Of late, the Saudi Vision 2030, a brainchild of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (popularly known as MBS), has received considerable attention in the public domain, particularly after the anointment of MBS as Crown Prince with high prospect of succeeding his father, King Salman. What is Saudi Vision 2030IJ Is it a unique exerciseIJ What has been the response of international communityIJ How does India look at the developmentIJ What impact will it have on the regional stabilityIJ
The Saudi Vision 2030, along with the National Transformation Programme (NTP), is a pragmatic, flexible, normal, long-term policy prescription and a political exercise to overcome the myriad challenges which the kingdom is facing over a considerable period of time. It is very much in line with similar trends in other Gulf nations. Qatar has National Vision 2020, and Bahrain, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi have their Vision 2030. Oman has Vision 2020, and is working on its Vision 2040. Iran has its own version of Vision 2025.
Central to these “visions” lies the litmus test of Gulf regimes: to move from single commodity oil-based economy to the diversification of economy in which reliance on oil as source of revenue would progressively decline. Though such a plan has been in the offing since 1970s, the Gulf regimes have been dithering to implement the same partly on account of fear of upsetting the unwritten social contract with various groups and due to the political habit of return to easy oil-based revenue generation as and when the oil prices increase.
However, the steady downslide of international oil prices since 2014 — which dipped lowest to the $35 per barrel in early 2016 before stabilising to $45-52/barrel range since mid 2016 — which the Saudis wished to maintain in close coordination with OPEC and Russia and the hard reality of the US oil and shell gas, leaves the Gulf regimes with no alternative but to diversify the source of revenue generation. The domestic context for Saudi Vision 2030 lies in the growing fiscal deficit, which even endangers the possibility of devaluation of Riyal. Moreover, a wide range of governmental taxation and fees, along with indigenisation of workforce, is already in vogue in many Gulf counties, including Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi Vision 2030 is a product of this hard reality, which aims at generating 800 billion-3 trillion US Dollar revenue through combination of anti-corruption drive, infrastructure development, new forms of taxation, including expat levy, disinvestment of state enterprises, 5% share of ARAMCO, development of tourism and entertainment, modernisation of educational system, attracting global investment and increasing the role of private capital in the national economy.
A second source of the Saudi Vision 2030 comes from UAE economic and political model of governance that combines the element of pluralism, economic diversification and religious tolerance. Though President Erdogan and his Turkish model of democracy did capture the imagination of the Arab youth in the wake of Arab Spring for a brief moment, it is the Emirate model along with its modern outlook, relatively liberal culture of gender interaction, political stability and economic prosperity, towards which a majority of the Saudi and other Arab youth aspire for. Seen in conjunction with the UAE, the Saudi Vision 2030 has four interrelated components: (A) a limited, liberal restructuring of economic, political and social life of the kingdom, (B) intensifying anti-terrorism/Islamist radicalism, (C) aggressive containment of Iranian influence, and (D) assertion of Saudi Arabia as a regional power.
The pursuit of these goals has led MBS to combine the hard and soft power. Thus externally, he hardened the Saudi position against Iran and terrorism, more so in the context of the Trump administration’s anti-Iranian rhetoric and distancing from the Iranian nuclear deal. This includes the formation of Saudi-led Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism (IMAFT), a conglomeration of 37 Sunni Muslim nations, military intervention in Yemen, blockade of Qatar, support to Islamic resistant groups against the Assad regime in Syria, political interference in lebanon leading to the resignation of Saad Hariri, the lebenese Prime Minister, from Saudi soil as well as intensifying the diplomatic initiative, including inviting Iraqi President to Saudi Arabia and opening diplomatic mission in Iraq and a rare, first ever visit of the Saudi King to Russia last month — all intended to isolate and undermine Iran in the region. In addition to leadership rivalry, the Saudi’s anti-Iranian posturing begets from its existential dilemma, which has been tremendously increased in view of declining commitment of the USA and trust deficit since the Obama administration to provide security to regimes and maintain regional security that any form of politicised Islam-in-power, whether of Iranian, Hezobollah or Muslim Brotherhood variety, posed a threat to the existence of the Saudi regime as they question its Islamic legitimacy to rule. Domestically, MBS embarked upon anti-corruption drive, administrative streamlining and generating fear of public accountability leading to arrest of more than 35 high-profile Princes and Saudi nationals, including Talal bin Alwallid, the most visible billionaire international face of Saudi Arabia.
On the softer side, MBS launched a series of measures directed at uplifting the image of Saudi Arabia. This includes declaration of “return to moderate Islam”, an intent to liberalise the statist economy, including disinvestment of 5 per cent of ARAMCO, a Royal decree permitting the Saudi women to drive, to watch sports in the stadium and travel abroad without permission of men, establishment of “King Salman Complex for scrutiny and authenticating Prophet Hadith” at Medina with a purpose to expunge religious sources of radicalism and curtailment of the powers of religious police.
The critics have largely dismissed these policy pronouncements as “gimmick” and a “diversionary tactic” as arising out of “failure” of MBS’ hasty, reckless, costly, and eccentric “anti-Iranian” polemics, alliance and military adventurism in the region. Others linked these internal developments primarily in terms of intra-Royal power conflict leading to consolidation of power in favour of MBS since his first appointment as Defence Minister in 2015 to his elevation as Crown Prince in June 2017. There is no doubt that this process witnessed steady concentration of power in the hands of MBS to the extent of his becoming a “de-facto ruler” and the elimination of potential heir aspirants to the throne such as former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and Mutaib bin Abdullah, the former king’s son and head of the National Guard and many others. However, elimination and co-optation of fellow individual vis-a-vis power structure is a part of political process across the globe and is nothing specific to the politics of Saudi Arabia.
Notwithstanding this criticism, there is a widespread support for MBS’ Saudi Vision 2030 along with his anti-corruption drive among the Saudi youth. To this extent, MBS has taken care of one of the core demands of Arab Spring: elimination of corruption from higher echelon of the regime and thus managing the resentment of unemployed Saudi youth, while giving a hope that with Vision 2030 Saudi Arabia would soon emerge as “modern Islamic country, albeit rooted in the authentic tradition of Saudi-Wahhabi Islam”. Whether MBS would succeed in his reformist mission, modernise the legal structure of governance, bring the transparency and transform the image of Saudi Arabia from a “medieval conservative kingdom” to “enlightened limited monarchy” to fit into the emerging governance paradigm of “Varieties of Democracy”, only future will tell.
However, what is evident is that a significant step has been taken in this direction in the form of Vision 2030. It is for this reason that international community — including the USA, the UK and other European nations, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai — has welcomed MBS’ liberalising vision of Islam with a hope that Saudi’s advocacy of moderate Islam, given its enormous Islamic legitimacy in Sunni world, would tremendously help in the global fight against Islamic terrorism and extremist
violence.
One, therefore, wonders what makes the Government of India to remain a silent observer of the momentous events in Saudi Arabia and their impact on the region. One can understand India’s constrain of maintaining a “diplomatic balance” in Iran-Saudi Cold War, but she being the largest democracy and aspiring global power cannot shy away from issuing a token gesture of support to those policy measures of MBS that has democratic content and contributes in fight against global terrorism. Iran is important for India in many respects, but New Delhi’s relationship with the UAE and Saudi Arabia far outweighs Iran from the point of view of trade, remittances, oil, gas, investment and counter-terrorism cooperation. Unlike Iran, both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have addressed Indian’s concern for terrorism and even deported a good number of “wanted terrorists” to India. Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia want a close relationship with India for a variety of reasons as evident from conferring the highest Civilian award to our Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he visited both these countries. Moreover, a Saudi rethinking and vetting over hadith will have crucial impact in fighting the trend of Islamic radicalisation and terrorism among a section of Indian Muslims, who overwhelmingly constitutes Sunni Muslims. Further, Saudi-UAE could prove crucial in inducting India in Organisation of Islamic Conference. India must be seen actively building relationship and investing symbolically in the UAE and Saudi Arabia such as support for democratic measures at a time when Pakistan is loosing its charm in the region.
(The writer is Senior Fellow, Policy Perspectives Foundation, New Delhi, and former professor ofinternational studies at JNU and Jamia Millia Islamia)