Saudi Gazette report

JEDDAH — Indian Ambassador Dr. Ausaf Sayeed has recollected, rallied, remonstrated and revealed his vision of a renewed engagement between India and Saudi Arabia during his tenure as ambassador.

He recollected his happy association with the community and government officials during his tenure as the consul general in Jeddah and rallied his compatriots to work cohesively with the missions, remonstrated individuals who worked against the Indian schools and revealed a vision of further strengthening the growing strategic relations between India and Saudi Arabia, by adding value with help and initiatives from experts and professionals in the Indian community.

The diplomat was speaking at a recent reception held by the community here on his appointment as envoy to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,

Dr. Ausaf rolled out the four Rs in his near-hour-long interaction with the community at the Trident Hotel with a series of personal anecdotes that had the goodly crowd in splits as well as repeatedly applauding. His message was loud and clear... “We (the missions) are there to help, but it needs joint efforts of the Indian community and the missions to best achieve our aims.”

Consul General Md. Noor Rahman Sheikh, in his introduction speech, extended a heartfelt welcome to Ambassador Dr. Ausaf Sayeed and Madame Farah to the reception and also to Saudi Arabia.

“Everyone here was excited in your coming as our ambassador sir, and more so because you were here twice earlier. In fact, I met people in the last few months, following the announcement of your appointment as the ambassador here, and learned more about you as lots of people have been active in telling me about you... we are happy to connect those dots today,” Sheikh said.

“This reception has been organized by many of those members, who set up an WhatsApp group, and planned for this event, and I too entered the group, as a mole, and could see the comments, the arguments... what was going on in the group. And the kind of interest was so immense, that it has resulted in such a kind of reception.

“I’m so happy that the group worked so successfully to stage such a reception... thank you all for such a great effort organizing it, and I’m sure, we are all here to hear our ambassador, his vision and the message he has for our community here.” he said.

“We, of course, at the consulate have been working positively with the community here, and we are thankful that the community has always extended its support in all times of needs, during amnesty, Haj operations and so many other things, and we’ll continue to need that kind of support. The consulate and the embassy cannot work in isolation, we all have to work as a team,” Sheikh added.

Sheikh, while calling the ambassador as a people’s diplomat, extolled Dr. Ausaf’s virtues before urging him to take the center stage.

While reiterating the fact that working from 9 to 5 is a thing of the past and with the advent of Twitter and social media officials are on their toes 24/7, Sheikh said: “We are happy to have here as our ambassador who is so active with initiatives. We were going through the presentation (which was shown before the envoy’s speech) and were mesmerized by the various initiatives he had launched during his tenure here as the consul general. Of course Saudi Indian Business Network (SIBN), continues to shine, and it was his singular contribution in forming this body.”

Dr. Ausaf, welcomed to the dais with a long, lingering thunderous applause, thanked the consul general and the organizers for the wonderful reception, while stressing the awesome video screening of his earlier tenure in Jeddah evoked fond memories. “Thank you all for this wonderful presentation. It revived lots of memories, in fact I had forgotten some of the things.”

Dr. Ausaf related though he would be posted in Riyadh, his heart would always be in Jeddah. “It is a homecoming. Jeddah is not a new place. It is a place very close to our hearts. I’ve always said, your body and mind could be elsewhere, but your heart is always in Hijaz....

“So this (the appointment as envoy) brings us back to this place. Of course, we have been here earlier too to perform Umrah, and it is a place you would always like to come back, get spiritually recharged before one moves on to other assignments.”

“In fact, as I was leaving after completing my tenure here, I was promoted as a joint secretary and in Delhi was given the Africa desk, and it was a wholesome experience of working in another region that’s close to India... thereafter I’ve been moving continuously with assignments abroad,” he said.

One of the assignments was being Indian ambassador to Yemen, where my two-year posting was extended by a year because of education of my children. “You’ll be surprised, how Yemen and education... but you know if the school is good, you get attached to the school. My children got so much attached to the school they were studying there, that they did not want to leave.

“But as the situation was building up there, we were told to evacuate our families, and we did. But then, I had a very unique situation there. After the government had evacuated all the families, the staff came back and told me that we want our families back as at least when we come back home we’ll have somebody to talk to... somebody to cook for us... otherwise it is very difficult for us.

“More so, when I sent my children back to Hyderabad (India), my youngest one who was in the seventh grade, calls me up and ‘says I’m prepared to die in Yemen than study here’. So that’s the kind of affinity we develop with our schools,” Dr. Ausaf added.

He narrated how he too grew a strong affinity to his school, and even today snaps to when he meets alumni, wherever he’s posted. “I schooled in St. George in Hyderabad. This is one of the schools where there’s a very, very strong bonding of the alumni. So too here I see there’s a bonding in the alumni of the Jeddah school. In fact if you talk about alumni, from Yemen I went to Chicago, the school alumni again was so strong and I’ll narrate an interesting anecdote...

“You know lots of people want to get in touch with you when you are in this post... and it is not always possible for the staff to connect everyone, so generally what they try to do is filter out the calls and redirect the calls to the pertaining officers ... everybody would like to talk to the top man even thought the work may involve some other officer... sometimes even to inquire what’s the visa fee...

“In this case, a lady was persistently trying to get in touch with me, and my social secretary was persistently deflecting her, by offering her services to solve her problem. But the lady was insistent that she wanted to talk to the consul general only. The persistent calls ended with the lady telling the social secretary to go and tell your boss that I’m a St. Georgian.

“She comes into my room and tells me that there’s a lady who’s been persistent in trying to get in touch with you and is very agitated and has asked me to tell you that she’s a St. Georgian...

“I said, ‘she’s the most important person, put her on line’. She was the president of the alumni of the St. George’s Grammar School... so that’s how we relate with people, our schools and friends...

“So here also for us, we have established a relationship with many of you here, we see here familiar face, good friends, new friends while some of you are Facebook friends. But nevertheless all of you are very close to us,” Dr. Ausaf said.

While commenting on the growing relations between India and Saudi Arabia, he said, “We have the oldest diplomatic ties with the Kingdom established in 1947... and despite close ties it was only during my Jeddah days during 2006, when we worked tirelessly for the visit of the late King Abdullah as the chief guest for our Republic Day, that the relations really took off...

“Immediately it was followed by PM Manmohan Singh’s visit to Riyadh in 2010... that actually built the momentum for a new phase in our ties, but the credit for the modern day of strengthening of the partnership and what we say is leading toward the strategic partnership, goes to the recent interactions — when our Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Riyadh in April 2016 followed by the visit of King Salman, in his capacity as the Crown Prince, and the recent visit of Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman.”

“All this led to a relationships between our two countries, where we say that it is moving away from the buyer-seller relationships, moving now on to strategic partnership, which is encompassing several things... one is the political equation itself between the leaderships, the strategic cooperation, security cooperation, maritime cooperation, economic cooperation, cultural cooperation you know people-to-people relationships... and it is on a upward curve,” Dr. Ausaf said.

The envoy pinpointed the reasons that have enabled the two nations to bind our relationships together. He said, “They are many... but first and foremost is energy security, which binds us together. As you know, India is the third largest consumer of oil and we look upon countries like Saudi Arabia to fulfill this demand...

“We are building ties toward what’s more strategic... we are moving toward a partnership where Saudi Arabia is going to invest in India in the world’s biggest oil refinery. In fact, we are bringing together three countries, India, United Arab Emirates (Adnoc) and Saudi Arabia (Aramco), to set up an oil refinery in Maharashtra in Raigad district. It is a $44 billion project with 50 percent stake held by UAE and Saudi together...

“Besides, we are engaging both UAE and Saudi in areas of R&D, engineering and many other things... one of the important things we’re discussing with both these countries is strategic reserves of oil. This means that both these countries will have their oil stored in India, for export to third countries...

“Again as our economy evolves and with lots of developments, especially trade and investment, then ties grow stronger. When you talk about investments you can see in the recent Crown Prince visit, there was the announcement of $100 billion investments in different sectors — health, petrochemicals, and agriculture among many others.

“With Kingdom’s ambitious Vision 2030, there are many possibilities for Indian companies to participate in... our companies can come and explore the lucrative opportunities here and there are many famous Indian firms already here... In trade, there has been a significant jump... so all this is a reflection of the engagement between the two sides.”

Dr. Ausaf held out that the joint efforts of the community and the missions would prove beneficial for the Diaspora. “When it comes to the Diaspora, how does our Diaspora relate to what’s happening and how it can contribute meaningfully... I know the numbers of Indians here has decreased somewhat, but it is steady around 3 million, especially with some new arrivals with the professionals in great demand,” he said.

“The Diaspora’s interests are the prime interest for the Indian government, not just because of the numbers here or the remittances by them... but there is a genuine responsiveness by the government to the requirements of the people... especially the rapid response systems being put in place following the advent of Twitter and social media...

“But it all works in tandem with the community and the missions working together... and we have told our public dealing officers to be as responsive as possible, and to work out everything positively,” he added.

“For, I know there are rules and rules, but you have to find a way out... otherwise there is no way we can move ahead. This is something that I’ve been dealing with when I was the regional passport officer in Hyderabad,” Dr. Ausaf said.

“When people come to you in their need, that’s the time where you need to show your broad thinking... because there are rules but the rules do not bind you from helping the people. When I was the RPO, 20 or 25 students were creating a commotion outside my office, and I inquired what it is?

“I was told these students needed passports, which was the ID document, to sit for TOEFL exams. It was 1993 and at that time it was not easy to get a passport, as there were lots of pendency, special verifications and all kinds of issues. And these youngsters would not be able to get these done.

“When their case was brought to me ‘I asked, how could I help’. They told me their predicament, and when an officer interjected that a month’s wait period was needed for police verification, ‘I said nothing doing, issue them the passport next day with three months validity, under my responsibility.’

“They wrote their exams, but before that I told the students come after a month and a half when the verification would have been done, and then get the passports extended... This was a solution we found out of the box.”

The ambassador after introducing his love for education and student through his personal anecdotes seamlessly turned to the most impost facet that touches nearly every community member here — education.

“Education would be a priority for us... we would like get your children the best of the education possible in Indian schools, which have reached international standards. The schools are very typical schools, they are neither the Kendriya Vidyalayas that are managed entirely by the government, nor are they private schools... they are somewhere in between, more like cooperatives which we call them as community schools... again it is a term which we have to be careful about...

“Community schools correct, but again to what extent should be the involvement of the community in their running, and all the questions need to be pondered while we seek to evolve a balance where we match the aspirations of the parent and at the same time ensure that such over indulgence doesn’t cause indirectly or inadvertently some kind of a problem for the schools functioning, but we would certainly ensure that the schools reach as high standards as possible...

“Because these are unique institutions where the kind of education the schools are providing and the value for money which many of the parents are getting these are vey unique examples of how such huge schools are run... and mind you with over 10,000 students in Jeddah and also more in Dammam, these are like universities in itself. It is not easy to manage these kind of huge institutions...

“I can only tell you one thing, all the officers, managing the schools — even the consul general who has been nominated by me as the vice patron of Indian schools in the Kingdom — will be working with complete objectivity,” Dr. Ausaf said, while seeking feedback of value from the community.

“I see this also, yes you need feedback but it needs to be of value and not mundane. We have put in place the structure to tackle all the relevant issues, and I can only assure you that the schools will be run properly and I’ll have a close eye on these schools. I’ll also request the community members from not politicizing or furthering their agenda in the school for personal mileage...

“It is not the place. If you’ll are so interested in politics, then there are opportunities back home where you’ll can contest elections, at various levels, and put your intentions to work. Please leave the schools out of your intent, for, if not, you’ll be doing complete disservice to the children,” he added.

Dr. Ausaf warmed to the subject of cultural cooperation and people-to-people set up by stating that there’ve been organizations for very long time that have been working on this area.

“I can also tell you that officially there are three organizations that are under the patronage of the ambassador, and all three are in Jeddah — India Forum, IPWF and SIBN... the other forums I tried to float during my time in Jeddah is the Indian Doctors Forum and the Education and Cultural Forum... these have not taken off after I had left. But then, if the professional doctors were still interested in grouping themselves together to do something meaningful, then it would be a great idea to resurrect this forum...

“For one of the influential members of the Indian community are the doctors. Because you’ll are everywhere. And you are so influential, as everybody needs you. You’ll can group together and see how best you’ll can engage the local people and local government in fostering people-to-people ties. That’s why if you’ll band together we can think of a Kingdomwide grouping with branches in other cities.

“In the other grouping I’m taking the initiative is to group the academicians... with so many Indian professors in various universities. This is one grouping which we should focus on.., I’m really sad that one group which did not do well was the Saudi-India Friendship Society. This initiative is not the Indian government’s or the mission’s, but the initiative of the Saudi government...

“We should have done everything possible to sustain it. My wish would be that we rejuvenate that, we engage it, for this is one organization where we are directly engaging with the Saudi hosts and same was the idea when we formed the SIBN... we need to take an initiative to restart these engagements. Once we initiate something it needs to be nurtured, Dr. Ausaf said.

Abdul Gafoor Danish, the school observer, headed the select committee drawn from all the community groups to organize the reception. Members of all community groups discussed and decided on the reception that was short and succinct.