Foreign Affairs
It has a population of 1.4 billion and the fastest growing major economy in the world – so why isn’t the relationship between New Zealand and India stronger? An Australian expert explains what the public is getting wrong about India, how his country has built deep ties and his advice for Aotearoa
When New Delhi hosts the G20 leaders’ summit in September, the prestigious gathering of world leaders will have symbolic value beyond what is being discussed.
The first G20 summit to be hosted in India – or South Asia for that matter – is also an opportunity for the country to shine on the global stage, says Dr Ian Hall, professor of international relations and deputy director of Australia’s Griffith Asia Institute.
“His influence is growing, but his ambition is also growing: not so much an ambition to take back territories or things like that, but … to play a bigger role in the world,” says Hall.
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Since gaining independence in 1947, the country felt it deserved more recognition “as a great civilization in its own right”, but until recently lacked the clout needed to make its case.
“The brutal reality is that you can have five or seven or eight thousand years of history, but unless you have economic power and wealth and a diplomatic footprint … you can’t transfer that outside of India.”
Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister since 2014, plays a vital role in that expanding diplomatic footprint and will almost certainly win a third term next year.
Unlike some Indian politicians, Modi had traveled abroad before becoming the country’s leader, having been hosted in China’s Great Hall of the People as Gujarat’s chief minister.
While Modi was still far from a natural diplomat when he rose to senior positions, Hall said the prime minister made a conscious decision to announce that India was back on the global stage and attracting foreign investment with a more business-friendly approach.
That effort has paid off, with practical improvements, such as greatly reduced processing times at New Delhi’s airport, brightening the country’s image.
Modi’s ultimate goal, Hall says, is for India to be recognized not only for its economic power and large population, but also for its “extraordinary cultural wealth,” standing upright as one pole in a multipolar world.
In a world where great powers are increasingly on one side or the other, India stands out. It is a member of the Quad with the United States, Australia and Japan – but it has continued to buy oil and military equipment from Russia, even as global condemnation grows over Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Both countries have accelerated their infrastructure building, they’ve pushed troops into that area. For a while, we had about 50,000 to 100,000 troops there on both sides, not face to face but pretty close together, and that’s a flashpoint.”
– dr. Ian Hall, on the border dispute between India and China
Hall says the relationship between India and Russia is based on strong sentimental ties that date back to the Cold War, when the Soviet Union provided significant economic and military aid but has diminished in significance in recent years.
Despite India’s “multi-aligned” approach to foreign policy, he adds, it has actually leaned much more towards the US over the past decade – a state of affairs that explains the dovish US response to the ongoing ties between India and Russia . as well as sensitive topics such as human rights issues in Kashmir.
“The United States is playing a long game with India: it believes that the interests of the United States and India will converge over time, and that there is more to be gained by being subtle, diplomatic and silent about differences.”
As the relationship between India and the US has grown, the relations between India and China have deteriorated. Beijing and New Delhi have teamed up to push back against the US in the past, including at the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference, but Hall says tensions related to growing economic inequality between the two countries paid for such collaboration.
Chief among these is a border dispute that dates back decades and has become more fraught in recent years. A 2017 standoff between Chinese and Indian troops along the disputed border with Bhutan lasted for several weeks, and in 2020 clashes in Ladakh resulted in the deaths of dozens of soldiers.
While much of the speculation of a China-linked war has centered on Taiwan, Hall says another major border clash could turn into something equally dangerous for the region, despite efforts to de-escalate.
“Both countries have accelerated their infrastructure building, they’ve pushed troops into that area. For a while, we had about 50,000 to 100,000 troops there on both sides, not face to face but pretty close together, and that’s a flashpoint.”
Hindu hardliners not the whole Modi story
Another concern for some is the rise of Hindutva, a form of Hindu nationalism that has risen to prominence under Modi’s BJP party, but has been described by critics as a form of right-wing extremism or fascism.
“The last thing any of us want to see is Indian democracy being eroded [and] an increasingly authoritarian state, let alone one informed by an exclusive ideology,” says Hall.
However, he believes it is important to distinguish between the “harder-line, narrower ideology” of Hindutva which speaks of the subjugation of minorities, and the broader Indian nationalism which sometimes contains elements of Hindu pride.
“India’s middle class wants India to be big, wants India to be strong, wants India to be powerful, but are not necessarily convinced by the fine details of hardline Hindu right, and those people still vote for the Modi. government and for the BJP because they think they are going to deliver those results.”
Modi’s electoral success is due not only to the support of Hindu hardliners, but also to an ambitious middle class and rural women whose lives have been improved by new benefits. If Modi were replaced by a more hardline Indian nationalist, Hall predicts that the coalition of voters would fall apart and the BJP would in turn fall from power.
For the time being, it is Modi with whom foreign leaders should work and whose support is crucial to advancing bilateral relations.
Hall says Australia-India ties have blossomed in part thanks to the efforts of past leaders such as Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison to build a relationship with Modi; a brief lull came during the leadership of Malcolm Turnbull, who subsequently expressed his skepticism about Modi and India.
That could be an important lesson for New Zealand, which has not had a bilateral leader-to-leader visit since Sir John Key went to India in 2016.
Australia and India signed an early harvest trade deal last year, heralding a more comprehensive settlement, with significant benefits for some Australian exporters, but no change yet for more sensitive sectors.
This is in stark contrast to New Zealand’s approach, where bilateral trade talks have effectively been frozen due to India’s protectionist approach to the agricultural sector.
“There was a bit of political pragmatism and also some economic pragmatism,” Hall says of the early harvest deal, expressing skepticism about Australian talks on a comprehensive deal by the end of the year given the importance of farmers’ voices in India. .
“You can’t win an election without winning the votes of farmers and farm workers, and if you upset them, as we saw with the farmer protests in India a few years ago, they can threaten to overthrow governments.”
Pacific a place for discussion
That suggests little cause for optimism about a New Zealand-India free trade deal, at least not without significant compromise on the part of the Kiwis. But Hall says Aotearoa will have to work with India anyway, given its sizeable diaspora and power.
Australia began to build its own ties with India “just by listening”, holding a series of strategic dialogues where each country could be candid about their respective lack of understanding to build trust.
But that advice comes with a caveat: “Getting and holding India’s attention is extremely difficult.” In addition to skilled diplomacy, Australia has had the advantage of being brought closer to India by the Quad – something New Zealand cannot rely on.
Instead, Kiwi politicians and officials will have to find their own way into the conversation – and Hall believes this could come in the form of the Pacific, where India is joining a range of other countries in building its engagement.
“As other countries move into the Pacific … it’s really up to us to say these are the terms of conversation that will be productive, here’s what you should know, here’s what you shouldn’t, and I think that will help to build a stronger bond between the two countries.”