Time for India to reshape its narrative for the globe and newer avenues of growth
India has finalized a trade engagement with UAE with the formal agreement likely by this month-end. This will give India better access for its food and dairy products to the Middle East while easing several constraints of movement of Indian professionals and students with eased visa norms. It would also allow India crucial access to the Gulf's rich petroleum resources thereby adding to employment opportunities.
This comes close on the heels of India finalizing a similar trade agreement with Australia, with an interim agreement being preparedfor March 2022.Announced by commerce minister Piyush Goyal and Australian trade minister Dan Tehan, it is likely to cover certain categories of mutually agreed upon goods, services, customs clearances, market access barriers,etc. This is a preview to the final stated target of both countries to signa comprehensive economic cooperation agreement in about two years. The sectors which can harvest benefits include pharmaceuticals, healthcare, mining, education, renewables, gems and jewelry,defence and textiles. It also has the potential of increasing access for Indian students to Australianuniversities and vice versa, thereby also opening up huge avenues of growth down south.
Add to this is the three -ay short visit of external affairsminister Jaishankar to South-East Asia on his return trip from Australia to meet with the top leadership in The Philippines. The echoes of cooperation in bilateral interest areas such as security, coordination in the Indo Pacific belt, cooperation in healthcare, vaccine research,defence and maritime rights found resonance in India's engagementswithThe Philippines too.
The pivot for all these activities lies in findingandstrengthening alliance partners for safe, secure,transparent, rules-based Indo Pacific region.Global forces such as US and Europe are also recalibrating their diplomatic,defence and miliary strengths to find a right balance in the region, threatened by an overtly aggressive China. It may not be missed that in the examples of external bilateral and plurilateralengagements, India is trying to aggressively make deeper inroads into emerging dominant groupings.
After shying away from engaging with QUAD, India has thrown itself into the game deeply with the group on several areasof mutual interest while carefully staying away from being pulled intodefencearrangements (such as AUKUS). Similarly, India has made an early headway into what many have called the western QUAD consisting of a significant bunch of interested parties such as UAE, US and Israel.
This marks a shift in India's foreign, trade and economic policy which is rapidly changing to adjust to the new global order emerging post-Covid. The world has realized that an over dependence on China for mostof the manufacturing needs includingin critical sectorssuch as information communication technology, and pharmaceutical can be disastrous.Secondly, a world economy hammered by the pandemic and waiting to open up to tourism and new opportunities realizes that a diversified bunch of partners dotted across the globe is a better hedge. Third,the winds of change ushered by US pull out from Afghanistan and Russia's showof military strength on Ukraine borders, with a view of redrawing European power structures have left all to look for resilient allies, instead of sticking to old ideological intimate friendships. This is also a timefor India to reshapeits narrativefor the globe and re-engage with the citizens on the newer avenues of growth. It may be difficult to sell a nationalist foreign policy to an electorate, but, however,byshowing some on-groundbenefits such as increased wealth and job opportunities, with an added bonus of chances to work abroad,the domestic constituency can be managed.
(The writer is a policy analyst. The views expressed are personal.)