When Pakistan did not allow India to become a founding member of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC)

New delhi date. 10 June 2022 Friday

The Arab League countries were outraged after the controversial statement made by the suspended spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Nupur Sharma, on the Prophet Muhammad.

Qatar was the first to express its displeasure, followed by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), an organization of Muslim countries other than Saudi Arabia, Iran, Maldives and Afghanistan.

The reactions of these countries forced the BJP to take action against its own party spokesperson.

India has had good relations with the Arab world but this is the first time in the last few decades that the Arab countries and the member countries of the Organization of Islamic Corporations have shown such solidarity with India.

Thus, 53 years ago, India had to face even stronger opposition among the member countries of the Organization of Islamic Corporation.

This is 1969. This is the year in which the Organization of Islamic Corporations was founded.

At that time, Gurbachan Singh was the Indian Ambassador to Morocco. He was the one who led India in the inaugural meeting of the OIC.

Gurbachan Singh shared his entire experience in the Indian Foreign Affairs Journal, a quarterly magazine of the Association of Indian Diplomats. The article was published under the heading India at the Rabat Islamic Summit (1969), based on conversations with him in the April-June, 2006 issue.

In about 16 pages he somehow sided with India in this whole chapter. The graph published in the form of question and answer can be considered as a document in Indian context.

About the beginning of the meeting, he said that the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest site of Islam, was attacked by an Australian man on August 21, 1969. A meeting of Arab foreign ministers was convened on August 24 in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, within three days.

The idea of ​​a meeting of all Islamic countries was presented at this meeting and a draft meeting was held in Raba on 8-9 September 1969 in which it was decided to invite the country fulfilling the two conditions to join this meeting.

The first condition was to have a Muslim majority population and the second condition was to have a Muslim head of state.

The first meeting of the Islamic countries in 1969 was not the first time that India was to join a meeting of Muslim countries as India had participated in the meeting of four different Muslim countries four times before.

However, it is interesting to note that the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, decided around 1955 that India would not be a part of any of the Pan-Islamic member states as political activities in such organizations were covered by religion.

But in 1964, under his leadership, India decided to change its policy, as India did not want to leave the Middle East open to Pakistan.

India had participated in the Sixth Muslim Conference held from December 26, 1964 to January 5, 1965, before the meeting of the Islamic countries in Rabat.

This was believed to have helped reduce Pakistan's propaganda when a group of five Indian Muslim leaders attended the first Afro-Asian Islamic Conference held in Bandung between March 6 and March 14, 1965.

After which the Indian forces joined the non-governmental but also the Muslim World League held in Mecca from 17 to 24 April, 1965. The meeting may have been non-governmental, but the invitation came to the President and a delegation nominated by him to attend the meeting.

Did India receive the invitation?

The Rabat meeting was to be attended by all the Islamic countries of the world. Was India officially invited to this meeting? Gurbachan Singh, then India's ambassador to Morocco, said the meeting was inaugurated at 5:30 pm on Monday, September 22, 1969, at the Hilton Hotel in Rabat.

He said in his experience that the first meeting was on Tuesday i.e. 23rd September at 11 am. I got a call from Morocco's Chief of Protocol, who took me to Moroccan Foreign Minister M. Ahmed Laraki. The External Affairs Minister told me that the meeting had started but we all unanimously decided that India should also send its own official delegation to the session.

According to Gurbachan Singh, he then asked if Pakistan was ready to call India. The answer to this question was yes.

Now the challenge was to call an Indian delegation against Gurubachan Singh. Lakari's advice was that if there was an Indian delegation in Europe, they should be called.

Gurbachan Singh told Laraki that he was requesting the Indian government to send a delegation but the force could reach Rabat by the next day.

Gurbachan Singh also advised that the then Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University, Dr. Abdul Alim is in Morocco, he may be summoned, but Laraki told him that it would be best for a government delegation to take part, and that if you are an ambassador here, you can.