B.RAMAN
The current three-day visit of Australian Prime
Minister Ms.Julia Gillard to India for talks with Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh
and other leaders and captains of Indian industry indicates the poverty of
bilateral strategic thinking in both the countries in the Government and the
non-Governmental levels.
2. Most of the analytical articles that I have read
are preoccupied with the question how soon India can hope to start importing
uranium from Australia for its civilian nuclear power programme. India has had
reasons to be thankful to Ms.Gillard for reversing her Labour Party’s
opposition to the sale of uranium to India on the ground that India is not a signatory
to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement.
3. Ever since her arrival in India, the Australian
Prime Minister has been at pains to discourage exaggerated expectations in
India that the uranium sales may start immediately. She has been pointing out
that the sale of uranium has to be preceded by the conclusion of a civil nuclear
co-operation agreement with India with appropriate safeguards to prevent the
diversion of the uranium sold by Australia for military purposes. In her
estimate, it will take at least another two years before uranium sales can
start.
4.Ever since India’s relations with the US started
improving under the administration of then President George Bush ( 2000-08), it
has had a beneficial fall-out for Indo-Australian relations too with increased
military-to-military contacts and exercises, particularly greater co-operation
between the two Navies and greater intellectual exchanges with a strategic
focus. Australia’s diplomatic and consular presence in India has expanded, more
Indian students have been going to Australia for higher education and more
Indian academics are being invited to Australia on short or long-term
fellowships. However, the academic exchanges have largely remained one way from
India to Australia and not the other way round.
5.The poor infrastructure and other facilities in
Indian universities have come in the way of the exchanges being two-way.
Surprisingly, even in the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology and
Business Administration Schools, Australian presence has been an exception. The
fascination in Indian academic circles for exchanges with institutions of
higher learning in Europe and the USA have come in the way of an increase in
exchanges with Australia.
6. Australian concerns over jihadi terrorism after
the Bali terrorist strike of October 2002 directed largely against Australian tourists by the Jemmah Islamia
have led to a greater exchange of counter-terrorism intelligence between the two
countries. While the military-military relations between the two countries have
picked up momentum, the police-police relations have not expanded.
7.Some years
ago during a visit to the National Police Academy at Hyderabad, I did come
across two Australian police officers who were doing an attachment with the
Hyderabad Academy, but no thought seems to have been given by our National
Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) to the scope for greater exchanges between
the police institutions of the countries for strengthening the capabilities of the Indian police in the
field of forensic examination, with particular reference to use of modern
technology for the prevention and detection of improvised explosive devices
(IEDs).Many ASEAN countries have benefited from Australian expertise and
capabilities in forensics and scientific methods of investigation. There is no
valid reason why we should not do so too.
8. When our policy makers and strategic analysts
talk of strategic co-operation with Australia, their minds are over-focussed on
military-related co-operation. The scope for expanding non-military dimensions
of the co-operation has not received the attention it deserves.
9.An important field that has remained untapped is
the modernisation of our agriculture. For some time now, our Prime Minister has
been talking of the need for a second green revolution to further improve
our wheat production. There is a
tremendous scope for Indo-Australian co-operation for modernising the
cultivation of fruits and vegetables through the establishment of Special
Agricultural Zones.
10. Even as the Australian Prime Minister was
holding talks in New Delhi, Ms.J.Jayalalita, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu,
inaugurated on October 17,2012, a joint Indo-Israeli project for co-operation
in the improvement of vegetable and fruit cultivation in Tamil Nadu. There is
no reason why we cannot supplement it with Australian co-operation.
11. There is a need for a more comprehensive
thinking on the scope for multi-dimensional co-operation between India and
Australia. It is hoped that the Australian Prime Minister’s visit will lead to
such thinking. ( 17-10-12)
(The writer
is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi,
and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate
of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com Twitter @SORBONNE75)
