Not India’s natural ally

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar addressed the Australia India Leadership Dialogue on September 6. He spoke warmly about the current nature of the India-Australia relationship which has now reached the status of a comprehensive strategic partnership. There is no doubt that bilateral ties have made great strides in recent years. They stretch from enhanced intensity in trade and investments to cooperation in emerging technologies to greater political and strategic understanding. In this context, Jaishankar correctly noted ‘in the realm of politics and strategy that the transformation has been the sharpest’ because of a ‘growing convergence’ driven by ‘concerns about the region’s stability, prosperity and security’. All this diplomatese — and the erudite Jaishankar, as a former diplomat, can hardly avoid occasionally lapsing into the vocabulary of his erstwhile profession —means a shared concern that flows from the aggressive rise of China.

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Exaggerated notions of friendship must be avoided as these demonstrate the ‘slavish mentality’ which PM Modi has asked the people to abandon.

Towards the conclusion of his address, Jaishankar said: ‘India and Australia share a deep friendship, and this year it has been very much on display.’ In using this formulation for which politicians — Jaishankar now plays a leading political role as a member of the Cabinet Committee on Security — have a special fondness, the obvious desire was to create a good buzz about the ties. His target audience was perhaps the over seven lakh people of Indian origin and NRIs who live in Australia. The relevant question is, how accurate is it to state that India and Australia ‘share a deep friendship’, even though they currently have a mutuality of interests because of Chinese policies in the Indo-Pacific region.

Traditionally, Australia considered itself as an outpost of the Anglo-Saxon world in the South Pacific. The British Empire treated it so, too, despite its beginning as a penal colony; hence, to the chagrin of many Australians, the humiliating term ‘of convict descent’ was used by some snobbish British upper-class members to denigrate Australians. But all that was largely in the 19th century. In the early part of the 20th century, Australia was made a self-governing dominion of the British Empire on a par with Canada and New Zealand. Through this period, Australia did not show any sympathy for India or its aspirations for freedom.

After World War II, Australia became a firm member of the US-led Western Alliance. It shared all the prejudices of other western countries against India’s desire to keep away from the two competing camps during the Cold War through the pursuit of non-alignment. In fact, as a leading South Pacific state, it also showed no sympathy for the quest for equal treatment of people of Indian descent in Fiji. Later, it developed close economic ties with China, as did other western countries. Some Australian leaders may have paid lip service to India’s democracy but there was really nothing beyond that.

What was most offensive was the Australian response to India’s nuclear tests in 1998. Along with other western countries, it criticised India but went much further. Its uncouth conduct towards Indian military officers attending some courses there was unforgiveable. It also demonstrated no understanding of India’s security concerns on account of China. Later, it changed its laws to permit uranium sales to India for its civil nuclear programme.

Foreign policy is a product of interests and if Indian and Australian interests coincide now, it is fine to develop close ties. In doing so, though, neither history nor instincts of the Anglo-Saxon world should be overlooked. These instincts are best demonstrated by the development of the Australia-British-US decision to develop nuclear submarines in Australia. For all the emphasis on Quad, once again, the Anglo-Saxons have shown that on matters of their fundamental security, they only rely on themselves.

Hence, exaggerated notions of ‘friendship’ should be avoided. This is also because these claims can lead to demonstrations of precisely the ‘slavish mentality’ which PM Modi has rightly asked the people to abandon. This would naturally apply more so to his leading Cabinet ministers.

While expanding on the attributes of Indo-Australian ‘friendship’, Jaishankar said: ‘Partnership during difficult times is not new for India and Australia. We fought together on the same side during the WWI campaign at Gallipoli.’ The Gallipoli naval and land campaign in 1915-16 by the Allied forces aimed at capturing ground around the Dardanelles Straits so that the water passages from the Aegean Sea to the Black Sea could be denied to the then Ottoman empire that had joined the war on the side of Germany. While historians continue to discuss its merits, it is believed to have been a military and political disaster for the Allies.

The Gallipoli operation forms a large part of the consciousness of the people of Australia and New Zealand, for this was the first major military engagement in which their peoples participated. As many as 8,709 Australians and 2,721 New Zealanders lost their lives. The anniversary of the day the Australian and New Zealand soldiers landed in Gallipoli is marked as ANZAC day and is a time of remembrance. Thousands of Australians visit Gallipoli annually.

As many as 1,358 soldiers of the British Indian army died in Gallipoli. Can the soldiers of a British colony fighting an imperial war be considered as ‘partners’ of soldiers of a self-governing dominion of the Empire? Were British Indian soldiers considered on a par with those of Australia? This artificial equivalence sought to be created by Jaishankar reveals confused thinking, at best, but more realistically it shows, no doubt inadvertently, ‘slavish mentality’.

Today, the brave and professional defence forces of the Indian Republic take part in military exercises with many countries on an equal footing. This can be called partnership. In Gallipoli, there was no such equivalence. Jaishankar should surely know this.