India bid for OIC Membership: Threat or Opportunity? -- By: Athar Osama

King Abdullah's request to consider India's membership to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) during President Musharraf's recent trip to Saudi Arabia seems to have stunned Pakistan's Foreign Policy establishment. We have hardly heard anything except reactionary comments and a bunch of groans and guffs from the foreign office on the subject.

This is also not the first time such an option has been put on the table. Indeed, only a couple of years ago, Islamabad narrowly avoided a similar situation only after it threatened to withdraw from the OIC if India were admitted against the former's wishes.

This time, however, things might be different as not only has India become a much more influential and confident member of the world community but also, this time around, the request itself has come from an office that the Pakistanis might find very hard not to oblige.

Why is it then, that Pakistan's Foreign Policy establishment is outfoxed repeatedly on this issue while the Indians seem to be advancing their agenda forward with great perfection? To begin with, only very infrequently in the past has Pakistan's foreign policy establishment lived up to the challenges posed to them. Repeatedly in the past you would often find them fumbling for clear and workable answers to important questions, defendable positions on issues, and realistic strategies to advance Pakistan's interests abroad.

The double irony of the issue is that our foreign policy wonks cannot even claim to have not seen this coming. In recent years, certain group of countries with significant Muslim populations have stepped up the pressure on OIC to admit them as observers—and subsequently as full members--to the organization that boasts a membership of more than 50 countries with majority Muslim populations.

The reason often advanced by these countries, most notably India and Russia, is that a membership in the OIC would enable them to better serve the interests of their large and growing Muslim populations. This logic raises several interesting questions. How can a membership in an organization that has never really achieved anything in the four decades of its existence be of any value to countries like Russia or India?

For example, one really wonders how membership in OIC helps a country serve its population better? If Russia or India were to do anything positive for their Muslim populations, for example, the first place to start would be to improve the lives and well-being of Muslims in Chechnya, Kashmir, and Gujrat rather than to attempt to become a member of OIC. What, if any, are the true motives behind their eagerness to join the OIC?

The more likely--and thus far unstated--reason, however, seems to be that both Russia and India would like to play a more "active" role in the affairs of the OIC. While both of these countries have had a very strong behind the scenes presence in OIC's deliberations, primarily through their influence on several Arab members of the OIC, a formal membership in the organization would make that relationship both legal and permanent. This is most likely to further dilute OIC's already weak position on issues that do not resonate well with Russia and India, namely, Chechnya and Kashmir respectively.

For sure, it would probably be difficult for Pakistan or any other member of OIC to keep the floodgates closed for too long a time. The shifting global geopolitical dynamic and mood since 9/11 makes it almost necessary that the Islamic countries would have to open up to greater transparency in their dealings vis-à-vis the rest of the world. The million dollar question then is: whether and how would the OIC be able to safeguard and further the interests of the Muslims around the world? Who would be allowed to in and who would remain out? What would be the new emergent identity of the OIC?

Once the floodgates are flung wide open, for example, would Israel and the United States—being occupiers of large Muslim populations in Palestine and Iraq and hence having legitimate interests to represent the interests of their Muslim minorities, at least in principle—also be allowed to become members of the OIC? The OIC must address these questions in a proactive and definitive manner that is reflective of a confident and effective organization. This is especially true today as the OIC embarks on an effort to reform itself and become more relevant to the changing reality of Islam in the twenty-first century.

Consequently, there is a dire need for the Pakistani foreign policy establishment to move away from its fossilized mindset and think out-of-the-box. Only through creative thinking, meticulous execution, and visionary leadership can Pakistan and OIC transform this potential threat into an opportunity for its members and over one-and-a-half billion Muslims around the world. Wouldn't it be better if the Pakistani foreign policy establishment, instead of its usual deafening silence and defensive rhetoric, had responded to the challenge in a more proactive and realistic manner?

For example, a message that welcomed the aspirations of India and Russia to do better vis-à-vis the rights of their Muslim populations along with the desire to develop a set of objective criteria to facilitate and ensure that indeed that is exactly what was achieved would have gone a long way in making OIC a more effective platform for Muslims around the world.

Achieiving the above objective would have required developing and defending the case for expanding the membership of OIC (the rationale) beyond the Muslim majority countries that it is currently restricted to, designing an objective mechanism for deciding which countries to include or exclude (the eligibility criteria), and laying out a plan to smoothen the transition to a much larger OIC (the process).

Thankfully, there are examples for such arrangements that may provide some guidance in this endeavor. One of the ways to make OIC more meaningful to the collective well-being of the Muslim communities around the world is to use its membership as a bait to bring improvements to the lives of minority Muslim populations. For example, the OIC can adopt a criteria similar to the very comprehensive accession targets adopted by the European Union. Even before a country's application for admission into the EU is considered, it must fulfill an extensive set of qualitative and quantitative criteria ranging an array of economic, social, and political realms.

OIC too can, in principle, adopt a set of qualifying conditions that every non-Muslim (majority) country seeking an observer status must qualify before its application could be entertained by a newly formed Standing Committee on Memberships. These conditions might include meeting pre-specified targets on freedom of expression and religion, discrimination and islamophobia, human rights and liberty of Muslims, and parity in economic and social conditions of Muslims vs. non-Muslim populations etc.

As the applicant countries qualify a base-level eligibility criteria, they may be granted an observer status (based on recommendation of the standing committee and a majority vote of existing members). The observer status would allow these countries to observe OIC's activities and begin to contribute in certain areas of OIC's operations. The countries on observer status however, would remain on a watch-list by OIC for continued progress on the above set of criteria.

In five years time, observer members may become eligible for associate membership (based on a super-majority vote of existing members). The associate membership would allow these countries to contribute more fully in all activities of the OIC without having the right to vote.

In the final stage of the process, associate members, upon fulfilling an even tougher set of criteria and on unanimous recommendation of existing members, may graduate to full-membership with a right to vote.

A process like the one suggested above would allow OIC to objectively evaluate the applications for membership for countries without resorting to favoritism of one sort or the other. It would also provide an opportunity to the aspirants to demonstrate their own commitment and sincerity vis-a-vis using the opportunity to participate in the OIC in precisely the manner they claim they would i.e. to advance the interests and improve the lives and well-being of their Muslim populations.

Most importantly, however, it would make the OIC a more inclusive and effective group of countries (both Islamic and non-Muslim) that are serious in advancing an Islam-friendly foreign policy agenda and provide it with the appropriate leverage and policy influence beyond the 50-odd Islamic countries--something that it seriously lacks today. It would also provide the kind of collaborative and consultative platform focused on issues of relevance to Muslims around the world that is necessary to avoid the much-touted clash of civilizations between the Islamic and the Western world.


The author ( athar.osama@gmail.com ) is a Doctoral Fellow at Frederick S. Pardee – RAND Graduate School for Public Policy in Santa Monica, California.