One wonders if all is well in India-Qatar ties today! Observers say the kind of  hospitality New Delhi accorded to Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani during his  State visit to India (February  17-18 ,2025) does suggest so. On February 17, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself went to the New Delhi airport to receive the Emir. Modi has had excellent personal ties with him ever since he visited Doha in 2015 and 2016. They met well also on the sidelines of COP 28 Climate summit in 2023.

As is the pattern of Prime Minister Modi’s functioning, he seeks to use his personal relationship with the Emir to advance India-Qatar ties in the areas of trade and investment. One of the chief objectives behind his engagement with the Emir of Qatar is to achieve energy security for India.

Today Qatar is India’s largest supplier of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG). Qatar exports to India chemicals, petrochemicals, plastics and aluminium. India exports to Qatar cereals, copper, iron and steel, vegetables, fruits, spices, processed food, machinery, plastics, construction materials, textiles, chemicals, precious stones, and rubber. During the Emir’s recent visit to India, the two nations decided to double their bilateral trade from $14 billion to $28 billion by 2030. Qatar agreed to invest $10 billion in India.

However, the observers say, relations between the two nations cannot really improve to a higher level. The Qatari regime is still a threat to India’s core values of humanism, democracy, and pluralism. Like Ankara, Doha follows the path of Islamabad in the matter. It has been a major funder and supporter of radical Islamism in the world, including India.

It may be recalled that in 2022, not long ago, the Qatari government  summoned Indian ambassador to protest some of the historically factual remarks then spokesperson of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s  Nupur Sharma made on the Prophet Muhmmad. Sharma gave her opiionduring a televised debate.  Doha took exception to it and demanded a public apology from India. Qatari Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Soltan bin Saad Al-Muraikhi said that Sharma’s remarks would “offend more than two billion Muslims around the world”.

Such a Qatari approach does not but embolden the radical Islamist elements in India. It poses a threat to the country’s very existence as a modern secular state in the contemporary world.

Pertinently, it is well documented how close the Qatari regime has been to the Islamist organizations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the ISIS, Taliban and Hamas. In 2018, it delivered Hamas in Gaza to the tune of $30 million a month. In 2021, Qatar began to send fuel (worth $7-$10 million per month) to Gaza via Egypt. Such Qatari funds have been used mainly to pay Hamas government salaries and fund their terror activities. Part of such funds have also enabled Hamas to produce rockets and other armaments.

In 2017, Qatar’s support for Islamist  terrorism so upset Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and their non-GCC allies  that they  cut off their ties with Qatar .

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