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The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region has remained an important area of focus for India’s foreign policy. India’s relations with the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region have witnessed sustained growth in the past few decades, with India’s continuous efforts to strengthen its relations and diversify engagements with all of the 33 countries.
Illustration by The Geostrata
The beginning of this relationship can be traced to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s visit to Mexico in 1961, followed by the visit of PM Indira Gandhi to eight countries of the region in 1968. While the intervening years did not witness similar high-level visits, relations found renewed vigour with the visit of PM Narendra Modi to Brazil for the BRICS summit in 2014 and with the government’s Neighborhood First Policy.
In the growing global order, the LAC region is emerging and becoming increasingly important to India as also stated by S. Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs, that ‘India’s ambition to become a global power requires a footprint in Latin America’.
Therefore, a re-prioritisation of this relationship is essential, and should be complemented by more discerning and energetic diplomacy between the countries.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
When India became a nation-state in 1947, Latin America had been independent for over a century. Latin American societies were formed by and from descendants of European, in some cases African, origin with relatively scant indigenous presence. On the other hand, Indian society was almost entirely South Asian.
While Latin America was oriented towards Europe and the US, during the Cold War, India chose to remain ‘non aligned’. Even Octavio Paz, the Mexican Nobel Laureate and Ambassador to India in the 1960’s, said, "India did not enter me through my mind but through my senses,” highlighting the civilisational differences creating a polite distance, despite abiding mutual admiration for each other’s culture.
The political and diplomatic relations between the two nations were established soon after 1947, given the absence of disputes and a shared colonial legacy. The early political exchanges identified some common ground but had little political impact. The relations between India and Latin America have been predicated on bilateral priorities. This includes collaboration in international forums, recognition of the importance of regional integration within Latin America, as well as the linkages being established by the region with other international players.
India today hosts 20 Latin American and Caribbean embassies and maintains 14 in that region. It participates with Brazil, Mexico and Argentina in the G20 which serves as the forums for bilateral dialogue, among others being the Community of Latin American States (CELAC) and sub-regional forums providing the matrix for engagement between the two nations.
INDIRA GANDHI’S DIPLOMATIC OUTREACH
While tracing back from where it started, in the 1960s, the Latin Americans were introduced to a political figure from India, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who visited eight Latin American and Caribbean countries in 1968, at a time when female heads of government were a rarity and her foreign policy was characterised by assertiveness and strategic depth.
Indira Gandhi during her visit, reiterated her desire for world peace and a better understanding of the third world countries. She emphasised her vision and the spirit of fraternity that she wished to carry forward to the future, stating “I come to build bridges of love between Latin America and my country”.
These words demonstrated the political will and showed the path that Venezuela and the rest of the region would have to take in the Cold War era, with complete clarity on the concepts of integration, firm friendship and working together to find a solution to short and long term issue with initiating the process for the drafting of work plans and joint programmes that would help in the achievement of the development goals of both parties.
Among the areas of initial cooperation, the strategic focus was on trade and economic cooperation, with an emphasis on commodities and agricultural exchange. On the other hand, educational and cultural exchanges strengthen people-to-people connections and bilateral and multilateral support on issues of global concern, such as nuclear disarmament and economic development.
POST-INDIRA DEVELOPMENTS
The evolution of bilateral and multilateral relations post-1980s, especially in the 1990s with India’s economic liberalisation changed the course of the relationship between India and Latin America. The successive Indian governments sustained and expanded these ties by focusing on expanding trade, investment, and cooperation in new sectors like technology and renewable energy.
While India signed trade and economic cooperation agreements with seven countries of the region and set up business councils with some others, India’s Department of Commerce placed a Focus Latin America & Caribbean (FOCUS LAC) program in 1997, providing finance and assistance for Indian exporters to Latin America.
The Ministry of External Affairs, in its Annual Report of 1999-2000 stated “The thrust of our policy towards the Latin America and Caribbean region is to strengthen and widen the already existing relationship and to give more economic content to it”, emphasising the growing economic ties between the nations.
CURRENT STATE OF INDIA-LATIN AMERICA RELATIONS
Since then, India’s relations with Latin America have grown multiple folds. On the economic front, for Indian business, Latin America lies in the so-called ‘goldilocks zone’- a sweet spot between the highly regulated, competitive markets of the US and Europe, and the less competitive markets of Africa that have lower purchasing power.
On the geopolitical front, India’s Ministry of External Affairs has kept the Latin American region at arm’s length. Latin America rarely inserts itself in the arena of geopolitics, no country in the region has nuclear weapons, and the region has not seen an intra-country war since the late 1800s.
However, this changed in 2022, when three member countries of the G20 group - Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, were placed directly under the purview of India’s foreign minister. Since then, the Indian foreign minister has visited all three countries and engaged more deeply with each country in the numerous G20 forums that India is presiding over during its presidency in 2023.
CHALLENGES AND FUTURE PROSPECTS
The real challenge for the two nations is not the physical distance that separates India and Latin America, but rather the distance in their perceptions. India and Latin America often still view each other from antiquated lenses as many Indians still remember Latin American countries as erstwhile ‘banana republics’, unstable economies with hyperinflation and burrows for drug trafficking; meanwhile, Latin Americans would often think of India as the land of spiritualism and gurus.
Through a contemporary lens, India’s international role has undergone redefinition. India still yet to formulate a mechanism to deal with the Latin American region as a whole or even to engage meaningfully with the sub-groups in the region, such as the Central American Integration System (SICA in Spanish), the Pacific Alliance, and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), on formulating which the relations between the nations can be improved further.
India’s relationship with Latin America brings no baggage nor a shared political memory. With little history in common, relations have largely been shaped by bilateral synergies. There has been some degree of collaborative diplomacy on issues such as climate change, international trading rules, and the struggle against terrorism and organised crime. Strategic sectors like defence, armament, outer space, etc. have witnessed peripheral exchanges but nothing amounting to even a cogent definition of specific common interests. Thus, focusing on the same will further enhance the nature of the two nations' relations making it more dynamic.
BY AGRIMA KUSHWAHA
CENTRE FOR HISTORY AND CULTURE
TEAM GEOSTRATA
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