Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC): organs, members and India
Why in news: On 19 October 2026 the MEA rejected anti-India references in resolutions of the OIC's 52nd Council of Foreign Ministers in Baghdad, saying Pakistan orchestrated them.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), set up after a 1969 summit in Rabat, is a 57-member intergovernmental body with its General Secretariat in Jeddah. India is neither a member nor an observer. On 19 October 2026, the Ministry of External Affairs rejected anti-India references adopted at the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers in Baghdad.
Syllabus: Prelims · Current Affairs & IR; GS2 · India & its Neighbourhood; GS2 · Groupings & Agreements
Why this matters for UPSC
GS2 international institutions: Prelims can ask the OIC's organs, headquarters, Charter, members and observers; GS2 Mains, how India deals with OIC members while denying the OIC any locus standi on Jammu and Kashmir.
In short
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is a 57-member body founded at Rabat in 1969, now run under its 2008 Charter. India stays outside and rejects its views on Kashmir.
India should keep denying the OIC any locus standi on Jammu and Kashmir while deepening ties with members, whose goodwill outweighs the bloc's resolutions.
Why it matters
A Muslim student in Hyderabad, a Kashmiri trader and an Indian nurse in Dubai all live with what this body says. The OIC brings together 57 governments, most of them with Muslim majorities, and its members made up more than a quarter of UN membership by India's own count in 2019. When it adopts a text on Jammu and Kashmir, India's diplomats must answer it in public, as the MEA did on 19 October. Yet the same members are India's partners: the Gulf alone hosted more than 8 million Indians and was India's largest market and energy supplier, the minister said in 2019. The larger question is how India keeps close bilateral ties while rejecting a grouping's view on its internal affairs.
Prelims pointers
- OIC name: the 38th CFM in Astana in 2011 renamed the Organisation of the Islamic Conference as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, keeping the acronym OIC.
- Membership rule (Article 3 of the OIC Charter): a UN member State with a Muslim majority that abides by the Charter may join if the CFM agrees by consensus.
- Headquarters (Article 21 of the OIC Charter): the General Secretariat stays in Jeddah until Al-Quds is liberated, which is meant to become the permanent headquarters.
- Observer States of the OIC: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Central African Republic, Thailand, the Russian Federation (since 2005) and the Turkish Cypriot State.
- Observer organisations of the OIC include the UN (1976), the Non-Aligned Movement, the League of Arab States, the African Union and the Economic Cooperation Organization.
- Standing committees: the Al-Quds Committee and three others on science and technology, economy and trade, and information and culture.
- Members beyond West Asia include Guyana and Suriname in South America, Albania in Europe, and Uganda, Mozambique and Cote d'Ivoire in Africa.
- Official languages of the OIC (Article 38 of its Charter): Arabic, English and French.
Practise a UPSC-style question
With reference to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), consider the following statements:
1. It was set up by a decision of a summit held in Rabat, Morocco, in 1969.
2. Its General Secretariat is located in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.
3. Its present Charter was adopted at an Islamic Summit held in Dakar in 2008.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 and 2 only
- (b) 2 and 3 only
- (c) 1 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Show the answer
Answer: (c) 1 and 3 only
Answer: (c) 1 and 3 only. The founding and Charter facts hold; the secretariat city is wrong.
Statement 1: correct. The OIC was established on a decision of the summit in Rabat, Morocco, on 25 September 1969, after the arson of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Statement 2: incorrect. The General Secretariat is in Jeddah, chosen at the first foreign ministers' meeting there in 1970, not in Riyadh.
Statement 3: correct. The Eleventh Islamic Summit in Dakar on 13-14 March 2008 adopted the present Charter, replacing the 1972 one.
Eliminate: Statement 2 is the surest: the OIC's seat is Jeddah. Out: (a), (b), (d).
Trap: Swapped attribution. The Saudi capital replaces the Saudi port city that actually hosts the secretariat; both are in the same country, so the swap feels safe.
Remember: OIC: born Rabat 1969, seat Jeddah, Charter Dakar 2008.
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