Earlier this month, news broke that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to New York would see him attend the India-Caribbean (CARICOM) summit on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Following his historic re-election in May — dubbed the ‘biggest election ever’ with an astounding 900 million voters returning him to office in a landslide victory — Modi has a new mandate at home, and a new mission to grow India’s influence abroad during his five-year term.
With many in Latin America having long been mystified by the Indian government’s understated presence in the region, together with Indians recognising that the region has been a ‘blind spot’ in its ambitions to grow global influence, there are now signs that things are changing.
So what is the future of Indian-Caribbean relations in the Modi era? And what benefits could Latin American nations gain from stronger ties with New Delhi?
Understanding India
Today India has the largest diaspora in the world, with the United Nations contending that 17.5 million people of Indian birth live abroad. While Indian expats throughout the generations have built lives and strong communities globally, the Indian government has been slower in expanding its relationships abroad since India established independence from the UK in 1947. Indeed, it was not until the end of the Cold War that India really began to forge the stronger ties with the US and EU that are visible today.
Within its foreign policy, historically India has focused on regional affairs. In part, this was the result of external factors such as a desire to avoid getting caught up in taking sides during the Cold War and consequently joining the Non-Aligned Movement, and also the focus on disputes close to home with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Pakistan.
Now change is afoot in India’s foreign policy, and the local impact is already being seen. A key example of this, Dr. K. J. Srinivasa, the High Commissioner of India to the Republic of Guyana. In July he was given concurrent accreditation as the High Commissioner of India to the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, High Commissioner of India to Antigua and Barbuda, and Ambassador of India to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat.
India in Latin America
Although India may have been slow out of the gates to build its trade in the region compared to other Asian powers, recent years have seen it make up for lost time. In 2005 trade between India and Latin America was US$2.8 billion but, as of 2014, the trade was US$49 billion. At a country level, between 2017 and 2018 Uruguay saw US$160 million of Indian exports arrive at its shores, with Guatemala receiving another US$292 million.
A particularly bright spot has been the trade between India and Chile. For nations like Chile, with agricultural surpluses, the rising wealth of India makes it an ideal market. What’s more, the resources of India make it a welcome partner in the quest for food security, with India’s own agricultural sector standing to benefit immensely from best practice advances that drive down produce-wastage and enhance in-situ storage of harvests. Regional nations’ future work in this regard could also help India address the ongoing challenges surrounding corruption in its agricultural sector.
More widely, beyond the day by day and year to year goals of the Indian government and those in the Caribbean, there are common goals for economic diversification at home, and addressing the trade imbalance abroad. Just as the Caribbean knows that the best future for its nations will be pursued by adding new industries to the two pillars of finance and tourism, Indian economists have long anguished over the trade balance that their country has with Indonesia, a rising economic power in its own right, but one that right now sees Jakarta having the trade balance in its favour, over New Delhi.
Beyond Economics
State security is another area where it is anticipated that necessity will drive growth on both sides. India is intent on boosting its defence exports around the world. In Latin America it has the opportunity to drive trade in markets and to compete with sales from other countries including the US and Russia. India can also bring robust experience in combatting terror groups. Few nations regionally may fear an outright invasion in 2019 but all are vulnerable to terrorism. Stronger defence ties with India would help protect against this.
Then there is a common ground on goals in the international community. At first it may surprise to think that an Asian nation of 1.3 billion has many shared aims with a region of states that have a total population of under 45 million. Yet both India and the Caribbean recognise that an era of great power politics is threatening to emerge; one where both parties look upon the new landscape with uncertainty.
How the Caribbean approaches this in-depth is beyond the scope of this article but it can be said in summation that the region’s 30 states will see a diversity of approaches. India’s future is more clear-cut; it must forge a new path or it risks a future not only of increasing irrelevance, but vulnerability to the rising power of other nations. There is also the recognition in New Delhi that if India is to become a superpower in its own right, then it must build stronger ties with more nations in order to aid its pursuit of broader goals, like winning a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Alongside the core areas of economics and security, the India-Caribbean relationship has depth that a cursory glance may overlook. There are shared links in history and current culture. The story of Indo-Caribbeans in the region means the painful past of families separated and bodies broken due to the demands of sugar cane plantations, is felt in India as it is within the Caribbean.
On a happier level, the Indian national love of cricket has seen the Caribbean Premier League emerge as a great vehicle of soft power for the region, as the CPL has grown into a landmark event on the global calendar. It also represents a strong avenue for building ties between nations at the grassroots level, beyond diplomatic summits and business tours.
A Friend Who is Free
It is no longer an option for India to stay in safe harbour. At the same time, discussions have been long and ongoing surrounding India’s need to expand its influence, so one could well ask: Why will it be any different this time? The significance of Modi’s election (and subsequent re-election), alongside the rise of China’s power in Asia, means domestic and external factors give a new impetus.
For the Caribbean, the new era in India is one of immense opportunity to build new partnerships, especially at a time when many nations here desire to build bridges to the rising economic wealth in Asia. However, they do so with much trepidation when any deal with China comes with concerns surrounding espionage and debt-trap diplomacy. There is also the unease of building trade ties with the Communist Party of China that, beyond Xi Jinping’s clear skills as a retail politician and diplomat, ultimately remains a regime that delights in asserting ‘might makes right’ domestically and internationally.
If such an approach is allowed to dominate once more in the international community, many nations in the Caribbean would face new risks. As the world’s largest democracy and a rapidly rising economic power, a stronger relationship with India brings Caribbean countries a capacity to trade without fear, pursue common security goals, and seek to create an international arena where the future doesn’t belong to great power politics.
UPDATE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a $14-million grant for community development projects in [CARICOM] nations and another $150 million Line of Credit for solar, renewable energy and climate-change related works as he hosted the first ever India-CARICOM leaders’ summit in New York earlier this week. “India’s historic and warm relations with the countries of the Caribbean witnessed a new momentum” in the meeting held Wednesday, an official pressrelease said. St Lucia Prime Minister and current CARICOM Chairman Allen Chastenet co-chaired the meeting held on the margins of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly.”
