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Sub-continental Drift

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Sub-continental Drift

If you ask foreign policy wonks in New Delhi what they think of India’s ties to Australia, there usually follows a brief, slightly perplexed silence.

If you ask foreign policy wonks in New Delhi what they think of India’s ties to Australia, there usually follows a brief, slightly perplexed silence. Then comes the groping for words and a general comment along the lines of, “Well, barring improving trade – exports to India are around $12 billion and growing – and the large number of full-fee paying higher education Indian students in Australia – about 50,000 fly there every year ­- the feeling from Canberra under the new Rudd government has been more negative than anything else.” However, the analysts also say that it’s perhaps too early to jump to conclusions.

Mention Canberra’s decision not to join the nascent security/democracy grouping between the US, Japan and India, and they shrug their shoulders. It’s not a huge issue, the analysts say, as the aims of this grouping were vague to begin with. However, it would be of some concern if Australia pulled out to placate China.

Mention the decision not to sell uranium to India, and they respond, “Well, that was expected” – if unwelcome. They point to the “double standards” of Canberra agreeing to sell uranium to China even though Australia has no real guarantees that some of the uranium sold there won’t be diverted for military use. Taken individually, the apparent hurdles to the relationship could be surmountable, but they become more problematic if they begin to be viewed as a general trend of the new Labor government.

What’s generally worrying Indians and, it is reported, some in the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, is the new Australian foreign policy course being charted by the more independent, Mandarin-speaking Prime Minister. It could prove detrimental for improved relations with India.

Professor Baladas Ghoshal of the Delhi-based strategic think-tank, The Centre for Policy Research, says there has been a “recent shift” in Australia’s attitude towards China after the Australian elections, and India’s importance “has receded just a little”. “John Howard was more conscious of India’s position in the region [than the new Rudd Labor government]. Howard wanted to take note of India’s emergence.” In 2006, for example, Australia signed a defence MOU with India.

Ghoshal goes on to say that, “Howard was closer to the United States and its foreign policy than the present government and was, by extension, closer to India, since the US had growing ties with India after the fiasco around the nuclear tests in 1998. But if there is a shift and a move closer to China by Australia, it may be less in line with US foreign policy which could have negative knock-on effects here as well.”

This view is echoed by naval defence expert and professor at the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, GVC Naidu, who questions the extent to which Australia is willing to take the defence relationship forward because of the “ideological and political bias” of the new Prime Minister. “The previous Prime Minister looked at India as a small but lucrative slice of the defence market and a parliamentary committee was even set up to discuss the options . Things were moving forward, but today there is no dialogue on that front, not even at an informal level,” Professor Naidu says, shrugging.

Professor Naidu also says that there is a question as to what Australia will do when the subject of India comes up in the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Ghoshal suggests that while there is a general consensus in New Delhi that containment of China is counterproductive, there is room for establishing common ground with middle ranking democracies in the region like Australia to bring some balance to the region.

This had been difficult to accomplish in the past because India has, until quite recently, lacked a strategic vision of its own when it came to the wider world. But all that is changing.

Shanthie Mariet D’Souza of the New Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) explains: “India has had no strategic vision when it comes to the East or the West because we have focused so hard on our immediate South Asian neighbours who have been the most problematic for us. For the West, especially for the US, we have been a backwater, but now India is emerging as the only stable democracy in the region and things are changing. “And strategically, as we are in China’s backyard, our relevance is increasing as a global power that could be used as leverage against Beijing – although the government’s official policy refutes that absolutely.”

Beijing’s rancorous relationship with New Delhi over their shared border areas (inlcuding a one border war in 1962), the sale of Chinese nuclear technology to Pakistan via North Korea, and India playing host to the Tibetan government in exile – have created a natural climate of suspicion on both sides. But India is now developing a strategic world vision, something that can be seen partly through the development of its brown water navy into a blue water navy. Australia made some recognition of this last year when, for the first time, it participated in joint naval exercises with India in the Bay of Bengal along with Japan, the US and Singapore.

Security analysts predict that India will spend more than $US40 billion on weapons in the coming years – more than its entire annual armament budget today. And while it may be prudent for Australia to watch the defence development of both rising Asian giants, China and India, some think that Canberra needs to show more enthusiasm for New Delhi’s changing role in the world.

India’s navy is now more outward looking than it was in the past. GVC Naidu explains: “With the end of the Cold War came a growing power vacuum in the Indian Ocean, and with the US preoccupied by terrorism and problems in the Middle East, that vacuum seemed to grow and it’s natural that India has decided to fill that space. “Patrolling the Indian Ocean is critical for Asia and Australia, and sea submarines are a very important part of any deterrent. India has understood that and has initiated naval exercises with almost every country in the region while at the same time revamping its navy.”

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked navies in the Indian Ocean region to combine forces to improve their ability to thwart terrorist attacks and deter the threat from well-organised and well-funded international crime syndicates. At the Indian Ocean Symposium earlier this year, where navy chiefs from 26 littoral states of the Indian Ocean were represented, Singh stressed the need to pool resources, exchange information and develop inter-operability to keep the sea lanes secure.

Modelled on the US-led Western Pacific Naval Symposium, the meet sought to provide regional navies with a forum for dialogue. He said cooperation was of “paramount” importance today. Indian Defence Minister, A K Anthony, said the threats did not arise from territorial or ideological ambitions of other nation states but from a bewildering variety of non-state identities.

Dubbing the symposium “the first significant international cooperative construct of the 21st century”, Indian navy chief Admiral Suresh Mehta said the initiative was all about inclusiveness and it recognised the strengths that could be derived from cooperative engagement. Analysts say that the potential for further cooperation with Australia through its navy would be highly beneficial to both countries.

Though predominantly Soviet assisted since the late 1960s, India has managed to procure British fleet carriers; German HDW submarines (and now French Scorpenes); French assistance in designs for the indigenous carrier, the American Landing Platform Dock, USS Trenton; American help for the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft, a variant of which might be used for the new carrier; use of Western equipment on other vessels; Israel’s Barak anti-missile defence system; and a number of sub-systems and electronic equipment from a variety of international sources. India also plans to build a light carrier and a nuclear submarine in addition to a variety of other major ships.

The expansion is propelled by India’s growing economic power and the growing importance of the navy as part of the nuclear deterrent. India’s naval diplomacy includes being a part of the Container Security Initiative and the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery, and New Delhi may join the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative and “1000-ship” navy.

The Indian navy regularly conducts joint exercises with most countries of the Asia Pacific, except North Korea. As part of a 2001 defence cooperation agreement, India and Indonesia coordinate their activities and exchange information on a number of common maritime security issues like trafficking in arms and drugs, piracy and other trans-national crimes.

Despite Japanese-Indian relations suffering a severe setback following the 1998 Indian nuclear tests, Japan quickly recognised India’s maritime capabilities in vital Indian Ocean trade route security when in 1999 a hijacked Japanese freighter was intercepted by the Indian coast guard. Today, there are annual security dialogues and coast guard-level anti-piracy exercises between the two countries.

India has even signed a MOU on defence cooperation with China. The navies of these countries have so far held two rounds of anti-piracy, counter-terrorism, and search and rescue exercises that are likely to become a regular affairs.

The South Pacific, and especially Fiji, offers a forum for cooperation between Australia and India, around an issue that is not often discussed – the Indian diaspora. The head of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, PR Chari, believes India and Australia could be more cooperative and consultative when it comes to the problems regarding the Indian diaspora in the Pacific, especially in Fiji.

Because Australia and, to a lesser degree, New Zealand are the main international actors in the Pacific, often using their military and police in the area, Chari believes it is possible to use Indian influence in Canberra and Wellington to gain more security for the Indian diaspora, who are targeted by the islands’ indigenous communities and politicians. However, a balance between protection of the diaspora and meddling in sovereign affairs must be carefully struck.

Deeper involvement with New Delhi by Australia on the strategic front would be a step in the right direction. It would put actions to the words spoken by Prime Minister Rudd at the start of 2008, when he told the ABC that the Indian-Australian relationship is one “which many governments in the past have tried to accelerate and expand. But I think we can do much better and I intend to do so.”

Janaki Bahadur is a Freelance Correspondent Based in New Delhi, India