jawaharlal Nehru and his colleagues were trying to develop. Indeed, as
will be discussed, during the Cold War the political gulf was significant and
profound than the Arabian Sea that separated India from Arabia.
The Arabian Peninsula, the land mass surrounded by the Persian Gulf,
Arabian Sea and the Red Sea, comprises of Oman, the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) and Yemen in the east and south, Kuwait, Iraq and Jordan
in the northwest, and Bahrain and Qatar in the eastern part protruding in
the Persian Gulf. The largest and thus far the most dominant country in
INTRODUCTION 3
the Arabian Peninsula and, according to some, the inheritor of Jaziratul

Arab, both in geographical and psychological sense, is the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia.
Thus, after the partition of the subcontinent, India and Saudi Arabia
emerged as the national inheritors of the two ancient neighbourhood
geographies and civilizations. Ideally, this should have enabled them to
maintain and consolidate their contacts towards evolving a strong political
partnership. Why did this not happen? Or what has been India’s policy
towards the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
Even though both the leaderships tried to continue historical links
through political contacts, they proved short-lived and insufficient.
A variety of factors were responsible for this, but the two most critical were
their different worldviews and the formation of a Muslim Pakistan.
Though the former during the Cold War could have been glossed over if
not ignored, both India and Saudi Arabia allowed the Pakistani factor to
dominate and in the process undermine their interests vis-à-vis one
another. Since independence, India looked at Saudi Arabia primarily
through the Pakistani prism and this lingered on until the end of the Cold
War. Despite intermittent political contacts, the ‘gulf’ between the two
could not be narrowed, let alone bridged. In a nutshell, the Kingdom
remained on the periphery of India’s overall approach towards the Middle
East. This has been the case during much of the Cold War era.
The disintegration of the USSR brought about an end to the Cold War,
resulting in fundamental structural changes in the global political order.
At that time, scholars termed the unfolding new era as ‘end of history’ or
the heralding of a ‘unipolar’ world dominated by the United States (US).
Though these prophecies proved misleading and wishful, the transforma-
tion of global politics was felt in all parts of the world. India was forced to
come to terms with the new US-dominated world and re-examine the
vintages of its past policies. Russia, the inheritor of the USSR, which for
much of the Cold War era, was India’s close friend, was weak and was
unable to help or influence other countries. Until then India relied on the
Cold War–centric non-alignment and built its reputation and influence by
extending support to underdogs and weaker parties to make its presence
felt. In so doing, it relied on the Soviet Union for nation-building proj-
ects, military capabilities and modernization. The sudden end of the Cold
War and the emergence of a weakened Russia meant that India had to
come to terms with the new world order dominated by the US.
These external changes could not have come at a worst time. The end
of the Cold War coincided with the domestic economic crisis. Despite
being the second most populous country after China, the Indian economy
remained small, heavily indebted and with a slower growth rate. Its mixed
economy model came to symbolize the inefficiency of the socialism and
exploitative nature of capitalism. The Kuwait crisis was a further burden as
it forced India to evacuate over 150,000 of its citizens from the emirate
and the additional financial loss in the form of stoppage of remittances.
These cut into India’s ability to import essential items.
Under such circumstances, the government headed by Prime Minister
P. V. Narasimha Rao decided to adopt a policy of gradual economic open-
ing and its integration with the global economy. The path chosen was to
allow privatization and reduce government control over economy and
trade. Along with the economic reform measures, Rao also recognized the
need to reorient the foreign policy both to ensure the success of the
economic reforms and to reclaim India’s position in the global politics.
The sudden disintegration of the Soviet Union also exposed the fallacy of
military might without a firm economic basis. Hence, the economic
reforms and political reorientation had to go hand in hand and their
successes were inter-dependent and closely linked. Indeed, the weakening
of India’s international influence, especially after the Sino-Indian conflict
of 1962, was due to its weak economic power.
At the foreign policy level, the post–Cold War Indian approach changed
and shed its ideological hesitation and sought friendly relations with all
major powers of the world. It strove for better relations with the US,
Western Europe, Australia, Japan and other First World countries without
abandoning its traditional constituencies in the Third World. It felt the
need to befriend not only Russia but also the newly independent former
republics of the USSR. The economic ascendance of China meant India
would have to find ways of benefitting from the former’s economic prog-
ress without undermining its interest.
This approach was more palpable in the Middle East. Both to recognize
the Arab willingness to pursue a political settlement to the Arab-Israeli
conflict and to signal a break from the past, in January 1992 India normal-
ized relations with Israel. Ending the four-decade-old recognition-
without-relations indicated New Delhi’s willingness to come to terms with
the end of the Cold War.
The shift also became necessary vis-à-vis Iran as well as oil-rich Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) states. The economic reforms grew the
INTRODUCTION 5
appetite for energy resources as the domestic resources could not cope
with the galloping hydrocarbon requirements. Until then India managed
its energy needs mainly through local production and relying on a mixed
basket of sources such as coal, wood and other traditional means. This was
no longer feasible with the pace of its economic growth, and the need for
stable sources of energy resulted in the Gulf Arab countries, which are
geographically closer and oil-rich, becoming a key player in its calcula-
tions. For their part, the Gulf countries were also looking for a stable
markets, primarily due to stagnation in their traditional markets in the
West, and began seeing India as a natural destination.
Until the 1990s, due to the weak economic basis, India’s approach
towards Arabia was marked by political rhetoric and its leaders often flagged
the absence of relations with Israel as a sign of their commitments to the
Arabs. Though it was in continuation of the anti-imperial and anti-colonial
phase of the nationalist struggle, this indicated the absence of any political
influence or interest convergence between India and the Gulf. The economic
reforms and exponential expansion of energy demands provided a much-
needed but long absent economic wherewithal to the bilateral relations.
It is mostly within this emerging context one could understand and
explain the transformation of India’s policy towards the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, which has the largest known oil reserves in the world and has been
the largest oil producer and exporter since the 1970s. Because of their
size, energy resources and relative internal resilience, the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran emerged as the core compo-
nent of India’s new approach towards the Gulf. Though it procures the
bulk of its oil from other countries such as Iraq, Kuwait and the UAE and
gas from Qatar, India’s Middle East policy has been dominated by Saudi
Arabia and Iran.
Reforms and resultant economic growth also contributed to India’s
power aspirations and led to it seeking a strategic partnership with Gulf
Arab countries. Due to its size, location, religious importance, regional
influence and global standing, Saudi Arabia emerged central to India’s
interests in the Gulf. The Kingdom having over three million expatriate
labourers—the largest concentration of people of Indian origin outside the
country—was also important. For its part, Saudi Arabia also began looking
at India beyond the traditional prisms of being an underdeveloped econ-
omy. The September 11 terror attacks and the resultant backlash against
the Kingdom as well as Islam resulted in Riyadh adopting a Look East
policy, which had economic and strategic dimensions beneficial to India.
These paved the way for an interest convergence, and for the first time
since 1947, India and Saudi Arabia began learning to sidestep, if not
ignore, the persistent irritant that prevented them from developing closer
ties, namely, the Pakistan factor. While this was critical to the improvement
in relations, another contributing factor has been India’s growing confi-
dence. In some ways, the nuclear tests in May 1998 were a defining
moment. Though the US and its allies imposed punitive measures, India
withstood these sanctions and registered a continuous economic growth
since the early 1990s. These, in turn compelled the West, especially the
US, to come to terms with India’s growth story and in the process led to
greater regional and international engagements with New Delhi. They, in
turn, elicited a favourable response from countries like Saudi Arabia.
A politically confident and economically growing India found a willing
partner in Saudi Arabia. For long there were hesitations on both sides due
to past indifference. The visits of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to the
Kingdom in 1982 and of Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal in
1981 proved insufficient to break the shackles of uncertainties and mutual
suspicions and misgivings. With hindsight, one could argue that a real
breakthrough happened in January 2001 when External Affairs Minister
Jaswant Singh visited the Kingdom. This was the first foreign minister–
level visit, also indicating the prolonged Indian apathy. Singh’s visit paved
the way for furthering the bilateral relations and shed past hesitations over
Pakistan in reaching out to the Kingdom. Even though there were
exchanges of business and trade delegations, Singh’s visit contributed to
the transformation of Indo-Saudi, and since 2001 there have been three
state visits between the two countries, including the visit of King Abdullah
to India in January 2006.
The fewer political contacts during the Cold War were accompanied by
two factors which maintained the flourishing of people-to-people con-
tacts, namely, haj and expatriate workers. The annual pilgrimage began
with the advent of Islam and the faithful assemblage of the largest congre-
gation of humanity in Mecca—the heart of Arabia—where Prophet
Mohammed was born and where he began preaching the new faith. The
Indian Muslim participation in the annual pilgrimage has always been sub-
stantial, and during the British Raj many Muslim ruling Nawabs, princes
and wealthy philanthropists generously contributed to the upkeep of the
Ka’aba and in the process earned respect and admiration of Arabs and
other Muslims.
INTRODUCTION 7
Though the records of these princes and Nawabs performing haj have
been scant, the tradition of sending family members, mainly elderly
women, along with emissaries, to Arabia has been recorded in many medi-
eval Indian texts. Many Mughal noblemen who lost favour with the rulers
and were no longer required were sent on ‘goodwill’ haj pilgrimage,
mostly never to return home given the dangerous journey. After indepen-
dence, the number of haj pilgrims persisted and with the advent of mod-
ern amenities and ease of travel, the number continued to increase. Hence,
during times of limited political interests or contacts, haj was a significant
avenue for maintaining bilateral connections between the two peoples.
The second non-official component has been the expatriate labourers.
India has a history of sending migrants to the Gulf, and even in the early
1930s when oil was discovered in the Gulf, some Indian migrants were
engaged in businesses around the nascent oil industry. This is true for the
eastern Saudi city of Dammam, where the oil industry is based at. The oil
boom of the early 1970s opened the floodgates and led to the continuous
flow of Indian workers to the Kingdom. This has not been impeded by
low political contacts and limited interest convergence during the Cold
War. India’s economic liberalization and developing energy trade were
accompanied by growing migration to the Gulf, and currently, there are
over three million Indians who are gainfully employed in the Kingdom.
These were compounded by increasing oil imports from the Kingdom
which enhanced bilateral trade.
Thus, there is a perceptible change in the importance of Saudi Arabia in
India’s foreign policy. Besides energy and expatriate components, the
Kingdom assumed political importance and both sides began exploring
other areas such as human resource development, IT, cultural ties and
above all military-security cooperation. The dilution of the Pakistan factor
enabled both countries to see collaboration in areas such as maritime secu-
rity and combating sea piracy, organized crimes, terror financing and intel-
ligence sharing. The willingness of both the countries to contain the
negative impact of the Pakistani factor resulted in the Kingdom extradit-
ing or deporting criminals wanted by India, including Fasih Mohammed
and Zabiuddin Ansari, both accused in the November 2008 Mumbai ter-
ror attack.
Since 2001 there were regular and high-level political visits between the
two. These include one royal visit by Abdullah in January 2006; two visits
by Salman (as Governor of Riyadh in April 2010 and as Crown Prince in
February 2014); two prime ministerial visits from India in February–

March 2010 and April 2016; visits by Saudi foreign minister in March
2016 and by Indian external affairs ministers in May 2013 and February
2018. Besides, oil ministers from both the countries have been visiting
one another or meeting in international forums. Moreover, the Kingdom
also hosted Human Resources Minister Arjun Singh (May 2006) and
Defence Minister A. K. Antony (February 2012), and their National
Security Advisors have been exchanging views at regular intervals. Above
all, there is a greater realization in both the countries that bilateral rela-
tions have to go beyond transactional ties towards capitalizing on the
inherent advantages of the other. These are reflected in a growing Saudi
willingness to accommodate India’s interests and concerns; the Saudi con-
demnation of Pakistan-sponsored terror attack in Uri in September 2016
and the permission granted to Air India to fly to Israel over its airspace
can be cited as an examples of Saudi flexibility towards India.
This book seeks to capture India’s Saudi policy since its independence
and analyses the trajectory of its approach towards the Kingdom. It argues
that its geopolitical outlook and foreign policy approach based on the
Cold War dynamics and the Pakistani factor prevented India from looking
at the Kingdom as a potential friend. Despite the immense possibilities
due to socio-cultural and geo-historic advantages, New Delhi could not
capitalize on the strengths primarily due to its concerns vis-à-vis Pakistan.
The gulf created due to the Indian perceptions was further strengthened
by the partisan Saudi approach over Pakistan and its desire to look at the
South Asian matrix through Pakistani prism. In short, the Pakistan factor
became a millstone around their necks and prevented any meaningful
political understanding and cooperation.
The transformation had to wait until the end of the Cold War and sig-
nificant shifts in the Indian approach towards the outside world and its
willingness to seek international influence through strength. Domestic
growth enabled India to change its view of the outside world and leverage
its influence. These, in turn, resulted in India de-hyphenating Pakistan
from its engagements with the outside world. The delink also freed Riyadh
from its traditional approach towards the subcontinent.
Why policy, not relations? The transformation of the bilateral ties, more
visible since the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is largely due
to shifts in Indian understanding of and approach towards Saudi Arabia.
The initiatives largely rested on India and its ability to understand that the
INTRODUCTION 9
basic Saudi affinity for Pakistan was primarily due to religious considerations.
Rather than demanding the outside world to choose between the two
South Asian neighbours, India recognized the wider international com-
pulsions and opted to delink Pakistan and this was more visible vis-à-vis
Saudi Arabia. Once the Pakistani factor was off the table, the Kingdom
was more receptive towards India, its challenges and opportunities. This
pattern can be noticed in much of India’s engagements with major powers
of the world. Hence, the transformation of Indian policy and the reciproc-
ity from the other side resulted in the Kingdom emerging as a key player
in India’s Middle East policy.
The volume treats the subject in four broad segments. The first one
provided the general overview of the relations since 1947 and the second
one deals with the role of Islam, Pakistan and Palestine in shaping India’s
Saudi policy. The third part deals with the shift in Indian policy and the
resultant transformation both in political and economic terms. And the
last section focuses on the role of international players and challenges fac-
ing the bilateral relations.
During his visit to India in 2006, King Abdullah observed that Saudi
Arabia sees ‘Pakistan as a brother and India a friend.’ However strong, the
former is given while the latter is a choice; ancient Indian epics are replete
with examples of friends being more dependable and enduring than blood
relatives. Over to the Volume.
CHAPTER 2
The Nehru Era
More than any other leader, Jawaharlal Nehru had a profound and lasting
impact upon India’s policy towards the outside world. His imprints on
foreign policy can be traced to the freedom struggle, and as Jayantanuja
Bandyopadhyaya observed, since the 42nd annual session of the party held
in Madras (now Chennai) in December 1927, Nehru became the “recog-
nized spokesman of the Congress on foreign affairs.” Indeed, with the for-
mation of the Foreign Department of the party in 1925, “practically every
resolution of the Congress on foreign affairs was inspired, drafted and
piloted by Nehru” (Bandyopadhyaya 1984, 286). Nehru’s influence and
domination became overwhelming after India’s independence and he con-
currently held the foreign ministry until his death in May 1964. As prime
minister cum external affairs minister, he defined not only the direction of
India’s engagements with the outside world but also its priorities.
At the time of partition of the subcontinent, India had a colonial-
diplomatic legacy, especially in the Middle East. Since the early nineteenth
century, the British policy towards the Persian Gulf was primarily directed
from India, first from Calcutta and later on from Bombay when Delhi
became the British capital in December 1911. Many elites of the future
Gulf Arab sheikdoms were educated in India or had spent a considerable
amount of time in the Western shores of the country for holiday or busi-
ness (Onley 2007), and the Indian rupee remained the legal tender in
some of these countries until the early 1960s. Above all, Indian soldiers
© The Author(s) 2019 11

P. R. Kumaraswamy, Md. M. Quamar, India’s Saudi Policy,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0794-2_2
played a crucial part in the British campaign in the First World War, espe-
cially in the Gallipoli and Palestine campaigns. Due to imperial interests,
the British had a few missions that Nehru inherited. For example, a resi-
dent mission in Jeddah was functioning for the welfare of the Indian haj
pilgrims.
At the same time, India was not inclined to capitalize on the British
interests in the region. Driven by his anti-colonial and anti-imperialist
worldview, Nehru detested the British possessions and spheres of influence
and sought a policy that was different from and even opposed to the Raj.
At the time of independence, India had resident missions in Cairo, Tehran
and Istanbul (India, MEA 1949, 1–2) in addition to the Vice Consul in
the British Embassy in Jeddah for haj. In short, the only Indian mission in
the entire Arab world was located in the Egyptian capital. Budgetary con-
sideration and shortage of personnel inhibited New Delhi from immedi-
ately opening new missions in other parts of the region (ibid.).
This was despite India’s prolonged contacts with Islam, the predomi-
nant religion of the Middle East. The Arab merchants were trading with
India even before the birth of the new faith. Islam came to the Indian
shores shortly after the death of Prophet Mohammed. For centuries Indian
pilgrims made up a large number of hajis and their traders were active in
Jeddah, a major port city en route to Mecca. Rulers of princely states and
wealthy business communities were engaged in various philanthropic activ-
ities and contributed to the upkeep of the Grand Mosque of Mecca which
houses Ka’aba (Khalidi 2009, 55; Azaryahu and Reiter 2015, 33). Indeed,
in the pre-oil era the Saudi state thrived not only on annual British financial
assistance (Leatherdale 1983) but also from indirect support through
donations for the upkeep of Ka’aba and the businesses generated by haj-
related activities.
Despite these religious, commercial and colonial legacies, there were
little contacts between the Indian nationalists and the leaders of the nascent
Saudi state which began with the conquest of Riyadh in 1902. The politi-
cal, economic and military support from the British facilitated the Saudi
conquest of the Hejaz region, including Mecca and Medina, from the
Hashemites in the 1920s. This dependency upon the British partly resulted
in al-Saud not looking at the Indian nationalists as their natural allies.
As happened to the Zionists around the same time, any overt support for
the Indian nationalists and their struggle for freedom would have alien-
ated the al-Saud from the British and undermined their state-building
THE NEHRU ERA 13
process. Hence, they were not enamoured by Nehru’s anti-colonial and

anti-imperial legacy (Agwani 1992) and there was little interest conver-
gence between the Indian nationalist movement and the al-Saud.
This was in contrast to the contacts between the Egyptian (Sawant and
Rizvi 1980) and Palestinian nationalists (Agwani 1971; Abu-Laghod
1991) and their Indian counterparts. Interestingly some of the political
contacts between the Indian leaders, especially the Ali Brothers who led
the Khilafat Movement in the early 1920s, and Arab-Palestinian leaders
took place on the Saudi territory during the haj (Kumaraswamy 2010,
61) but there was little interaction between the Indian nationalists and
the Saudi leadership.
On the eve of India’s independence, Nehru hosted the Arab Relations
Conference in Delhi in March–April 1947 and from the Middle East del-
egates from Egypt, Iran, Turkey and the Arab League were present and
indeed a ten-member Jewish delegation from Palestine took part in the
meeting, seen as the forerunner of future Afro-Asian solidarity and Non-
aligned Movement (NAM). Saudi Arabia, which was formed in 1932, was
conspicuous by its absence (Asian Relations Organization 1948, 264–79).
One might even say that in terms of political contacts and diplomatic rela-
tions, Nehru had an empty slate vis-à-vis the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
when he became prime minister of India in 1947.
Framing the Priorities

Prime Minister Nehru was confronted with the challenge of nation-building
of a country of enormous religious, ethnic, cultural, linguistic and ideo-
logical diversities. The post-partition riots in which about a million people
were killed (Moon 1962) meant that inter-communal harmony acquired
paramount importance. This could only be achieved through an inclusive
India that recognizes and accepts its socio-cultural diversities and fault
lines. Incorporating over 500 notionally independent princely states into
the Indian union had to be accomplished through political accommoda-
tion and foresight. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who served as Home
Minister during August 1947 and until his death in December 1950,
was credited for the integration of these princely states into the union
(Ahluwalia 1974).
At the same, the developmental agenda was herculean and was under-
mined by the Cold War. Beginning in the post-War Europe, the power
struggle soon engulfed different parts of the world. Even before independence,
the Indian nationalists eschewed great power rivalry, and during the
Second World War, for example, the mainstream nationalists even refused
to seek the help of imperial Japan in their fight against the British (Basu
et al. 1999; Puri 1977).
To quarantine India from the Euro-centric bloc politics, Nehru con-
sciously sought to steer the non-aligned path. Far from being neutrality as
practiced by countries such as Switzerland, Nehru’s non-alignment did
not imply merely the rejection of military alliances but a nuanced response
to the power struggle between the US and USSR. Though appreciative of
the US and its liberal democracy, Nehru was opposed to Washington’s
strategy of containment of communism through military blocs and alli-
ances (Gopal 1991). On the contrary, he sought to bring in the newly
independent and decolonized countries under the umbrella of Afro-Asian
solidarity to ward off colonialism, external interference and domination.
The Western response to Nehru’s non-alignment was anything but
sympathetic (McMahon 1996). Preoccupied with the East-West tension
in Europe and the Korean crisis, the US adopted a narrower view personi-
fied by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. In his address to Iowa State
College on 9 June 1955, he declared “neutrality has increasingly become
an obsolete and except under very exceptional circumstances, it is an
immoral and short-sighted conception” (The New York Times 1959). This
if-you-are-not-with-me-then-you-are-against-me approach largely ended
India’s hopes of an enduring partnership with the US based on mutual
respect and understanding and resulted in Nehru gravitating towards
Moscow. This was concretized during the month-long visit of Nikita
Khrushchev and Nicholai Bulganin in late 1955 and paved the way for a
greater Soviet role in India’s developmental agenda (Singh 1989) and
military modernization (Conley 2001). This process eventually culmi-
nated in greater foreign policy convergences, with India emerging as a
significant partner, if not an ally of the USSR, on major international cri-
ses such as Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1966), global disarmament
debates and above all non-aligned foreign policy.
In the process, Saudi Arabia became an unintended casualty of India’s
approach towards the Cold War and was adversely affected by its priorities.
Despite the century-old religious, cultural and commercial exchanges and
contacts, India’s engagements with modern-day Saudi Arabia have been
influenced by the regional upheavals over which both the countries
adopted different and even diametrically opposite stands.
THE NEHRU ERA 15
Different Worldviews
Nehru’s worldview was shaped by India’s colonial experience. When India
joined the UN as its founding member in 1945, the world body had 51
members and it rose to 115 when Nehru passed away in 1964. Hence,
fighting colonialism had dominated Nehru’s thinking. Like India, much
of the Arab world suffered from European colonialism, which left a deep
and lasting impact upon their nation-building process. The shared anti-
colonial experience resulted in many Arab nationalist leaders and societies
seeking to befriend the Indian nationalists during the inter-war period and
sought political support in their anti-colonial struggle. Since the early
1920s, the Congress party, for example, sympathized with anti-colonial
sentiments of the region. As the doyen of the Middle Eastern studies in
the country observed, “While the nationalist movement in India sympa-
thized with the nationalist aspirations of the Arabs, the latter realized that
their own emancipation was tied up with the outcome of the Indian strug-
gle” (Agwani 1976, 63). In continuation of this process, Nehru sought to
forge closer ties with the countries of Asia and Africa and organized the
Asian Relations Conference (Asian Relations Organization 1948), weeks
before India’s independence and played a pivotal role in the first Afro-
Asian conference in Bandung in April 1955 (Appadorai 1955).
Wedded to socialism since his youth (Nehru 1964), the first prime min-
ister was not enamoured by the Arab monarchies and their feudal approach
towards nation building and social transformation (Mudiam 1994, 202–3)
As he was trying to bring about social changes within the country through
state-centric economic reforms and modernization, he was looking for allies
elsewhere. Though the newly established State of Israel was committed to
democracy, socialism and liberal values, Nehru viewed Zionism as an
“agent” of British imperialism and adopted a policy of recognition-without-
relations towards it (Kumaraswamy 2010).
Moreover, the ideological differences and competition with Pakistan
resulted in Nehru espousing secularism as an article of faith both within
and outside the country. He needed secular-national leaderships which
were committed being free from the European domination and with lesser
emphasis on conservatism rooted in religion (Balasubramanian 1980).
His close and enduring political ties with U Nu of Burma (now Myanmar),
Sukarno of Indonesia and Josip Broz Tito of the then Yugoslavia had to
be seen within their anti-colonial and secular worldviews.
Nehru’s search for similar non-aligned, socialist and secular leadership in

the Middle East left him with limited options. If the secular Turkish repub-
lic became a NATO member (Leffler 1985), the imperial Iran relied heavily
on the US to keep the Shah in power (Summitt 2004; McGlinchey 2013).
Amidst the Korean crisis, Israel abandoned its policy of non-identification
and was moving closer to the Western camp. Above all, much of the Arab
world was monarchical, feudal or both.
Under such circumstances, Nehru found an ally in the Free Officers
Movement which overthrew the Egyptian monarchy in July 1952. The
emergence of Gamal Abdul Nasser brought hopes for a secular and social-
ist leadership in the region and Nehru got attracted towards the new
Egypt. Ever since their first meeting in February 1953 in Cairo, he treated
Nasser more like a disciple and their camaraderie continued until Nehru’s
death. The Indian prime minister took Nasser with him to the Bandung
conference and introduced him to other leaders, including Chinese Prime
Minister Zhou Enlai. He often made Cairo his transit point during his
visits to Europe and the US and this increased the frequency of Nehru-
Nasser meetings.
Reflecting on this situation Onkar Marwah observed that due to “its
status in the Arab world—and also for its geostrategic location—Egypt
was an obvious choice for Indian attention, especially at a time when sev-
eral Arab countries were being persuaded to enter into military alliance by
the West” (Marwah 1973, 22). Nehru’s support for Nasser became more
pronounced during the Suez War when he unequivocally endorsed the
Egyptian sovereign rights to nationalize the Suez Canal. The move came
just days after both the leaders met in Brijuni (then known as Brioni),
Yugoslavia, on 19 July but as Nehru informed the Lok Sabha, he was not
privy to Nasser’s move (Nehru 1956).
At the time of the Suez crisis, India was one of the prime users of the
Suez Canal and as he was seeking an amicable political solution, the tripar-
tite aggression angered Nehru (Mudiam 1994, 54–55). More than the
Israeli aggression against its neighbour, he was infuriated by David Ben-
Gurion’s decision to collaborate with the British and French imperialism.
Hence, a couple of weeks after the Israeli invasion, he told the Indian
parliament that “in view of the existing passion” diplomatic exchanges
with Israel was not possible (Lok Sabha 1956, 595) and subsequently
time-is-not-ripe became the standard Indian position vis-à-vis Israel until
the normalization of relations in January 1992.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
“Nothing but the five statutory questions,” said Ellen to the
rawboned man with big sagging eyes like oysters into whose long
shirtfront she was talking.
“And so the decree is granted?” he asked solemnly.
“Surely in an uncontested ...”
“Well I’m very sorry to hear it as an old family friend of both
parties.”
“Look here Dick, honestly I’m very fond of Jojo. I owe him a great
deal.... He’s a very fine person in many ways, but it absolutely had to
be.”
“You mean there is somebody else?”
She looked up at him with bright eyes and half nodded.
“Oh but divorce is a very serious step my dear young lady.”
“Oh not so serious as all that.”
They saw Harry Goldweiser coming towards them across the big
walnut paneled room. She suddenly raised her voice. “They say that
this battle of the Marne is going to end the war.”
Harry Goldweiser took her hand between his two pudgy-palmed
hands and bowed over it. “It’s very charming of you Elaine to come
and keep a lot of old midsummer bachelors from boring each other
to death. Hello Snow old man, how’s things?”
“Yes how is it we have the pleasure of still finding you here?”
“Oh various things have held me.... Anyway I hate summer
resorts.” “Nowhere prettier than Long Beach anyway.... Why Bar
Harbor, I wouldnt go to Bar Harbor if you gave me a million ... a cool
million.”
Mr. Snow let out a gruff sniff. “Seems to me I’ve heard you been
going into the realestate game down there, Goldweiser.”
“I bought myself a cottage that’s all. It’s amazing you cant even
buy yourself a cottage without every newsboy on Times Square
knowing about it. Let’s go in and eat; my sister’ll be right here.” A
dumpy woman in a spangled dress came in after they had sat down
to table in the big antlerhung diningroom; she was pigeonbreasted
and had a sallow skin.
“Oh Miss Oglethorpe I’m so glad to see you,” she twittered in a
little voice like a parrakeet’s. “I’ve often seen you and thought you
were the loveliest thing.... I did my best to get Harry to bring you up
to see me.”
“This is my sister Rachel,” said Goldweiser to Ellen without getting
up. “She keeps house for me.”
“I wish you’d help me, Snow, to induce Miss Oglethorpe to take
that part in The Zinnia Girl.... Honest it was just written for you.”
“But it’s such a small part ...”
“It’s not a lead exactly, but from the point of view of your
reputation as a versatile and exquisite artist, it’s the best thing in the
show.”
“Will you have a little more fish, Miss Oglethorpe?” piped Miss
Goldweiser.
Mr. Snow sniffed. “There’s no great acting any more: Booth,
Jefferson, Mansfield ... all gone. Nowadays it’s all advertising; actors
and actresses are put on the market like patent medicines. Isn’t it the
truth Elaine?... Advertising, advertising.”
“But that isn’t what makes success.... If you could do it with
advertising every producer in New York’d be a millionaire,” burst in
Goldweiser. “It’s the mysterious occult force that grips the crowds on
the street and makes them turn in at a particular theater that makes
the receipts go up at a particular boxoffice, do you understand me?
Advertising wont do it, good criticism wont do it, maybe it’s genius
maybe it’s luck but if you can give the public what it wants at that
time and at that place you have a hit. Now that’s what Elaine gave us
in this last show.... She established contact with the audience. It
might have been the greatest play in the world acted by the greatest
actors in the world and fallen a flat failure.... And I dont know how
you do it, nobody dont know how you do it.... You go to bed one
night with your house full of paper and you wake up the next morning
with a howling success. The producer cant control it any more than
the weather man can control the weather. Aint I tellin the truth?”
“Ah the taste of the New York public has sadly degenerated since
the old days of Wallack’s.”
“But there have been some beautiful plays,” chirped Miss
Goldweiser.
The long day love was crisp in the curls ... the dark curls ...
broken in the dark steel light ... hurls ... high O God high into the
bright ... She was cutting with her fork in the crisp white heart of a
lettuce. She was saying words while quite other words spilled
confusedly inside her like a broken package of beads. She sat
looking at a picture of two women and two men eating at a table in a
high paneled room under a shivering crystal chandelier. She looked
up from her plate to find Miss Goldweiser’s little birdeyes kindly
querulous fixed hard on her face.
“Oh yes New York is really pleasanter in midsummer than any
other time; there’s less hurry and bustle.”
“Oh yes that’s quite true Miss Goldweiser.” Ellen flashed a sudden
smile round the table.... All the long day love Was crisp in the curls of
his high thin brow, Flashed in his eyes in dark steel light....
In the taxi Goldweiser’s broad short knees pressed against hers;
his eyes were full of furtive spiderlike industry weaving a warm sweet
choking net about her face and neck. Miss Goldweiser had relapsed
pudgily into the seat beside her. Dick Snow was holding an unlighted
cigar in his mouth, rolling it with his tongue. Ellen tried to remember
exactly how Stan looked, his polevaulter’s tight slenderness; she
couldn’t remember his face entire, she saw his eyes, lips, an ear.
Times Square was full of juggled colored lights, crisscrossed
corrugations of glare. They went up in the elevator at the Astor. Ellen
followed Miss Goldweiser across the roofgarden among the tables.
Men and women in evening dress, in summer muslins and light suits
turned and looked after her, like sticky tendrils of vines glances
caught at her as she passed. The orchestra was playing In My
Harem. They arranged themselves at a table.
“Shall we dance?” asked Goldweiser.
She smiled a wry broken smile in his face as she let him put his
arm round her back. His big ear with solemn lonely hairs on it was on
the level of her eyes.
“Elaine,” he was breathing into her ear, “honest I thought I was a
wise guy.” He caught his breath ... “but I aint.... You’ve got me goin
little girl and I hate to admit it.... Why cant you like me a little bit? I’d
like ... us to get married as soon as you get your decree.... Wouldn’t
you be kinder nice to me once in a while...? I’d do anything for you,
you know that.... There are lots of things in New York I could do for
you ...” The music stopped. They stood apart under a palm. “Elaine
come over to my office and sign that contract. I had Ferrari wait....
We can be back in fifteen minutes.”
“I’ve got to think it over ... I never do anything without sleeping on
it.”
“Gosh you drive a feller wild.”
Suddenly she remembered Stan’s face altogether, he was
standing in front of her with a bow tie crooked in his soft shirt, his
hair rumpled, drinking again.
“Oh Ellie I’m so glad to see you....”
“This is Mr. Emery, Mr. Goldweiser....”
“I’ve been on the most exordinately spectacular trip, honestly you
should have come.... We went to Montreal and Quebec and came
back through Niagara Falls and we never drew a sober breath from
the time we left little old New York till they arrested us for speeding
on the Boston Post Road, did we Pearline?” Ellen was staring at a
girl who stood groggily behind Stan with a small flowered straw hat
pulled down over a pair of eyes the blue of watered milk. “Ellie this is
Pearline.... Isn’t it a fine name? I almost split when she told me what
it was.... But you dont know the joke.... We got so tight in Niagara
Falls that when we came to we found we were married.... And we
have pansies on our marriage license....”
Ellen couldnt see his face. The orchestra, the jangle of voices, the
clatter of plates spouted spiraling louder and louder about her ...
And the ladies of the harem
Knew exactly how to wear ’em
In O-riental Bagdad long ago....
“Good night Stan.” Her voice was gritty in her mouth, she heard
the words very clearly when she spoke them.
“Oh Ellie I wish you’d come partying with us....”
“Thanks ... thanks.”
She started to dance again with Harry Goldweiser. The
roofgarden was spinning fast, then less fast. The noise ebbed
sickeningly. “Excuse me a minute Harry,” she said. “I’ll come back to
the table.” In the ladies’ room she let herself down carefully on the
plush sofa. She looked at her face in the round mirror of her
vanitycase. From black pinholes her pupils spread blurring till
everything was black.
Jimmy Herf’s legs were tired; he had been walking all afternoon.
He sat down on a bench beside the Aquarium and looked out over
the water. The fresh September wind gave a glint of steel to the little
crisp waves of the harbor and to the slateblue smutted sky. A big
white steamer with a yellow funnel was passing in front of the statue
of Liberty. The smoke from the tug at the bow came out sharply
scalloped like paper. In spite of the encumbering wharfhouses the
end of Manhattan seemed to him like the prow of a barge pushing
slowly and evenly down the harbor. Gulls wheeled and cried. He got
to his feet with a jerk. “Oh hell I’ve got to do something.”
He stood a second with tense muscles balanced on the balls of
his feet. The ragged man looking at the photogravures of a Sunday
paper had a face he had seen before. “Hello,” he said vaguely. “I
knew who you were all along,” said the man without holding out his
hand. “You’re Lily Herf’s boy.... I thought you werent going to speak
to me.... No reason why you should.”
“Oh of course you must be Cousin Joe Harland.... I’m awfully glad
to see you.... I’ve often wondered about you.”
“Wondered what?”
“Oh I dunno ... funny you never think of your relatives as being
people like yourself, do you?” Herf sat down in the seat again. “Will
you have a cigarette.... It’s only a Camel.”
“Well I dont mind if I do.... What’s your business Jimmy? You dont
mind if I call you that do you?” Jimmy Herf lit a match; it went out, lit
another and held it for Harland. “That’s the first tobacco I’ve had in a
week ... Thank you.”
Jimmy glanced at the man beside him. The long hollow of his gray
cheek made a caret with the deep crease that came from the end of
his mouth. “You think I’m pretty much of a wreck dont you?” spat
Harland. “You’re sorry you sat down aint you? You’re sorry you had a
mother who brought you up a gentleman instead of a cad like the
rest of ’em....”
“Why I’ve got a job as a reporter on the Times ... a hellish rotten
job and I’m sick of it,” said Jimmy, drawling out his words.
“Dont talk like that Jimmy, you’re too young.... You’ll never get
anywhere with that attitude.”
“Well suppose I dont want to get anywhere.”
“Poor dear Lily was so proud of you.... She wanted you to be a
great man, she was so ambitious for you.... You dont want to forget
your mother Jimmy. She was the only friend I had in the whole damn
family.”
Jimmy laughed. “I didnt say I wasnt ambitious.”
“For God’s sake, for your dear mother’s sake be careful what you
do. You’re just starting out in life ... everything’ll depend on the next
couple of years. Look at me.”
“Well the Wizard of Wall Street made a pretty good thing of it I’ll
say.... No it’s just that I dont like to take all the stuff you have to take
from people in this goddam town. I’m sick of playing up to a lot of
desk men I dont respect.... What are you doing Cousin Joe?”
“Don’t ask me....”
“Look, do you see that boat with the red funnels? She’s French.
Look, they are pulling the canvas off the gun on her stern.... I want to
go to the war.... The only trouble is I’m very poor at wrangling
things.”
Harland was gnawing his upper lip; after a silence he burst out in
a hoarse broken voice. “Jimmy I’m going to ask you to do something
for Lily’s sake.... Er ... have you any ... er ... any change with you?
By a rather unfortunate ... coincidence I have not eaten very well for
the last two or three days.... I’m a little weak, do you understand?”
“Why yes I was just going to suggest that we go have a cup of
coffee or tea or something.... I know a fine Syrian restaurant on
Washington street.”
“Come along then,” said Harland, getting up stiffly. “You’re sure
you don’t mind being seen with a scarecrow like this?”
The newspaper fell out of his hand. Jimmy stooped to pick it up. A
face made out of modulated brown blurs gave him a twinge as if
something had touched a nerve in a tooth. No it wasnt, she doesnt
look like that, yes Talented Young Actress Scores Hit in the
Zinnia Girl....
“Thanks, dont bother, I found it there,” said Harland. Jimmy
dropped the paper; she fell face down.
“Pretty rotten photographs they have dont they?”
“It passes the time to look at them, I like to keep up with what’s
going on in New York a little bit.... A cat may look at a king you know,
a cat may look at a king.”
“Oh I just meant that they were badly taken.”
VII. Rollercoaster
T
he leaden twilight weighs on the dry
limbs of an old man walking towards
Broadway. Round the Nedick’s stand at
the corner something clicks in his eyes.
Broken doll in the ranks of varnished
articulated dolls he plods up with drooping
head into the seethe and throb into the
furnace of beaded lettercut light. “I
remember when it was all meadows,” he
grumbles to the little boy.
L
ouis Expresso Association, the red letters on the placard jig
before Stan’s eyes. Annual Dance. Young men and girls going
in. Two by two the elephant And the kangaroo. The boom and
jangle of an orchestra seeping out through the swinging doors of the
hall. Outside it is raining. One more river, O there’s one more river to
cross. He straightens the lapels of his coat, arranges his mouth
soberly, pays two dollars and goes into a big resounding hall hung
with red white and blue bunting. Reeling, so he leans for a while
against the wall. One more river ... The dancefloor full of jogging
couples rolls like the deck of a ship. The bar is more stable. “Gus
McNiel’s here,” everybody’s saying “Good old Gus.” Big hands slap
broad backs, mouths roar black in red faces. Glasses rise and tip
glinting, rise and tip in a dance. A husky beetfaced man with deepset
eyes and curly hair limps through the bar leaning on a stick. “How’s a
boy Gus?”
“Yay dere’s de chief.”
“Good for old man McNiel come at last.”
“Howde do Mr. McNiel?” The bar quiets down.
Gus McNiel waves his stick in the air. “Attaboy fellers, have a
good time.... Burke ole man set the company up to a drink on me.”
“Dere’s Father Mulvaney wid him too. Good for Father Mulvaney....
He’s a prince that feller is.”
For he’s a jolly good fellow
That nobody can deny ...
Broad backs deferentially hunched follow the slowly pacing group
out among the dancers. O the big baboon by the light of the moon is
combing his auburn hair. “Wont you dance, please?” The girl turns a
white shoulder and walks off.
I am a bachelor and I live all alone
And I work at the weaver’s trade....
Stan finds himself singing at his own face in a mirror. One of his
eyebrows is joining his hair, the other’s an eyelash.... “No I’m not
bejases I’m a married man.... Fight any man who says I’m not a
married man and a citizen of City of New York, County of New York,
State of New York....” He’s standing on a chair making a speech,
banging his fist into his hand. “Friends Roooomans and countrymen,
lend me five bucks.... We come to muzzle Cæsar not to shaaaave
him.... According to the Constitution of the City of New York, County
of New York, State of New York and duly attested and subscribed
before a district attorney according to the provisions of the act of July
13th 1888.... To hell with the Pope.”
“Hey quit dat.” “Fellers lets trow dis guy out.... He aint one o de
boys.... Dunno how he got in here. He’s drunk as a pissant.” Stan
jumps with his eyes closed into a thicket of fists. He’s slammed in the
eye, in the jaw, shoots like out of a gun out into the drizzling cool
silent street. Ha ha ha.
For I am a bachelor and I live all alone
And there’s one more river to cross
One more river to Jordan
One more river to cross ...
It was blowing cold in his face and he was sitting on the front of a
ferryboat when he came to. His teeth were chattering, he was
shivering ... “I’m having DT’s. Who am I? Where am I? City of New
York, State of New York.... Stanwood Emery age twentytwo
occupation student.... Pearline Anderson twentyone occupation
actress. To hell with her. Gosh I’ve got fortynine dollars and eight
cents and where the hell have I been? And nobody rolled me. Why I
havent got the DT’s at all. I feel fine, only a little delicate. All I need’s
a little drink, dont you? Hello, I thought there was somebody here. I
guess I’d better shut up.”
Fortynine dollars ahanging on the wall
Fortynine dollars ahanging on the wall
Across the zinc water the tall walls, the birchlike cluster of
downtown buildings shimmered up the rosy morning like a sound of
horns through a chocolatebrown haze. As the boat drew near the
buildings densened to a granite mountain split with knifecut canyons.
The ferry passed close to a tubby steamer that rode at anchor listing
towards Stan so that he could see all the decks. An Ellis Island tug
was alongside. A stale smell came from the decks packed with
upturned faces like a load of melons. Three gulls wheeled
complaining. A gull soared in a spiral, white wings caught the sun,
the gull skimmed motionless in whitegold light. The rim of the sun
had risen above the plumcolored band of clouds behind East New
York. A million windows flashed with light. A rasp and a humming
came from the city.
The animals went in two by two
The elephant and the kangaroo
There’s one more river to Jordan
One more river to cross
In the whitening light tinfoil gulls wheeled above broken boxes,
spoiled cabbageheads, orangerinds heaving slowly between the
splintered plank walls, the green spumed under the round bow as
the ferry skidding on the tide, gulped the broken water, crashed, slid,
settled slowly into the slip. Handwinches whirled with jingle of chains,
gates folded upward. Stan stepped across the crack, staggered up
the manuresmelling wooden tunnel of the ferryhouse out into the
sunny glass and benches of the Battery. He sat down on a bench,
clasped his hands round his knees to keep them from shaking so.
His mind went on jingling like a mechanical piano.
With bells on her fingers and rings on her toes
Shall ride a white lady upon a great horse
And she shall make mischief wherever she goes ...
There was Babylon and Nineveh, they were built of brick. Athens
was goldmarble columns. Rome was held up on broad arches of
rubble. In Constantinople the minarets flame like great candles round
the Golden Horn.... O there’s one more river to cross. Steel glass,
tile, concrete will be the materials of the skyscrapers. Crammed on
the narrow island the millionwindowed buildings will jut, glittering
pyramid on pyramid, white cloudsheads piled above a thunderstorm
...
And it rained forty days and it rained forty nights
And it didn’t stop till Christmas
And the only man who survived the flood
Was longlegged Jack of the Isthmus....
Kerist I wish I was a skyscraper.
The lock spun round in a circle to keep out the key. Dexterously
Stan bided his time and caught it. He shot headlong through the
open door and down the long hall shouting Pearline into the
livingroom. It smelled funny, Pearline’s smell, to hell with it. He
picked up a chair; the chair wanted to fly, it swung round his head
and crashed into the window, the glass shivered and tinkled. He
looked out through the window. The street stood up on end. A
hookandladder and a fire engine were climbing it licketysplit trailing a
droning sirenshriek. Fire fire, pour on water, Scotland’s burning. A
thousand dollar fire, a hundredthousand dollar fire, a million dollar
fire. Skyscrapers go up like flames, in flames, flames. He spun back
into the room. The table turned a somersault. The chinacloset
jumped on the table. Oak chairs climbed on top to the gas jet. Pour
on water, Scotland’s burning. Don’t like the smell in this place in the
City of New York, County of New York, State of New York. He lay on
his back on the floor of the revolving kitchen and laughed and
laughed. The only man who survived the flood rode a great lady on a
white horse. Up in flames, up, up. Kerosene whispered a
greasyfaced can in the corner of the kitchen. Pour on water. He
stood swaying on the crackling upside down chairs on the upside
down table. The kerosene licked him with a white cold tongue. He
pitched, grabbed the gasjet, the gasjet gave way, he lay in a puddle
on his back striking matches, wet wouldn’t light. A match spluttered,
lit; he held the flame carefully between his hands.
“Oh yes but my husband’s awfully ambitious.” Pearline was telling

the blue gingham lady in the grocery-store. “Likes to have a good
time an all that but he’s much more ambitious than anybody I every
knew. He’s goin to get his old man to send us abroad so he can
study architecture. He wants to be an architect.”
“My that’ll be nice for you wont it? A trip like that ... Anything else
miss?” “No I guess I didn’t forget anythin.... If it was anybody else I’d
be worryin about him. I haven’t seen him for two days. Had to go and
see his dad I guess.”
“And you just newly wed too.”
“I wouldnt be tellin ye if I thought there was anythin wrong, would
I? No he’s playin straight all right.... Well goodby Mrs. Robinson.”
She tucked her packages under one arm and swinging her bead bag
in the free hand walked down the street. The sun was still warm
although there was a tang of fall in the wind. She gave a penny to a
blind man cranking the Merry Widow waltz out of a grindorgan. Still
she’d better bawl him out a little when he came home, might get to
doing it often. She turned into 200th Street. People were looking out
of windows, there was a crowd gathering. It was a fire. She sniffed
the singed air. It gave her gooseflesh; she loved seeing fires. She
hurried. Why it’s outside our building. Outside our apartmenthouse.
Smoke dense as gunnysacks rolled out of the fifthstory window. She
suddenly found herself all atremble. The colored elevatorboy ran up
to her. His face was green. “Oh it’s in our apartment” she shrieked,
“and the furniture just came a week ago. Let me get by.” The
packages fell from her, a bottle of cream broke on the sidewalk. A
policeman stood in her way, she threw herself at him and pounded
on the broad blue chest. She couldnt stop shrieking. “That’s all right
little lady, that’s all right,” he kept booming in a deep voice. As she
beat her head against it she could feel his voice rumbling in his
chest. “They’re bringing him down, just overcome by smoke that’s
all, just overcome by smoke.”
“O Stanwood my husband,” she shrieked. Everything was
blacking out. She grabbed at two bright buttons on the policeman’s
coat and fainted.
VIII. One More River to Jordan
A
man is shouting from a soapbox at
Second Avenue and Houston in front of
the Cosmopolitan Cafè: “... these fellers,
men ... wageslaves like I was ... are sittin on
your chest ... they’re takin the food outen
your mouths. Where’s all the pretty girls I
used to see walkin up and down the
bullevard? Look for em in the uptown
cabarets.... They squeeze us dry friends ...
feller workers, slaves I’d oughter say ... they
take our work and our ideers and our
women.... They build their Plaza Hotels and
their millionaire’s clubs and their million
dollar theayters and their battleships and
what do they leave us?... They leave us
shopsickness an the rickets and a lot of dirty
streets full of garbage cans.... You look pale
you fellers.... You need blood.... Why dont
you get some blood in your veins?... Back in
Russia the poor people ... not so much
poorer’n we are ... believe in wampires,
things come suck your blood at night....
That’s what Capitalism is, a wampire that
sucks your blood ... day ... and ... night.”
It is beginning to snow. The flakes are
giltedged where they pass the streetlamp.
Through the plate glass the Cosmopolitan
Cafè full of blue and green opal rifts of
smoke looks like a muddy aquarium; faces
blob whitely round the tables like illassorted
fishes. Umbrellas begin to bob in clusters up
the snowmottled street. The orator turns up
his collar and walks briskly east along
Houston, holding the muddy soapbox away
from his trousers.
aces, hats, hands, newspapers jiggled in the fetid roaring

F subway car like corn in a popper. The downtown express passed
clattering in yellow light, window telescoping window till they
overlapped like scales.
“Look George,” said Sandbourne to George Baldwin who hung on
a strap beside him, “you can see Fitzgerald’s contraction.”
“I’ll be seeing the inside of an undertaking parlor if I dont get out
of this subway soon.”
“It does you plutocrats good now and then to see how the other
half travels.... Maybe it’ll make you induce some of your little
playmates down at Tammany Hall to stop squabbling and give us
wageslaves a little transportation.... cristamighty I could tell em a
thing or two.... My idea’s for a series of endless moving platforms
under Fifth Avenue.”
“Did you cook that up when you were in hospital Phil?”
“I cooked a whole lot of things up while I was in hospital.”
“Look here lets get out at Grand Central and walk. I cant stand
this.... I’m not used to it.”
“Sure ... I’ll phone Elsie I’ll be a little late to dinner.... Not often I
get to see you nowadays George ... Gee it’s like the old days.”
In a tangled clot of men and women, arms, legs, hats aslant on
perspiring necks, they were pushed out on the platform. They walked
up Lexington Avenue quiet in the claretmisted afterglow.
“But Phil how did you come to step out in front of a truck that
way?”
“Honestly George I dunno.... The last I remember is craning my
neck to look at a terribly pretty girl went by in a taxicab and there I
was drinking icewater out of a teapot in the hospital.”
“Shame on you Phil at your age.”
“Cristamighty dont I know it? But I’m not the only one.”
“It is funny the way a thing like that comes over you.... Why what
have you heard about me?”
“Gosh George dont get nervous, it’s all right.... I’ve seen her in
The Zinnia Girl.... She walks away with it. That other girl who’s the
star dont have a show.”
“Look here Phil if you hear any rumors about Miss Oglethorpe for
Heaven’s sake shut them up. It’s so damn silly you cant go out to tea
with a woman without everybody starting their dirty gabble all over
town.... By God I will not have a scandal, I dont care what happens.”
“Say hold your horses George.”
“I’m in a very delicate position downtown just at the moment that’s
all.... And then Cecily and I have at last reached a modus vivendi.... I
wont have it disturbed.”
They walked along in silence.
Sandbourne walked with his hat in his hand. His hair was almost
white but his eyebrows were still dark and bushy. Every few steps he
changed the length of his stride as if it hurt him to walk. He cleared
his throat. “George you were asking me if I’d cooked up any
schemes when I was in hospital.... Do you remember years ago old
man Specker used to talk about vitreous and superenameled tile?
Well I’ve been workin on his formula out at Hollis.... A friend of mine
there has a two thousand degree oven he bakes pottery in. I think it
can be put on a commercial basis.... Man it would revolutionize the
whole industry. Combined with concrete it would enormously
increase the flexibility of the materials at the architects’ disposal. We
could make tile any color, size or finish.... Imagine this city when all
the buildins instead of bein dirty gray were ornamented with vivid
colors. Imagine bands of scarlet round the entablatures of
skyscrapers. Colored tile would revolutionize the whole life of the
city.... Instead of fallin back on the orders or on gothic or
romanesque decorations we could evolve new designs, new colors,
new forms. If there was a little color in the town all this hardshell
inhibited life’d break down.... There’d be more love an less
divorce....”
Baldwin burst out laughing. “You tell em Phil.... I’ll talk to you
about that sometime. You must come up to dinner when Cecily’s
there and tell us about it.... Why wont Parkhurst do anything?”
“I wouldnt let him in on it. He’d cotton on to the proposition and
leave me out in the cold once he had the formula. I wouldn’t trust him
with a rubber nickel.”
“Why doesnt he take you into partnership Phil?”
“He’s got me where he wants me anyway.... He knows I do all the
work in his goddamned office. He knows too that I’m too cranky to
make out with most people. He’s a slick article.”
“Still I should think you could put it up to him.”
“He’s got me where he wants me and he knows it, so I continue
doin the work while he amasses the coin.... I guess it’s logical. If I
had more money I’d just spend it. I’m just shiftless.”
“But look here man you’re not so much older than I am.... You’ve
still got a career ahead of you.”
“Sure nine hours a day draftin.... Gosh I wish you’d go into this tile
business with me.”
Baldwin stopped at a corner and slapped his hand on the
briefcase he was carrying. “Now Phil you know I’d be very glad to
give you a hand in any way I could.... But just at the moment my
financial situation is terribly involved. I’ve gotten into some rather
rash entanglements and Heaven knows how I’m going to get out of
them.... That’s why I cant have a scandal or a divorce or anything.
You dont understand how complicatedly things interact.... I couldnt
take up anything new, not for a year at least. This war in Europe has
made things very unsettled downtown. Anything’s liable to happen.”
“All right. Good night George.”
Sandbourne turned abruptly on his heel and walked down the
avenue again. He was tired and his legs ached. It was almost dark.
On the way back to the station the grimy brick and brownstone
blocks dragged past monotonously like the days of his life.
Under the skin of her temples iron clamps tighten till her head will
mash like an egg; she begins to walk with long strides up and down
the room that bristles with itching stuffiness; spotty colors of pictures,
carpets, chairs wrap about her like a choking hot blanket. Outside
the window the backyards are striped with blue and lilac and topaz of
a rainy twilight. She opens the window. No time to get tight like the
twilight, Stan said. The telephone reached out shivering beady
tentacles of sound. She slams the window down. O hell cant they
give you any peace?
“Why Harry I didnt know you were back.... Oh I wonder if I can....
Oh yes I guess I can. Come along by after the theater.... Isnt that
wonderful? You must tell me all about it.” She no sooner puts the
receiver down than the bell clutches at her again. “Hello.... No I
dont.... Oh yes maybe I do.... When did you get back?” She laughed
a tinkling telephone laugh. “But Howard I’m terribly busy.... Yes I am
honestly.... Have you been to the show? Well sometime come round
after a performance.... I’m so anxious to hear about your trip ... you
know ... Goodby Howard.”
A walk’ll make me feel better. She sits at her dressingtable and
shakes her hair down about her shoulders. “It’s such a hellish
nuisance, I’d like to cut it all off ... spreads apace. The shadow of
white Death.... Oughtnt to stay up so late, those dark circles under
my eyes.... And at the door, Invisible Corruption.... If I could only cry;
there are people who can cry their eyes out, really cry themselves
blind ... Anyway the divorce’ll go through....”
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given
Gosh it’s six o’clock already. She starts walking up and down the
room again. I am borne darkly fearfully afar.... The phone rings.
“Hello.... Yes this is Miss Oglethorpe.... Why hello Ruth, why I
haven’t seen you for ages, since Mrs. Sunderland’s.... Oh, do I’d love
to see you. Come by and we’ll have a bite to eat on the way to the
theater.... It’s the third floor.”
She rings off and gets a raincape out of a closet. The smell of furs
and mothballs and dresses clings in her nostrils. She throws up the
window again and breathes deep of the wet air full of the cold rot of
autumn. She hears the burring boom of a big steamer from the river.
Darkly, fearfully afar from this nonsensical life, from this fuzzy idiocy
and strife; a man can take a ship for his wife, but a girl. The
telephone is shiveringly beadily ringing, ringing.
The buzzer burrs at the same time. Ellen presses the button to
click the latch. “Hello.... No, I’m very sorry I’m afraid you’ll have to tell
me who it is. Why Larry Hopkins I thought you were in Tokyo.... They
havent moved you again have they? Why of course we must see
each other.... My dear it’s simply horrible but I’m all dated up for two
weeks.... Look I’m sort of crazy tonight. You call up tomorrow at
twelve and I’ll try to shift things around.... Why of course I’ve got to
see you immediately you funny old thing.” ... Ruth Prynne and
Cassandra Wilkins come in shaking the water off their umbrellas.
“Well goodby Larry.... Why it’s so so sweet of both of you.... Do take
your things off for a second.... Cassie wont you have dinner with
us?”
“I felt I just had to see you.... It’s so wonderful about your
wonderful success,” says Cassie in a shaky voice. “And my dear I
felt so terribly when I heard about Mr. Emery. I cried and cried, didnt I
Ruth?”
“Oh what a beautiful apartment you have,” Ruth is exclaiming at
the same moment. Ellen’s ears ring sickeningly. “We all have to die
sometime,” gruffly she blurts out.
Ruth’s rubberclad foot is tapping the floor; she catches Cassie’s
eye and makes her stammer into silence. “Hadnt we better go
along? It’s getting rather late,” she says.
“Excuse me a minute Ruth.” Ellen runs into the bathroom and
slams the door. She sits on the edge of the bathtub pounding on her
knees with her clenched fists. Those women’ll drive me mad. Then
the tension in her snaps, she feels something draining out of her like
water out of a washbasin. She quietly puts a dab of rouge on her
lips.
When she goes back she says in her usual voice: “Well let’s get
along.... Got a part yet Ruth?”
“I had a chance to go out to Detroit with a stock company. I turned
it down.... I wont go out of New York whatever happens.”
“What wouldnt I give for a chance to get away from New York....
Honestly if I was offered a job singing in a movie in Medicine Hat I
think I’d take it.”
Ellen picks up her umbrella and the three women file down the
stairs and out into the street. “Taxi,” calls Ellen.
The passing car grinds to a stop. The red hawk face of the
taxidriver craning into the light of the street lamp. “Go to Eugenie’s
on Fortyeighth Street,” says Ellen as the others climb in. Greenish
lights and darks flicker past the lightbeaded windows.
She stood with her arm in the arm of Harry Goldweiser’s dinner
jacket looking out over the parapet of the roofgarden. Below them
the Park lay twinkling with occasional lights, streaked with nebular
blur like a fallen sky. From behind them came gusts of a tango,
inklings of voices, shuffle of feet on a dancefloor. Ellen felt a stiff
castiron figure in her metalgreen evening dress.
“Ah but Boirnhardt, Rachel, Duse, Mrs. Siddons.... No Elaine I’m
tellin you, d’you understand? There’s no art like the stage that soars
so high moldin the passions of men.... If I could only do what I
wanted we’d be the greatest people in the world. You’d be the
greatest actress.... I’d be the great producer, the unseen builder,
d’you understand? But the public dont want art, the people of this
country wont let you do anythin for em. All they want’s a detective
melodrama or a rotten French farce with the kick left out or a lot of

Textbook Indias Saudi Policy Bridge To The Future P R Kumaraswamy Ebook All Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Textbook Indias Saudi Policy Bridge To The Future P R Kumaraswamy Ebook All Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

India's Saudi Policy: Bridge to the

Persian Gulf 2018: India's Relations with the Region P.

The Palgrave Handbook of the Hashemite Kingdom of

Energy Transitions and the Future of the African Energy

Autobiography of India Brand Bharat 5 Vol Set Made In

Coulson and Richardson’s Chemical Engineering, Fourth

The Future of Higher Education in India Sudhanshu

Sustainable Buildings and Infrastructure Paths to the

Pakistan or the Partition of India 2nd Edition B. R.

India’s Saudi Policy

ISBN 978-981-13-0793-5 ISBN 978-981-13-0794-2 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018947394

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019

Cover credits: thedafkish / Getty Images

Professor M. S. Agwani, the doyen of the Middle Eastern studies in the

2 The Nehru Era 11

9 Energy, Economics and Expatriates 169

1. List of Indian Ambassadors to Saudi Arabia 223

2. Nehru-King Saud Joint Statement, 1956 225

3. Indo-Saudi Arabian Economic Cooperation Agreement,

4. India-Saudi Joint Communiqué during the Visit of Indira

5. Number of Haj Pilgrims from India, 1947–2017 237

6. Delhi Declaration, 2006 239

7. Riyadh Declaration, 2010 243

8. Joint Statement on the Occasion of the Official Visit of

9. India-Saudi Arabia Joint Statement during the Visit of

P. R. Kumaraswamy is Professor of Contemporary Middle East Studies

Eastern Studies. He has co-edited an anthology titled Contemporary

Fig. 9.1 India-Saudi Arabia Bilateral Trade. (Source: Directorate General

Table 9.1 India-Saudi Arabia bilateral trade (US$ million) 171

© The Author(s) 2019 1

Cultural and civilizational associations between India and Arabia

the Arabian Peninsula and, according to some, the inheritor of Jaziratul

February 2014); two prime ministerial visits from India in February–

The Nehru Era

© The Author(s) 2019 11

process. Hence, they were not enamoured by Nehru’s anti-colonial and

Framing the Priorities

Nehru’s search for similar non-aligned, socialist and secular leadership in

“Oh yes but my husband’s awfully ambitious.” Pearline was telling

aces, hats, hands, newspapers jiggled in the fetid roaring

You might also like

2 The Nehru Era 11

9 Energy, Economics and Expatriates 169

1. List of Indian Ambassadors to Saudi Arabia 223

2. Nehru-King Saud Joint Statement, 1956 225

3. Indo-Saudi Arabian Economic Cooperation Agreement,

4. India-Saudi Joint Communiqué during the Visit of Indira

5. Number of Haj Pilgrims from India, 1947–2017 237

6. Delhi Declaration, 2006 239

7. Riyadh Declaration, 2010 243

8. Joint Statement on the Occasion of the Official Visit of

9. India-Saudi Arabia Joint Statement during the Visit of

Table 9.1 India-Saudi Arabia bilateral trade (US$ million) 171