EXCLUSIVE: India Always Can Be a Friend in Need

• 10.28.2015, 17:11
•  Region,  Asia,  World,  Armenia,  Interview

"Armedia" IAA presents an EXCLUSIVE  interview with H.E. Dr. Suresh Babu, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of India to the Republic of Armenia

-         Your Excellency, please tell, how successful is India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” initiative?

-         It is our PM’s brainchild. It is something different from “Made in India”. In his first address to the nation last year from the Red Fort in Delhi as PM he emphasized the importance of the idea – ‘come and make in India’. His broad vision for coming 5 years is to make India as one of the major manufacturing centres in the world. He is inviting all big investors around the world to come to India which is a big market with more than a billion population with reasonably good purchasing power. The idea is to get as many innovative technologies and to marry with Indian skills, expertise, and to create an innovative manufacturing basis which will also provide the youth of India jobs, opportunity to unfold their skills. PM Modi also called the affluent Indian diaspora to come and invest in their motherland. Almost a year has passed after and it is already giving first results. With this message, PM Modi has travelled to over 20 countries, met world leaders both bilaterally and multilaterally. In one calendar year, he met President Obama thrice, travelled to USA twice and met the top CEOs. He was the first PM to go to Silicon Valley in 30 years, visited Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others Headquarters. He made presentations on another ambitious initiative “Digital India” and invited them to India with outsourcing and other IT business options. He assured them investor friendly environment and bureaucratic procedures and conditions for registration of new startups. 

-         Is there a change in foreign policy during Modi? What are the priorities now?

-         One of the top priorities of the new government is to strengthen relations with our neighbours. One cannot choose neighbours but to master the art of living with neighbours. If the neighborhood is stable, peaceful and secured, the development of the country will be faster and sustainable.  

-         As we say, geography is destiny.

-         India is one of the largest countries with huge population among its neighbours in South Asia. All its immediate neighbours are smaller. First, we must understand concerns of our neighbours and, if requested, try to help them in addressing them and to break their erstwhile misconceptions that India is a “big brother” and etc. India had never been an aggressor and our philosophy doesn’t preach it.  In contrary, it had always defended own frontiers from external invasions. Relations with countries in which huge Indian Diaspora lives is very important to strengthen with. Of course, we need the support of those countries to ensure that Indian diaspora lives safely, works hard and contribute to their economic and other forms of development. There are roughly about 30 mln Indians abroad. Our diaspora is huge in Gulf countries and their foreign exchange remittances come to India. There are large Indian communities in USA, UK, Canada and others. Our leadership’s focus is to further strengthen our relations with these countries.

   African Continent is one of our oldest friends and partners. As a recognized leader of the developing world, we have been closely supporting all countries in this resource rich continent since our freedom. India is hosting the third India-Africa Summit in New Delhi this month. This event itself says everything about our cooperation with Africa.

     In the former Soviet Union space, Russia is our strategic partner with over 60 years of close cooperation in large number of sectors particularly in defense and other   strategic sectors such as nuclear, S&T, space and etc. Then comes Central Asia which is our contiguous neighbourhood with centuries old historic and cultural commonality. PM Modi undertook visit to all 5 countries very recently. And of course China is our large neighbour. We do have certain territorial disputes which were being addressed at various senior levels on regular basis. But, these differences are hindering our interaction. Today, our bilateral trade is over US$ 60 bln dollars. We cooperate in many sectors including IT. The Chinese companies have positively responded to PM Modi’s call to come and make in India. Some of Chinese companies have invested in India in the last one year. For example, one of the companies has already started producing smart-phones in my state.

-         What about relations with Pakistan under Modi?

-         Our government led by Mr. Modi is very keen to improve relationship with Pakistan in the broader context of building relations with neighbours. Pakistan is not an exception. Of course, we have problems, we have border issues, we have territorial claims, water sharing problems but we intend to discuss all these issues as a responsible neighbor. We understand each other very well as the spoken language is almost the same, we have almost the same cuisine, some similar traditions and appearance even. There is a significant number of Pakistanis who loves India and their relatives live in each other’s countries.

-         And they love Indian movies…

-         Yes, they love Indian movies and our film stars. They love to visit India. But the peace process is greatly hindered with constant provocation from across the border, infiltration of terrorists which is not at all acceptable to us. I cannot talk to you freely when you simultaneously promote terror in my country and even finance it. But as our PM says, we have the desire and there is a need to build relations with all our neighbours and Pakistan is not an exception.  

-         What is the foreign policy of India in the Caucasian region?

-         Caucasian region is geographically located distantly from Indian shores hence attracts relatively little attention in our country. However, we are conscious that the region is important for us due to its strategic location, cultural affinity and connectivity. Given certain internal controversies and difficult relationships, peace and stability may be affected. Iran though not a Caucasian country but is Armenia’s southern neighbor and our contiguous neighbor too with which we have centuries-old historical and cultural ties. Our relations are very good. We do business together; Iran is rich with natural resources. When it comes to transport connectivity with Russia and further North, it has an important role to play in implementing the North-South Transport Corridor Project (INSTC) with which India is directly linked. We are partners with Iran and Russia in this project initially and many other countries including Armenia have joined later. In last 2-3 years, we have actively revived this project. Very recently, INSTC coordination council and expert-level meetings were held in Delhi. Turkey is also an important power given its size, population, economy, its location and its role in the region. There are frequent exchanges at various levels.

Armenia may be the most ancient country in the region and is close friend of India. Regrettably, there is no significant Indian investment. But if our Armenian friends offer us some viable investment proposals, we’ll consider them. We used to have some Indian companies here, e.g. gold mining but they have closed down. We are aware of Armenia’s traditional expertise in cutting and polishing diamonds. We have some Indian companies still working here in the jewelry sector. With Georgia we also have good relations. We have so far invested approximately US$ 400mln in the Georgian economy mostly in hydropower, steel, agriculture farming and trade and services. Azerbaijan offers us hydrocarbons; Indian State Company (ONGC-OVL) owns some shares in the Caspian oil fields.

Culture is a strong tool to promote relations between our two countries. It is devoid of politics. India and Armenia enjoy a lot of commonalities of culture, e.g. family traditions, marriage rituals, safeguarding younger generations, respect to elders and care for old. Our languages – Armenian and Hindi (Sanskrit) belong to the same Indo-European family of languages. India has no agenda, no prescriptions in this region, no political and geopolitical ambitions here. India always can be a dependable friend, a friend in need…