In 1998, India put France in what should have been a difficult position. Just months after French President Jacques Chirac was the chief guest at the Republic Day parade in Delhi and Prime Minister IK Gujral signed India’s first strategic partnership agreement with him, newly elected Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced that nuclear tests went. Held at Pokhran (Pokhran-II) in May. At 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 cancel the Strategic Partnership Agreement.
philosophy behind the relationship
During their relationship, New Delhi and Paris have made a tradition of attending each other’s National Day parades – Chirac himself was twice a guest on India’s Republic Day (his first appearance was in 1976), Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (1980), Nicolas Sarkozy (2008) and François Hollande (2016) have been guests since then, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (2009) and now Prime Minister Narendra Modi were invited to the Bastille Day parade. While the purchase of defense equipment often overshadows the outcome of any of these major visits, it is the underlying philosophy of their engagement that drives India-France relations. The two countries have upheld three pillars in the relationship: non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, a strong belief in strategic autonomy, as expressed by President Charles de Gaulle, and non-alignment, as expressed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. had expressed, and refused to draw each other into their alliances and alliances.
After all, the strange situation of 1998 pales in comparison to Chirac’s visit to India in 1976. Six months before that, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency, and suspended freedoms in a move that was criticized around the world. But Chirac, then Prime Minister of France, saw no reason to cancel his trip. In December 1975, France hosted the “Paris Conference on International Economic Cooperation”, which looked at the impact of the global energy crisis on developing countries sparked by US-Arab tensions over the Yom Kippur War. India was one of the few invited members of the Preparatory Committee of the conference. When Chirac was in Delhi in January, he lauded India’s role in bringing together disparate global positions. Space, nuclear energy and defence, even then, were cornerstones of the relationship. In 2006, Chirac returned to Delhi to set the stage for a civilian nuclear deal. When India secured its waiver in the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2008, it was France (which had lobbied much for the waiver), and not the US, with whom India signed its first civil nuclear deal.
Writing about his decisions in his memoirs, Chirac, who acknowledged a “youthful love and passion” for India and a teenaged attempt to learn Sanskrit, said that for him the strategic partnership was “a way of establishing India’s primary role”. The instrument was, reasoned, “to play upon its history, democratic choices, attachment to secularism, the coexistence of different peoples, languages and cultures with the aim of creating a more equally balanced world” (Chirac , Jacques, My Life in Politics, p. 212).
Mr Modi’s visit to Paris last week found many similar shades of partnership: India’s Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra pointed out that despite the dramatic scenes of violent protests across France last month over the treatment of migrant communities, Mr Modi didn’t hesitate. Even once while planning your trip. Neither France criticizes India in European Parliament over violence in Manipur, nor raises allegations of human rights violations, intolerance towards minorities and curtailment of civil society freedoms – mentions adopted by Member of European Parliament in plenary session was done in the proposed Session in Strasbourg during 10-13 July, and the day Mr. Modi arrived in France.
ukraine war
On a major geopolitical stage, this combination of non-intervention and non-alignment plays into France’s approach to the Narendra Modi government’s position on the war in Ukraine. In March 2022, a month after the war, France co-authored a UN Security Council resolution with Mexico, seeking to ensure that uninterrupted humanitarian aid was allowed inside the conflict zone. Looking at the humanitarian issue, especially with the hope of winning over countries like India, two rounds of talks took place. When that effort failed, the resolution was finally brought to the UN General Assembly, but there was not a word of dismay from Paris when India was not present there. During the war, President Emmanuel Macron’s own stance has been more conciliatory than other Western countries – he has even made seven to eight extended calls to Russian President Vladimir Putin and a trip to Moscow in an attempt to talk to Mr Putin. Took the risk of ridicule. out of battle.
More recently, Mr. Macron suggested that if invited he would travel to South Africa for the BRICS summit in August to present his case there. Understanding and sharing the complexity with which they view the world, New Delhi had no differences with France over Mr Macron’s visit to China in April this year, which included his statement that Europe is for America ” There cannot be a “vassal state”. its China policy.
strategic partnership
In the strategic sphere, France publicly announced that it rejects the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-plus partnership plans, under which the trans-Atlantic alliance includes Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and even India. Will make direct connection with. New Delhi had already rejected the plan – External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has said that NATO is “not a template that applies to India”. As a result, the project was not mentioned at the NATO summit in Vilnius this month, despite pressure from several countries. The India-France roadmap on the Indo-Pacific released last week makes it clear that neither side is trying to drag the other into its other regional military alliances. France was quiet towards plans for a “quad-plus” alliance, first mooted in 2020, which was more or less shelved after the US-France rift over the AUKUS agreement (US, UK and Australia). France is the only country with which the Indian Navy has conducted joint patrols so far, and future plans include French international territories in Reunion, New Caledonia and French Polynesia, and even India’s Andaman Islands, for port calls and reconnaissance. may be involved. Navies on a bilateral basis.
Although India’s relations with each of the P-5 countries are unique, the distinguishing feature of Indo-French relations is geopolitics without value judgments, and no pressure to align their positions.
suhasini.h@thehindu.co.in