A. Das

Beginnings

Contact between India and Europe dates back to times immemorial [i]. Historians consider Alexander the Great’s eastern expedition[ii] after his defeat of the Persian Emperor Darius III as a key marker in this contact.  They also document the adoption of Indian culture and Indian Buddhist religion by Alexander’s cohorts and successors[iii], establishing a tradition of exchange of ideas and philosophies between India and Europe.  Literature and archeology also document maritime trade linkages between the Greco-Roman Empires and Indian Kingdoms[iv]. This pre-Christian tradition of contact continued into the Common Era, with St. Thomas arriving in India in the first century[v], establishing a community of Indian Christians that is arguably more ancient than those of much of Western Europe.

Folk memory

 Folk memory[vi] sometimes puts too much emphasis on relatively recent history, doing disservice to the grand historical narrative. Indians cannot and must not forget the turn that India-Europe relations took after the day Vasco da Gama arrived in Calicut[vii].  This time around the Europeans were not above colonial conquest, aggressive proselytizing, rent-seeking and political subjugation of Indians[viii]. Of course, then as now [ix], Europe was not a truly unified state.  Intra-European power-struggles[x],[xi],[xii] were common between the Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, English and French commercial-military entities operating in India. It would take the Battle of Wandiwash[xiii](Vandavasi[xiv]) to establish British preeminence among the Europeans in India, a preeminence that was not going to be cast away for good till 1947[xv]. The key point is that, though most Indians view only Britain through predominantly post-colonial eyes, they do appreciate the fact that the rest of Europe did not match Britain not due to lack of intent but due to lack of ability.  This sentiment was at least partially responsible for India’s vigourous support[xvi] for anti-colonialist movements of all stripes and against all colonial powers in the second half of the 20^th century.

Similarly, popular discourse about India in much of Europe is informed by an appreciation for the Indian republic’s post-colonial status[xvii].  The typical French citizen may not be too familiar with Begusarai[xviii] and Warangal[xix], but would probably know[xx] about Pondicherry[xxi] and Chandernagore[xxii]. Hearty Portuguese support for international intervention in East Timor was generated by domestic debates that mentioned[xxiii] India’s forcible expulsion of the Portuguese from Goa, among other factors.  Continental Europeans who come into contact with Indians are reminded of India’s colonial history by the facility with the English language demonstrated by their Indian interlocutors[xxiv]^,[xxv].

Rather appropriately, British folk memory about India is usually more informed[xxvi] by contemporary history.  This can be explained by the “living links” between India and Britain in the form of the ethnic-Indian population in Britain as well as inter-governmental structures like the Commonwealth[xxvii] that provide an over-arching framework for trade, cultural relations and political cooperation.

Making new memories

A good case can be made that Indians and Europeans are well on their way to jettisoning the “baggage” of viewing each other through post-colonial and post-imperial prisms respectively.  Though tensions in India’s neighbourhood and the occasional natural disaster might still be covered extensively by European media, India’s robust economic growth, Indian prowess in Information Technology, India’s emergence as a nuclear power and other such developments that highlight India’s rapid strides out of third world mediocrity also receive notice^{[xxviii],[xxix],[xxx]}. Official policy of the European Union(EU)[xxxi] also seems cognizant of these changing realities.  The EU’s 2002-2006 Country Strategy paper[xxxii] states, “India has developed the world’s fourth largest economy with a growth rate that since 1980 ranks amongst the highest in the world, and a rapidly expanding global imprint in information technology.” 

The Indian side too seems alive to the possibilities. The Indian External Affairs Minister, Shri. Yashwant Sinha’s words^[xxxiii] underline India’s understanding of the strategic opportunities presented by the EU’s emergence as a significant actor on the world stage:

“The last ten years have been momentous for Europe and for India. They have seen the transformation of the EU from a community to a union. The year 2002 saw the successful launching of the Euro and the decision at the Copenhagen Summit on the accession of ten new member states by 2004. After EU’s expansion from 15 to 25 States, its population will rise by 75 million bringing the total to around 453 million. The increase in population will further expand the single market. The EU’s GDP will grow by 5%. In terms of population, EU will be bigger than NAFTA comprising the US, Canada and Mexico, which have a population of around 400 million. What is significant is not only the size of the population, but the fact that this includes one of the most technologically advanced regions of the world. Already in the forefront of science and technology, EU will take a further leap with the Galileo project, once it is implemented. We have also noted EU’s resolve to boost its R&D expenditure to maintain and strengthen its lead in science and technology. We understand that EU will provide for 17.5 billion Euros for research and development during the 4-year period 2002-2006.

This expansion of the EU will no doubt have a profound effect on EU’s global role. It will also mean that the EU will have to address, as it is doing now, its own internal decision making structures to respond to the new challenges.”

Such enthusiastic pronouncements by both sides seem to be backed up by the following institutionalized mechanisms to further cooperation between India and the EU: 

India-EU Summit Meeting: An annual meeting between the Indian Prime Minister and the EU President, presently the Head of Government of the EU nation holding the rotating EU presidency[xxxiv].

India-EU Round Table: Dedicated to increasing contacts between civil society in India and the EU[xxxv].

India-EU Troika Ministerial Meeting: A periodic ministerial level meeting between the Indian External Affairs Minister, the foreign minister of the EU nation holding presidency, the EU Commissioner for External relations and the EU High Representative for Common For Common Foreign and Security Policy[xxxvi]

Senior Official Meetings: Intended to further political dialog between India and the EU, continuing since 1997[xxxvii] 

India-EC Joint Commission: Mandated with furthering trade, economic and development cooperation between India and the EU.  Comprises at the apex, the Indian Commerce Secretary and the EU’s Director General, External Relations[xxxviii].  

Delegations in Brussels and New Delhi:  Including the EU’s accredited diplomatic delegation in New Delhi, in parallel with India’s own mission to the EU in Brussels[xxxix]^,[xl]. 

Additionally, there exist[xli] India-EU Joint Working Groups on Terrorism, Consular Affairs, Export Controls etc.  It is clear that these mechanisms encompass economic, political, cultural and security cooperation.  But, as of now, trade dominates the relationship, as it well should.  An examination of India-EU trade dynamics is in order, before looking at other aspects of cooperation in greater detail.

The trade imperative

Trade permeates India-EU relations more than any other issue.  The European Union is already India’s largest trading partner[xlii], with India exporting more to and importing more from the EU than from the US, Japan and other major markets.  This trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future[xliii]. Shri. Swapan K. Bhattacharya^[xliv] describes the institutional momentum enjoyed by India-EU trade:

“India’s bilateral economic relation with the EU has been excellent all along. As a part of EU’s strategy on development cooperation with India, it concluded a Joint Declaration of Intent (JDI), which was annexed to the final act of the Treaty of Accession. JDI constituted the Community’s new trade and development policy towards Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Singapore. It signified basically its long-term perspective on development of its relations with South and South East Asian countries. JDI was followed by Indo-EC Commercial Cooperation Agreement (CCA) of  1974, which was renewed as Commercial and Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) in 1981. Under these treaties both sides consciously felt the need “to consolidate, deepen and diversify their commercial and economic relations to the full extent of their growing capacity to meet each other’s requirements on the basis of complementarity.”

From the EU perspective, India is well behind the US, Japan, China and other major partners as a source for imports and a destination for exports[xlv].  This is quite understandable given historical factors[xlvi] and can be expected to be rectified naturally as India’s overall economy and international trade continue to burgeon[xlvii]^,[xlviii]. Optimism on the prospects for economic partnership is reinforced by the fact that business communities[xlix] in both India and the EU seem well-poised to maximize mutual trade.

More than trade 

The EU, from its germination as the European Steel and Coal Community[l] at the Treaty of Paris[li], has had a political agenda, one of “ever closer union” between its members. That political agenda has seen great success.  At once less than a state and more than a state, the EU has emerged as one of the most activist major players in international (extra-European) affairs.

To take just two examples, the EU is officially one of the “Quartet”[lii] that is attempting to arbitrate matters of peace and war in West Asia.  In this grouping, the EU has been accorded de facto political parity with the US and the Russian Federation, two Great Powers, and the United Nations, arguably the most prominent pooled-sovereignty entity in the world today.

Much closer home, the EU has injected itself actively into Jammu & Kashmir affairs, reaching out[liii]^,[liv]  to separatist groups and mainstream political parties alike. As the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy[lv] (CFSP) mechanisms mature and its constitutional[lvi] processes get entrenched, we can expect to see the EU acting more and more like an independent Great Power, potentially overshadowing its constituent powers like Britain, France and Germany.

Some of the elements of this behavior are already falling into place.  The Western European Union[lvii] (WEU) is a pan-EU military organization with command, control and logistics entirely in European hands, independent of NATO[lviii].  The EU is also acquiring something akin to a national military industrial complex.  Besides the European Space Agency[lix], its components include pan-European aerospace and defence giants like Airbus[lx], EADS[lxi] and MBDA[lxii] that have emerged as a result of trans-national consolidation.  The arrangement between France and Germany that allows Germany a say in French nuclear weapons policy[lxiii]^{,[lxiv],[lxv]} adds a strategic dimension to the EU’s ascent to Great Power status.

Of course the extant common currency[lxvi], federated justice systems[lxvii], joint policing[lxviii] and border controls[lxix] form the state-like substrate that allows this rise to occur.   

The EU’s strategic engagement paradigms

Among the sovereign non-member nations that the EU has had relationships with, the ones most worthy of analysis by Indians are its partnerships with the US[lxx], Russia[lxxi], Japan[lxxii] and China[lxxiii].  Its relationships with Brazil, Turkey and a few Eastern European states also hold some interest. For all the public disagreements over trade[lxxiv] and political issues[lxxv], the EU and the US are joined at the hip[lxxvi] by their economic ties, collective security organizations[lxxvii],[lxxviii],[lxxix],[lxxx] and cultural relations.  At the end of the day, both parties respect each others’ political legitimacy whole-heartedly and wish each other well.  If the budding India-EU relationship attains even a fraction of the productivity shown by all facets of the EU-US relationship, Indians will have cause to rejoice.

Russia, the main successor-state to the Soviet Union, enjoys a unique relationship with the EU.  From posing an existential threat[lxxxi] to most West Europeans, Russia has now gone on to emerge as a leading supplier of energy[lxxxii] resources to the EU.  Russia is also a member of the Council of Europe[lxxxiii]^,[lxxxiv].  However, the EU is far from accepting Russia as a member of the EU itself.  Though the EU understands[lxxxv] Russia’s emergence as a democracy, Russia is often at the receiving end of the EU’s activism surrounding human rights issues and Russian policies in Chechnya and elsewhere[lxxxvi]^{,[lxxxvii],[lxxxviii]}. To the possible disappointment of Russia’s Atlanticists[lxxxix], it could be argued that the EU’s interest in Russia is driven merely by expediencies and does not extend to serious political engagement as co-equals. 

The EU’s relationship[xc] with Japan is overwhelmingly dominated by issues of trade and market access.  Japan’s political legitimacy is accepted by the EU and the EU does not seem to see any cause to treat Japan as anything but a moral co-equal.  However, Japan’s considerable political heft in the Pacific Rim does not extend to the Baltic, Mediterranean and Atlantic littorals that so animate European debates.  Neither does Japan have the political vigour, cultural ties and military force projection capabilities that elevate the US onto a higher plane in EU perceptions.

The EU’s relationship[xci] with China mixes economic cooperation with the promotion of rule of law and human rights.  Chinese actions in Tibet, relations with Taiwan and progress towards democracy are all issues that predicate a business-like engagement of Beijing.  However, it must be pointed out that this emphasis on economic ties has been effective.  As of 2002, China ranked as the EU’s fourth largest trading partner[xcii], right after the US, Switzerland and Japan.

EU-Brazil relations are wide-ranging and deep[xciii], under-girded by trade and cultural ties.  The EU is Brazil’s largest source of external trade and these trends are expected to continue as the Brazilian economy and Mercosur[xciv] continue to evolve[xcv].  Prospects for non-trade facets of the EU-Brazil relationship are limited only by Brazil’s strategic and geo-political anchorage in Latin America.

Turkey is an interesting example of the EU’s approach to an appreciably non-European nation, viewed in terms of its demographics, history, culture and religion. Turkey is officially a candidate for accession[xcvi] to the EU, but has spent greater time in the EU’s ante room than later successful applicants like the Visegrad Four[xcvii](Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary).  It is unclear[xcviii]^,[xcix],[c] when Turkey will enter the EU in their wake, if at all.

Architecting the ideal India-EU engagement paradigm 

India is home to more than one-sixth of humanity and the fourth largest economy in the world. The Indian republic’s constitutional[ci] and political[cii] commitment to human rights and democratic freedoms is on par with those[ciii],[civ] of the EU and the US. So it would not be out of place for India and the EU to try and establish a solid multi-faceted relationship that mirrors the EU-US relationship in spirit if not in initial scope and scale.  Unlike Russia, India poses no difficult geo-strategic questions to EU decision-makers.  Neither does it pose the moral dilemmas that China does. India, a nuclear-weapons power, is also oriented towards accumulating more global strategic and military wherewithal than either Japan or Brazil. Finally, unlike Turkey, India will never, ever be in the ante room for EU membership.

The EU represents the collective attempt of former imperial powers to create a fair and just common society, discarding the history of colonial competition, violent wars and the holocaust[cv].  The prospect of a morally co-equal partnership with India, arguably the most successful recently post-colonial state, should appeal to the EU.Building on the solid foundation of trade and economic synergy, India and the EU should operationalise their common commitment[cvi] to a multi-polar world by elevating the India-EU Partnership into a strategic alliance.  This alliance should have a joint secretariat, incorporating suitable elements of the EU delegation in India and the Indian mission in Brussels.  This secretariat should be mandated to formulate and implement a roadmap for “ever closer partnership”, akin to the EU’s own “ever closer union”.  As this alliance matures, appropriate strategic and collective security elements can also be explored. Factors of political structure and institutional culture do not endow India-EU relations with glamourous diplomatic opportunities such as former US President Bill Clinton’s visit[cvii] to India in 2000.  However, a joint bureaucracy is entirely in keeping with the tradition of centralizing bureaucracies[cviii]^,[cix] in Brussels and New Delhi.

India’s choice

India needs to seize the initiative and aggressively make the case for an alliance with the EU that reinforces mutual economic synergy, political legitimacy and strategic alignments.  Without active Indian efforts in this direction, the India-EU relationship may not live up to its full potential for either party.  Worse still, India may find itself becoming an unwitting victim of a maturing EU’s activist assertiveness.

References