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Why India needs Australia as its “mate” in Asia?
I have just returned to Delhi after spending two months in Australia. Everywhere that I
traveled in the “lucky” country, I felt how lucky my country, India, was to have the high level
of attention from Australia that it had. I met people from their Prime Minister’s Office, from
eight India experts their foreign and trade ministry, from their finance ministry, and from
their Attorney General’s office—and this was in their federal capital. In the state of Victoria,
two hundred of the staff of their Premier’s office listened to a presentation on India; six staff
for India at their Department of Business and Innovation grilled me about India; the city of
Melbourne wanted to know more. So many governments in so “small” a country wanting to
know so much about India from one person was overwhelming.
This was backed by interest from business. Leading consulting companies wanted to figure
out how to expand their “India” strategy. A meeting to discuss India’s economy after its
March budget attracted 48 people—at 7.30 am! Academics were another group who could
not know enough about India.
Unfortunately, Australia’s attention to India is not matched by India’s attention to Australia.
As everyone pointed out, the last Indian Prime Minister to visit Australia was 25 years ago;
no Indian chief minister has visited Australia recently—whereas so many have been to Israel.
India’s external affairs ministry lumps Australia with 24 other countries in its “Southern”
Division, with two senior officers to deal with all 25 nations.
There is some history to this—Australia’s almost-expulsion of Indian military staff on
training after the 1998 nuclear tests; the refusal to sell uranium to India, but willingness to
sell to China; the racial attacks on students in Melbourne—all this remains in the long
institutional memories of Indians MEA and military mandarins. But, that is now some years
in the past, and Australia has certainly made “amends”.
My article though is not about what more Australia can do with India’s government or
business. Nor is it about how India’s industrialization needs more Australian minerals or
how more Indian students can study down under. It asks a more fundamental question:
who can be India’s best friend in dealing with a turbulent Asia? Who shares India’s values
most? In common Hindi, the word “yaar” refers to your buddy, or to your friend. In Oz-
speak, it is synonymous with “mate”. My answer is Australia.

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Let us look at this from India’s Asia perspective. For a long time, India has devoted all its
strategic resources either towards dealing with Pakistan or with the West. Our best
bureaucrats have been stationed in Washington or Islamabad. Our Prime Ministers’ visits
are often to the US or to Russia or Europe.
Now, like everyone else in the world, our gaze is being drawn towards the other countries in
our own continent. China’s huge economic pull and its strategic threat (India was invaded
by China exactly fifty years ago—the only country apart from South Korea to suffer an actual
Chinese invasion). The ASEAN nations are coming closer together economically and
diplomatically. Japan is picking itself up after its long bust. South Korea is a huge business
partner of India. The ever-playing Great Game around India’s neighborhood continues. The
Gulf nations may or may not be more democratic but India can’t do without their oil
reserves. Iran may or may not cause the third Gulf War. Central Asia should loom large on
our radars, but does not.
Into this huge, complex, and changing continent, the United States is re-establishing its
presence. Russia too in the far north will soon realize that it is also an Asian power. The pull
of peoples and profits are drawing the region closer; at the same time the push of
nationalism—cultural, economic, and military is reshaping alliances and redrawing priorities.
The pace of change in Asia is faster than elsewhere. Europe’s economies are turbulent, but
across the continent, there is peace. Africa is still not important enough. Latin America,
which should be important is too far away. So, India needs to be more astute about how it
tackles Asia. Who can be its true partner in all this? I list a few possibilities.
For all of our civilization ties with Thailand, it is unlikely to be this kingdom, which has its
own problems and does not have a pan-Asia presence that we can partner with. Singapore
is too small. Vietnam can be a good counter for China, but it cannot be more than that.
South Korea will not take India seriously, when it has to first deal with North Korea, then
China, then the United States, and then Japan. Indonesia has the size, but may not have the
capacity and unfortunately, India has invested anything in its strategic relationship with
Indonesia. Aging Japan and India have a strong economic relationship, but we are culturally
too different for our diplomats and militaries, not to mention peoples and businesses to
work together—and again Japan has China as its number one priority.

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No country west of India can be our partner. Dubai and other Emirates have the people and
business ties with India but they are not so Asia focused as India needs to be—
understandable, when they are equidistant from the West and the East. Saudi Arabia is big,
but unfortunately, it would rather be big in Pakistan and its region, and of course, it doesn’t
have the ability to punch above its weight.
Obviously, Uncle Sam, which has the whole globe to run cannot be India’s “exclusive”
partner in Asia. We share interests and we share common values, but the USA has to
balance many things in Asia, and India can only be a junior player for them.
Does Australia have it in itself to be India’s partner for jointly increasing our diplomatic,
military, cultural, and economic engagement with other Asian countries? Let us see.
Australia has a far bigger understanding of China than we do. China buys five times
Australia’s mineral and agricultural output than does India, so presumably Australia’s
businesses have far more knowledge about China than do India’s businesses. Australia
exports of education services to China are double its exports to India—so its academics
have a greater interest in China than in India. Australia’s leading foreign policy think-tank,
the Lowy Institute, has a director of East Asia studies (and not one on South Asia).
Australia has had an institutional relationship with Indonesia for close to forty years. Barring
the odd hiccup about East Timor, Australia’s police forces, diplomats, and even the armed
forces have more detailed individual and institutional ties with Indonesia than any other
country India knows. Not to mention that almost every Australian has holidayed in Bali.
Having first fought in Vietnam, and then accepted its “boat people” as citizens, Australia is
far more familiar with Vietnam’s politics and culture than India is. The Philippines is
Australia’s closest English-speaking country and there is a shared history of dealing with the
US military. Australia’s economic and financial ties with Singapore are as strong as India’s
ties with that island nation. I do not know about how much better is Australia’s
understanding of Japan and Korea than is India’s, but it can’t be less than ours.
This covers Australia’s capabilities, but a “yaar” or a “mate” is not made by mechanically
matching capacities and interests—you also have to have a strong sense of shared values.
Cricket, curry (Indian food and the Indian diaspora), and the Commonwealth are the three
common values that are repeatedly made in Australia about India. But I think that there are
far more common values that our two nations have. And, these values are those that only
India and Australia share with each other across all possible pairings in Asia.

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The first value is of liberalism. Our two countries are liberal in their beliefs, in their thoughts,
and often in their actions (Rushdie and Assange aside!). Our constitutions are liberal and so
are our encouragements to freedom of speech.
Secularism is another great value that we are two shining examples. Indonesia or Thailand
are not secular. To be honest, I believe that Japan is also not a secular country because of
its state-sponsored Shintoism and because they have not had to deal with the challenge of
accommodating Islam in their streets and workplaces as Australia has done.
Democracy is of course a big value. But, what makes our two democracies special is that
we’re also strong federal democracies. States in our two countries are important players in
the political, administrative, and constitutional scheme of things. China is not likely to be a
democracy for at least a generation. Neither is Thailand. South Korea and Japan are
democracies. And, so now is Taiwan. But all three of them do not have the same level of
competitive federalism that can make any Indian or Australian instantly feel comfortable in
each other’s political milieu.
Then there is the value and shared history of doing good elsewhere. Both India and
Australia have long and proud histories of contributing to UN peacekeeping missions in far-
off lands. Australia has also intervened in nearby countries—Papua New Guinea or East
Timor to restore order. And so has India in the Maldives and in Sri Lanka. We have also
worked together in Cambodia.
Finally, the most important point that should make Australia India’s natural partner in Asia is
the virtue of non-covetousness. There is nothing that India wants from Australia, or
Australia wants from India—except the triumph of our respective cricketing teams! With
China, there’s always the fear of what China wants from Australia or from India. Even with
the United States, India might worry how long will America’s engagement with Asia last,
before its attention is diverted elsewhere.
For all these reasons, India and Australia are natural partners for working together in Asia.
Also, our putative pairing will not be seen as threatening by any other country. Australia
doesn’t want to colonize Indonesia; nor does India want to subdue Myanmar. Even China
will be less suspicious of our motives than it would be of the United States.

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Australia is re-orienting its governments, businesses, academia, and peoples to deal better
with Asia. The white paper that it is currently being written on Australia in the Asian centur
reinforces Australia’s commitment to Asia.
India should use this occasion to rethink its own plans for Asia. It should realize that for
many important countries such as Indonesia and China, Australia’s understanding is far
more than India’s. Likewise, India’s understanding of Iran or even the Middle East maybe
more than Australia’s and thus of value to Canberra. Even in Pakistan and Afghanistan,
Australia has its own stature—independent of the United States that India should lean on.
Not to mention working together in Vietnam or in the Philippines or in Myanmar or even in
Mongolia, which again is seeing a mineral boom that we should jointly tap—if only to give
Mongolia an alternate buyer to China.
We can do this conversing comfortably in English sipping beer and eating spicy chicken
curry while admiring the latest Nicole Kidman movie and complaining about our respective
politicians!
Harsh Shrivastava
Harsh has recently completed a two-month fellowship at the Australia-India Institute. He is
a consultant at India’s Planning Commission, but these are his personal views.