India France relationship
India France relationship
first ever Strategic Partnership agreement
In 1998, India put France in what should have been a tough spot.
Just a few months after French President Jacques Chirac had been the chief guest at the Republic Day Parade in Delhi, and Prime Minister I.K. Gujral signed India’s first ever Strategic Partnership agreement with him,
newly elected Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced that nuclear tests had been conducted in Pokhran (Pokhran-II), in May.
भारत की आलोचना करना
In the United Nations (UN) Security Council, French diplomats joined the P-5 countries in condemning the tests,
but did not join (along with the United Kingdom and Russia) the United States-led move to impose sanctions on India.
Nor did France scrap the Strategic Partnership Agreement.
The philosophy behind the relationship
Parade invitation
New Delhi and Paris have built a tradition of joining each other’s national day parades —
Chirac himself was guest at India’s Republic Day
- twice (his first appearance was in 1976),
- Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (1980),
- Nicolas Sarkozy (2008)
- and François Hollande (2016) have been guests since,
- Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (2009)
- and now Prime Minister Narendra Modi were invited to the Bastille Day parade.
While the purchase of defence equipment
It means India and France ties are going forward.
Both countries have held on to three pillars in the relationship:
- non-interference in each other’s internal affairs,
- a steadfast belief in strategic autonomy as expressed by President Charles De Gaulle,
- and non-alignment, as expressed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru,
- and a refusal to pull the other into its own coalitions and alliances.
इंदिरा गांधी की इमरजेंसी
The awkwardness in 1998, after all, would have been nothing in comparison to Chirac’s visit to India in 1976.
Not six months before that, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had declared the Emergency, and suspended freedoms in a move that was criticised across the world.
But Chirac, who was the Prime Minister of France, saw no reason to cancel his visit.
Paris Conference on International Economic Cooperation
In December 1975, France had hosted the “Paris Conference on International Economic Cooperation”,
that looked at the impact of the global energy crisis on developing countries that rose from U.S.-Arab tensions over the Yom Kippur war.
India was one of a few invitees to the preparatory committee of the conference.
Space, nuclear energy and defence were, even then, the cornerstones of the relationship.
भारत के परमाणु कार्यक्रम
In 2006, Chirac returned to Delhi, to lay the stage for the civil nuclear deal.
When India won its waiver at the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2008, it was France (it had done much of the heavy lifting for the waiver), and not the U.S., that India signed its first civil nuclear deal with.
Mr. Modi’s visit to Paris last week saw many of the same shades of the partnership:
1 We saw violent protests across France
last month over the mistreatment of immigrant communities, Mr. Modi had not hesitated even once in planning his visit.
2 Neither did France bring up the European Parliament’s
- criticism of India over the violence in Manipur,
- or allegations of human rights violations,
- intolerance towards minorities and
- curbing civil society freedoms —
The Ukraine war
1 non-interference and non-alliances
On a major geopolitical stage, this combination of non-interference and non-alliances
plays into France’s approach towards the Narendra Modi government’s position on the war in Ukraine.
unhindered निर्बाध humanitarian aid
In March 2022, a month into this war, France co-authored a UN Security Council resolution with Mexico that sought to ensure unhindered निर्बाध humanitarian aid be allowed inside the conflict zone.
Two rounds of negotiations followed, with hopes in particular of winning over countries such as India, given the humanitarian issue.
India abstained there
The resolution was eventually brought to the UN General Assembly when that effort failed,
but no word of disappointment was expressed by Paris when India abstained there.
फ्रांस का क्या सोचना है
1 रूस के प्रति
he made to Russian President Vladimir Putin and a visit to Moscow in an attempt to talk Mr. Putin out of the war.
2 ब्रिक्स देशों के प्रति
More recently, Mr. Macron suggested he would travel to South Africa for the BRICS summit in August, if invited, to make his case there.
3 चीन की यात्रा भी
Delhi did not have differences with France over Mr. Macron’s visit to China in April this year, including his statement that Europe cannot be a “vassal जागीरदार state” to the U.S. on its China policy.
Strategic partnerships
(NATO)-plus partnership plans
France disapproves of a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)-plus partnership plans
that would see the Trans-Atlantic alliance build direct ties with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and even India.
New Delhi had already rejected the plan — External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has said that NATO “is not a template that applies to India”.
The India-France Roadmap on the Indo-Pacific
released last week further clarifies that neither side is attempting to pull the other into its other regional military coalitions.
France was cool to plans for “Quad-Plus” coalitions, first floated in 2020, which were more or less dropped after the U.S.-France rift over the AUKUS agreement (the U.S, the U.K. and Australia).
Indian Navy has conducted joint patrols
France is also the only country the Indian Navy has conducted joint patrols with so far,
and future plans could involve the use of French international territories in Reunion, New Caledonia and French Polynesia, and even India’s Andaman Islands, for port calls and reconnaissance by both navies on a bilateral basis.
While India’s ties with each of the P-5 countries is unique, the feature that sets apart the India-France relationship is this — geopolitics sans value judgements, and no pressure to align their positions.
Comments
Post a Comment