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Look East, but that does not mean you don’t look west.” India’s diplomacy is looking to engage with all corners of the world with the country’s growing standing and capabilities, the country’s Vice-President Hamid Ansari said on his way to Peru and Cuba, a transformational trip that seeks to upscale India’s ties with the resurgent Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region.
Telescoping India’s growing global standing and multi-pronged diplomacy to advance the country’s multi-faceted economic and energy interests, Ansari, a former diplomat and author, headed October 25 on a voyage to two key players in the LAC region, just a day after India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh returned from a trip to China and Russia.
In a frank and free-wheeling interaction with the media accompanying him on a three-nation tour that also includes a stop in London, Ansari encapsulated the shifting contours of India’s foreign policy priorities over the years. “As a major country and as a major economy, we will look at all corners of the world and we are very clear why we are looking at all corners of the world, whether it is the west coast of Canada or the west coast of South America,” he said mid-air aboard the special Air India flight.
Underlining the significance of his trip to Latin America, often described as the last frontier for India’s diplomacy, Ansari said: “The world is contracting, and there is no such thing as a far-off country. Every country has the potential to be your partner. Peru is increasingly a major factor in the global economy and an important source of minerals which we are looking at very closely.” Underscoring flexibility and pragmatism in India’s foreign policy projection, Ansari said: “Our thrust in diplomacy was always comprehensive. It was political, it was economic. The question was our requirements and our capabilities.” “Our requirements kept changing. In the 1970s, in the 1980s, we had different needs. Our capabilities have increased now, so our engagements have increased.”
“What takes precedence depends on the situational adjustment at that particular point of time,” he added.
Why Latin America Matters
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n response to a question from India Writes (www.indiawrites.org), Ansari outlined India’s imperatives, what he called “a comprehensive basket of considerations,” in stepping up engagement with the Latin American region, the emerging growth pole in the world with a combined GDP of $4.9 trillion.
“The reasons of engagements are multiple; there is not one reason for engagement. These are big countries; some of them are huge economies. I mean we think South America is a small place, but if you just look at the size and distances, one of the biggest countries in the world is Brazil – look at the map, just see the size of Brazil, the resources of Brazil; the same holds for Argentina.”
“On the west coast, Chile is a major source of minerals of various kinds; Peru again, same; Venezuela – a major oil-producing country. So in each one of these countries there is political engagement because they are important members of the international community, there is economic engagement. With many of them there is engagement in either BRICS or Non Aligned Movement.”
When asked about India’s focus on its Look East policy, Ansari explained that “Look East does not mean that you don’t look West; you don’t look North, you don’t look South. ‘Look East’ was a specific instrument grafted to take advantage of a situation which was emerging in South East Asia, where we had very old ancient relationships but the idea was to give it new content.”
‘Castro was star of NAM’
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nsari also spoke fondly about Cuba, the oil-rich Caribbean country he will be visiting Oct 29-30 — the first ever high-level bilateral visit to Havana from the Indian side. Cuba, Ansari stressed, has had long years of association with India “on the Non-Aligned front, on the third world agenda front and in numerable political matters.” “Cuba is a particularly friendly country and we have had very warm and very cordial relations with Cuba. It’s also in many ways unique, in the sense that it has sailed its craft in adverse weather for a very very long time, but it speaks volume for their skills that they have not only survived, they have done well.”
Ansari spoke affectionately about the legendary Fidel Castro’s visit to New Delhi in 1983. “Fidel Castro was the star at the Non Aligned Movement summit in 1983. When he came to New Delhi, we had specific instructions from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that whatever he wanted should be given to him, whatever his requirements may be, they all have to be looked at very carefully and considerately,” recalled the vice president, who then served as India’s chief of protocol. “He was a personality in his own right, remains a personality in his now right.”
Ansari will meet the 87-year-old ailing Castro in Havana October 30. The vice-president’s visit to Havana has an added traction as Cuba is holding the presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), an influential grouping of 33 countries in the 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. He is part of the media delegation accompanying India’s Vice-President Hamid Ansari on his trip to Peru, Cuba and the UK.)
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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