It’s a journey where diplomacy and business will intersect with history and culture, blending magic and realism. Latin America, described by strategy wonks as the last frontier for India’s diplomacy, is now firmly on New Delhi’s radar screen as India’s Vice President Hamid Ansari heads to Peru, one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, and Cuba, the oil-rich Communist country and a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement, this week.
In Peru, the vice-president’s visit (October 26-28) will coincide with the golden jubilee of the establishment of diplomatic relations between New Delhi and Lima. This is the first state visit from India to Peru after a hiatus of 15 years – the last state visit was by former president K.R. Narayanan in 1998.
The trip to Havana has a special resonance as this will be the first-ever high profile visit from India to Cuba, a Caribbean island state, where the romance of the revolution still liveth on even as the oil-rich country negotiates hard realities of the ideology-disabused market-driven world.
Peru: Blending culture, business and diplomacy
In Peru, Ansari, a former diplomat and an erudite scholar, will spend three days which will have an eclectic spread: on the night he touches down in Lima, he will open a mini festival of India showcasing the classical dances of India as well as the exuberance of Bollywood music. The trip includes a visit to the stunningly picturesque Pachacamac, home of the most powerful Incan oracle, followed by wide-ranging talks with Vice-President Marsiol Espinoza and Foreign Minister Eda Rivas October 28. He will call on President Ollanta Humala, who has voiced his keenness to deepen relations with India. Ansari will also meet president of the Congress Freddy Otarola and members of the Peru-India Parliamentary Friendship League. The vice-President’s visit to Peru should be seen as the beginning of a new process, (of engaging with the region), says Dinkar Khullar, secretary (west) in India’s external affairs ministry.
As the business of diplomacy increasingly becomes business, the two sides will be looking to scale up trade and investment. Vice-President Ansari will launch INCHAM (India-Peru Chamber of Commerce) in Lima October 28. Peru, the sixth largest economy in Latin America and a member of the Pacific Alliance, boasts the fastest growth rate amongst the Latin American countries. Being mineral rich and endowed with impressive reserves of hydrocarbons, India will be looking to engage in serious energy diplomacy. Currently, the India-Peru bilateral trade is around US$ 1.1 billion, marginally in New Delhi’s favour. Besides business, capacity building will be an important thrust area for India.
Besides, there is a sense of deep cultural and civilizational connection that bind the two countries. Earlier this year, Peru had issued a special commemorative stamp featuring the lost city of Machu Pichhu, one of the World Heritage Sites, and the iconic Taj Mahal.
Energising ties with Cuba
The visit to Cuba (Oct 29-30) will telescope the efforts of the two founder members of the NAM to modernise their relations in tune with the realities of the 21st century. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Havana for the NAM summit in 2006, but the visit by Ansari will be the first state visit from the Indian side to the Caribbean country. The trip is set to resurrect memories of Indo-Cuban camaraderie – the much-publicised meeting between Jawaharlal Nehru and Commandante Fidel Castro in New York and the famous Castro hug to Mrs Indira Gandhi while handing over the chairmanship of the NAM at the New Delhi summit in 1983.
In Havana, Ansari will call on President Raul Castro and the 87-year-old living legend, Commandante Fidel Castro. The vice-president will have wide-ranging talks with Cuba’s First Vice-President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez that will seek to deepen economic, energy and strategic content of bilateral ties. The visit has acquired an added traction as Cuba is holding the presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), an influential group of 33 countries in the region.
Bilateral trade is almost insignificant at just $40 million, largely on account of logistical difficulties arising out of the US sanctions on Cuba, but that does not give an accurate picture of the economic engagement between India and Cuba. India wrote off US$ 62 million debt in 2008 and extended a line of credit of US$ 120 million to Cuba, of which at present US$ 12.7 million has been utilised for three projects, including a milk powder plant, a chemical bulk blending plant, and modernisation of an animal vaccine plant.
India is looking to leverage Cuban expertise in the kindred areas of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Fittingly, the vice-president’s itinerary will include a visit to a biotechnology centre in Havana.
Energy is another important focus area. India’s oil and gas major OVL has been granted eight offshore oil blocks in Cuba and has already invested US$ 130 million in the project.
Bonding with Latin America
The vice-president’s trip to Peru and Cuba seeks to underline India’s renewed push to expand its diplomatic footprints in the continent which is emerging as a new growth pole in the world. The trip also seeks to address diplomatic deficit in the ties between India and the Latin American and Caribbean region. Thousands of miles apart, but kindred in spirit, this neglect is now finally getting remedied. A host of economic, energy and strategic imperatives is driving this renewed engagement. This year has seen a marked upswing in two-way interactions. India’s External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid visited Chile and Argentina earlier this year. Last week, he travelled again to Brazil to chair the meeting of the heads of missions of Latin American and Caribbean region. The minister is candid about the need for more focused hard work to galvanise India’s diplomatic and economic ties with the region. “Latin America is something we need to work on. We just have not had enough bilateral visits. They have made more visits than we have and we need to reciprocate that,” he said.
Building upon its cumulative expansion of trade with the region which has now reached $25 billion and investments touching $15 billion, India hosted host its maiden dialogue with a troika of foreign ministers of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in July last year. There are plans to institute an India-Latin America and Caribbean Dialogue Mechanism similar to that of the India-Africa Forum Summit that started in 2008.
The resurgent region boasts a combined GDP of $4.9 trillion and is home to 600 million inhabitants, nearly half the population of India but with a landmass five times that of India. The region has also shaken off its reputation as a home of brutal dictatorships with most Latin American countries turning into functional democracies.
Besides the imperatives of energy and food security and the attractions of the Latin American market, the deepening foray of China in the region should serve as a wake-up call for Indian diplomacy. India’s trade with Latin America has grown to $25 billion, not an insignificant amount, but it’s still nearly 10 times smaller than that of China with the region, which is estimated at around $235 billion. It’s true that India and China follow different models of engagement, and the Indian model has its attractions, but it’s time to raise the bar by crafting new initiatives that could revitalise India’s engagement with Latin America on a new footing. The vice-presidential trip should be followed by multi-pronged interactions not just between governments, but through a well-structured dialogue among civil societies, academics, intellectuals and young people of India and the Latin America and Caribbean region.
(Manish Chand is Editor-in-Chief of India Writes, www.indiawrites.org, an online magazine and journal focused on international affairs, the India Story and dialogue among cultures).
Author Profile
- Manish Chand is Founder-CEO and Editor-in-Chief of India Writes Network (www.indiawrites.org) and India and World, a pioneering magazine focused on international affairs. He is CEO/Director of TGII Media Private Limited, an India-based media, publishing, research and consultancy company.
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