India and Australia, from Divergence to Convergence : Daily Current Affairs

Date: 06/09/2022

Relevance: GS-2: Bilateral, Regional, and Global Groupings and Agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.

Key Phrases: Bilateral Track 1.5 dialogue, Tracks of Diplomacy, Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA), Australia-India Leadership Dialogue, informal diplomacy, Indo-Pacific region, critical minerals strategy.

Why in News?

  • Leaders from India and Australia are meeting in New Delhi today (September 6) for the fifth round of the most important bilateral Track 1.5 dialogue.
  • It is widely recognized that Canberra’s relationship with New Delhi is among the most important and critical for the future of the Indo-Pacific.

Tracks of Diplomacy
Track 1 Diplomacy  It is the official engagement between the government officials of two or more nations or with multilateral organizations, international bodies, etc.
Track 2 Diplomacy (Backchannel Diplomacy) In this case, diplomatic dealings are pursued through non-officials, e.g., NGOs, Businessmen, etc. Sometimes you see business leaders, religious gurus, Nobel laureates, or other prominent personalities entering into a discussion with another country’s unofficial representatives. Since it is unofficial, there are many advantages of holding such talks.
Track 1.5 Diplomacy This term is used when both officials and non-officials are engaged in diplomatic negotiation.
Track 3 Diplomacy This relates to people-to-people contact. Normally focused at the grassroots level, this type of diplomacy often involves organizing meetings and conferences, generating media exposure, and political and legal advocacy for marginalized people and communities. e.g., the ‘Aman Ki Asha’ initiative to increase people-to-people contact between India and Pakistan.
Track 4 Diplomacy (Multitrack Diplomacy) It involves multiple channels and multiple stakeholders to pursue the diplomatic goal. This approach is particularly useful in long pending conflicts and unresolved issues between two countries.

A gradual change:

  • When the dialogue started, both the countries recognized that for most of the 20th century, India and Australia rarely had a meaningful conversation.
  • The long shadow of the Cold War, India’s autarkic economic policies, the White Australia policy, Canberra’s decision not to transfer uranium to India, and other factors had kept the two countries apart for several decades.
  • Today, few countries in the Indo-Pacific region have more in common in both values and interests than India and Australia.
  • Apart from being two English-speaking, multicultural, federal democracies that believe in and respect the rule of law, both have a strategic interest in ensuring a balance in the Indo-Pacific and in ensuring that the region is not dominated by any one hegemonic power.
  • Indians are today the largest source of skilled migrants in Australia and the economic relationship, already robust, could potentially be transformed if the promise of the new Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) is realized.

Australia-India Leadership Dialogue

  • The Australia India Leadership Dialogue is the premier forum for informal diplomacy between Australia and India.
  • It is structured as a multistakeholder cross-sectoral roundtable that involves 50 delegates including business leaders, cabinet ministers, and government officials, who are joined by thought leaders in academia, media, and civil society to address shared challenges in the Australia-India relationship and explore areas for cooperation.
  • The Dialogue provides an opportunity to deepen mutual understanding between Australian and Indian leaders, enhance the framework for regional security, promote business and commercial opportunities, and advance people-to-people links in a manner that underwrites economic and cultural prosperity for Australian and Indian citizens.

Why Australia-India Leadership Dialogue is critical?

  • Leaders will have a robust conversation about the relationship and the ways in which both nations can carry it forward.
  • The Australia-India Leadership Dialogue is critical because ideas matter in a relationship as much as transactions and negotiations do.
  • Stable, strong, and sustainable relationships are built not just on the possibility of immediate gains, but on the promise of the future.
  • In other words, the relationship is far too important to be left to the two governments alone.
  • Governments matter tremendously, but forums such as these can provide the space and the ambiance that can infuse new ideas to generate new energy into the relationship.

Seeds that will germinate:

  • The Leadership Dialogue is also important because people and real connections matter.
  • Technology and the cyber world can blind us to believing that face-to-face conversations are outdated.
  • In this Leadership Dialogue, India still believes in the power of personal and collective communication in a shared physical space.
  • From a broad range of business executives, government officials, and scholars, eager to increase their understanding of how each country approaches shared challenges.
  • From cyber threats and artificial intelligence (AI) governance in a geopolitically turbulent region, how they will decarbonize economies and help each other develop trusted supply chains through critical minerals cooperation, to India’s tech talent can help address Australia’s skills gaps through migration.
  • As the premier forum for informal diplomacy between Australia and India, backed by Australian-founded tech company Atlassian and its co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes, outcomes that grow the relationship through emerging technology are high on the agenda.
  • Australia wants to find alternative markets to China and diversify supply chains for its critical minerals.
  • As a country with reserves of about 21 out of the 49 minerals identified in India’s critical minerals strategy, Australia is well placed to serve India’s national interests required for India’s carbon reduction program.

Conclusion:

  • While this is the first Dialogue since 2019, due to the novel coronavirus pandemic having kept both countries apart, as two nations India-and Australis have only grown closer together through enhancing our shared framework for regional security, promoting business and commercial opportunities, and strengthening our people-to-people links, bilaterally and multilaterally.
  • As India marks 75 years of Independence and surpasses the United Kingdom as the fifth largest global economy, the momentum around this fifth Australia-India Leaderships Dialogue and the bilateral fruit it may bear should not be underestimated.

Source: The Hindu

Mains Question:

Q. Discuss various areas of convergence in the Indo-Australian relationship. How bilateral relations between two nations can be strengthened through forums like Australia-India Leadership Dialogue?