Refreshed relationship

The Statesman, 09 Sep 2014

SALMAN HAIDAR

Australia’s Prime Minister Mr Tony Abbott has just concluded a visit to India. It went well, as was only to be expected, for the two countries have established warm and friendly relations with each other. Many useful agreements were concluded amidst reiteration of the many ties that serve to link the two countries, such as cricket, the English language, a growing Indian student body down under, and other similar matters. These are well-established features and it does no harm to restate their significance, and to dramatize their binding force as Mr Abbott did by having at his side two great cricketing heroes of his country to interact with Indian icons of the sport. These are gestures to which a universal response of Indian goodwill could be guaranteed.

There was more to the visit, of course, than generating friendly feelings, and some substantive agreements were concluded, none more significant than the long-term agreement for the supply of Australian uranium ore to India. This is something that has been waiting to happen for quite some time: Australia is a major producer of uranium ore and India has ambitious plans for the expansion of its nuclear power industry, for which it must look abroad for the raw material it needs. The fit between the two, demand and supply, is obvious but until Mr Abbott’s visit it could not be fully put together. Uranium is a strategic material that cannot be traded on economic considerations alone and all sides are aware that for decades conditions have not been conducive for India-Australia cooperation in this field. Indeed, through much of the post-war era the two countries have been on different sides of the global divide, one stoutly non-aligned, the other closely allied to the USA, the two strategically distant from each other even though there has always been much they have shared in common. The strategic distance between them was underlined by their different responses to the treaty on global non-proliferation (NPT) and the subsequent international nuclear instruments; the treaties had discriminatory features India could not accept, while Australia was an ardent advocate, and this widened the strategic gulf between the two.

Apart from these global factors, there were also issues closer home to impede the growth of relations, chief among them the impact on the South Asian region of US-led military alliances. Pakistan was part of the alliance structure from which it drew benefit in its unending contest with India, and this remained a long-term irritant, creating enduring misgivings in India when Australia chose to supply military aircraft to Pakistan. For some years, this one issue overshadowed India-Australia relations, so much so that one Australian envoy made the rueful observation that when he came to India the question he had to face was the re-sale by his country of French-made military aircraft Mirage to Pakistan, and when he left three years later, Mirage was still the big issue. 

Though political realities imposed some limitations on what could be achieved, many efforts were made, especially by Australia, to develop relations with India. Australia has huge mineral resources other than uranium, and a highly developed mining industry. It found room to collaborate with Indian companies in the search for mineral deposits in some parts of India, and it also made its presence felt as a major supplier of high-grade coal for a number of Indian power plants. So economic relations have not remained entirely in the doldrums even though considerably more could have been achieved in a more favourable climate of opinion.

The significant change that paved the way for the important advances witnessed during Mr Abbott’s visit can be traced back in many respects to the favourable consequences of the India-US nuclear deal that affected the strategic landscape in India’s favour. The deal gave India improved access to worldwide suppliers of nuclear materials and equipment, with Australia taking a leading position amongst them. On its part, Australia has been open to an arrangement of this sort for some while, for it has been in search of partners to invest in its mining industry, and, the constraints having been removed, India became an obvious choice. 

An important factor in the framing of the recent bilateral agreement, as Mr Abbott emphasised in his public statement on the issue, is India’s exemplary record in the matter of nuclear proliferation. Although not party to the NPT, and thus excluded from the various international schemes of restraint in the matter of nuclear materials, India has been very strict in maintaining national controls no less stringent than the treaty-mandated international controls concluded under the aegis of the nuclear suppliers group (NSG). That encourages others to look to India with confidence in this very tricky area of nuclear proliferation, to the extent that Mr Abbott said he would like to see India join the fold and be accepted as a member of the NSG.

Mr Abbott’s visit has opened many other paths to closer bilateral ties. Vast investments from India in Australia’s mining sector can now be anticipated, whereas not so long ago investment in the other direction may have seemed more likely. Trade is expected to pick up and a number of useful measures have been promised, in areas like medicine and food security. General strengthening and development of the relationship lies ahead, now that the lingering impediments would appear to have been removed.

In the past, notwithstanding the mismatch on certain political issues, attempts were made to expand cooperation beyond bilateral matters alone so as to strengthen shared regional interests. India and Australia, along with South Africa and others, came up with the idea of forming an Indian Ocean Rim organisation which aimed at a multi-sided association of states bordering the Indian Ocean to try to promote economic, political, and security goals that they held in common. Some progress was made and a basic inter-government structure was created for the purpose, which still exists but is not perhaps as active as it might have been. Meanwhile, other inter-government bodies with some of the same members have been set up and have acquired prominence. Now that India and Australia have been able to find common ground on strategic issues that hitherto tended more to divide than to unite them, they may perhaps consider reviving and strengthening the Rim concept with all the benefits it can provide to member-nations. Security concerns are on the increase around the Indian Ocean and there is need for collective action to meet the threat on land as well as on the high seas, while making provision for better economic cooperation within the region. Re-assessing and giving impetus to these and other comparable possibilities can be part of the wider fallout from a strengthened and refreshed India-Australia relationship.

The writer is India’s former Foreign Secretary