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India, Indonesia poised to reshape ties, recapture the old magic
Comparison with lost-and-found plot of a Bollywood potboiler may seem purile, but would be apt
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omparison with lost-and-found plot of a Bollywood potboiler may seem purile, but would be apt. India and Indonesia are on a rediscovery course half a century after the pioneers of post-colonial Asia fell out.
In the intervening period, Sukarno, riled with Jawaharlal Nehru, his friend and co-founder of the Non-Aligned Movement, wanted Indian Ocean renamed as Indonesian Ocean.
Cold War rivalry sharpened during Soeharto’s pro-Western military dictatorship. It ensured that there was no meeting of minds that could hark back to a millennium and more.
Only two things remained constant: Ancient cultural ties and funnily, the Indonesians’ craze for Bollywood films.
India missed out three decades (1960-1990) with Southeast Asia as a whole. But with Indonesia, it was almost four, until Soeharto’s exit and Indonesians’ democracy-first resolve.
Last decade’s watching each other, soft diplomacy and hard trade, have brought two nations with obvious affinity, located just 90 nautical miles apart, cautiously closer. Also conscious that there could be much more going between them.
Sixty-one years after Sukarno was chief guest at India’s first Republic Day in 1950, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will be receiving the same honor.
Besides the fact that such repetition is rare among nations selecting their special guests, it is a mutual recognition that two large democracies, multi-racial and multi-religious yet secular, are a mirror image of each other.
On his second visit after 2005, Yudhoyono would like to reiterate ties as a “strategic partner”. There is every reason for India to reciprocate. Scaling up ties with the largest Southeast Asian nation jells well with its “Look East” policy.
A recent debate at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyzes (IDSA), India’s premier think tank, showed that this is potentially a defining moment in bilateral ties; and both seem to acknowledge it.
India’s rising profile and its acknowledgement by the major powers have painted a different scenario.
Within ASEAN, Indonesia notices that India has better dealings with tiny Singapore or Malaysia. It seems poised to deal with a “resurgent” India, whose economy is growing at a pace next only to China.
“Indians hope Indonesia would not stick to its past claim, if it really wants India to counter-balance China.”
A new set of contexts are evolving. Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population and India, the second largest. Watching Indonesians practice a moderate form of Islam that is prevalent in Southeast Asia is a source of strength and relief for India that has on its western frontiers and beyond proponents of hard-line Wahabi school.
Both India and Indonesia are threatened by terrorism. Both need to cooperate and learn from each other. Indonesia’s Ambassador to India, Lt. Gen. (ret.) Andi M. Ghalib says terrorism will be high on the agenda for bilateral talks.
Like Parliament and Mumbai attacks in India, Indonesia too has suffered terror attacks as the October 2002 Bali bombings and the July 2009 incident amply illustrate.
In their respective homes, both have followed their own brands of secularism. Indonesia, despite being overwhelmingly Muslim, is not an Islamic nation.
Various strands of Buddhism have thrived there alongside Hinduism. Indian epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, are inherent part of the Indonesian culture.
At the international level, Indonesia’s growing ties with the United States, as signified in the Comprehensive Partnership Agreement, match with India’s own journey, especially since the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Indo-US nuclear deal.
This places them comfortably in the same broadly pro-western camp, while guarding their respective national and regional interests and erasing cold war era distance.
At the bilateral levels, India and Indonesia are poised to reshaping their ties at the economic and strategic levels. Indonesia is India’s third largest trading partner in ASEAN and bilateral trade is targeted at US$25 billion by 2015.
It rose from just $4 billion in 2005 to $14 billion in 2010. Indeed, the $10 billion target was reached by 2008. A record 34 memorandums of understanding, 17 of the business, will be signed this week.
Indonesia operationalized the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on Oct. 1, 2010 (signed with ASEAN earlier in August 2009).
Despite good trade, the two have not done enough by way of investment. Indorama textiles and Harmony soap are among the few Indonesian brand names present in India. To attract more investment, a 140 member trade delegation is expected.
India could potentially invest in rail and port construction, palm oil and food processing industry in Indonesia. The Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow from Indonesia was in non-conventional energy, construction, information and broadcasting and electrical equipment.
The two share common interests in the WTO. Possibility of cooperation exists in the field of energy, including nuclear energy. A nuclear energy cooperation pact signed in 1980 which lapsed, could be revived.
Indonesia is keen on a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA). India presently has CECA only with Singapore in the region and fine tuning one with Malaysia.
Tourism needs a boost. Indonesia offers visa-on-arrival facility to Indians although India does not reciprocate. There is a marked absence of people-to-people contact.
Cultural ties are taken for granted and need boosting. “You are our forefathers,” Ghalib remarked, emphasizing that all faiths in Indonesia — Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam — came from India.
The Yudhoyono visit has been significantly preceded by that of Indian Navy chief, Adm. Nirmal Verma.
Cooperation between on maritime security and intelligence sharing on anti-piracy operations was discussed.
India cannot but take adequate note of Indonesia that is the largest influential member of ASEAN and is the new ASEAN chair. In addition it is a member of the Group of 20.
A permanent seat on the UN Security Council is a possible point of competition, but that seems far off. For now, Indians hope Indonesia would not stick to its past claim after Delhi’s endorsement by the US, Russia, France and Britain, if it really wants India to counterbalance China.
Suggestions include naming a Delhi road after Sukarno — other NAM founders, Tito, Nasser, Nkrumah and Makarios are already honored. And why not set up Indian Institute of Technology or Indian Institute of Management?
The political challenges facing the two are similar. Besides combating terrorism, Indonesia wants to know about India’s Human Rights Commission, its disaster management and Election Commission.
It remains to be seen how far this joint effort to recapture the old magic, in a vastly different world scenario, would succeed.
The writer is a New Delhi-based writer and columnist. This article appeared in The New Strait Times
on Jan. 24, 2011.
