As Prime Minister, Dr Keith Rowley will visit India for the first time. This is good. Is it an official visit? That would be much better.
Already the world’s fifth largest economy, India is expected to overtake Japan and Germany by 2028, moving into third spot behind the US and China with GDP of US$8.4 trillion. And “India’s clout is showing up in new ways,” The Economist observed recently. “American firms have 1.5 million staff in India, more than in any other foreign country. Its stock-market is the world’s fourth-most-valuable, while its aviation market ranks third.”
And, rising wealth has given New Delhi “more geopolitical heft”. India is among the world’s top four military powers. When the Houthis disrupted the Suez Canal this year, New Delhi deployed ten warships in the Middle East. This nuclear nation is becoming a new world power.
It would be good for Trinidad and Tobago if Rowley met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit. During Covid-19, a rather messy affair involving Rowley developed over vaccine donations by the Indian leader.
Remember the story? Most Caricom countries had accepted Modi’s offer, along with nations from Africa and Latin America. In just two months, India donated 495,000 vaccines to ten Caribbean countries.
But Rowley claimed not to have known about the Indian initiative even though the region’s prime ministers along with West Indies cricketing greats Sir Vivian Richards, Sir Richie Richardson and others were publicly thanking Modi.
Rowley also profusely thanked Barbados PM Mia Mottley for her donation to Trinidad and Tobago of 2,000 vaccines from the very gift received from India. And he didn’t know of the Indian initiative? What was his problem?
Worse, he publicly went on the offensive against the Indian High Commissioner for not communicating with his government about Modi’s vaccine initiative. Was the public assault necessary? Why wasn’t the envoy called in, as is the diplomatic norm?
And then Rowley made one of the most disastrous statements in the annals of international relations. He said, “Our Caribbean neighbours have got gifts. But when you go asking for a gift, that’s not a gift; you’re begging.” He wouldn’t be vaccinating his population “by begging”, he said. Mind-boggling! Was Rowley calling Caricom leaders beggars? Besides, he had himself written to Modi, seeking a donation.
Why was he suggesting it was demeaning to seek help from India’s vaccine programme? Rather distasteful! After his assault and after India promised 40,000 vaccines in response to his request, Rowley perfunctorily expressed “sincerest appreciation and gratitude” to Modi. But the damage had been done.
Compare Rowley with Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit who said, “I did not imagine the prayers of my country would be answered so swiftly. One would have thought that in a global pandemic like this, a nation’s size and might would have been the primary consideration. But to the credit of Prime Minister Modi, the equality of our people was recognised.”
After that disastrous episode, New Delhi delayed filling the post of high commissioner to Port of Spain for one year when the incumbent’s term ended. It was a diplomatic message; also sent when Indian foreign minister, the esteemed Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, paid an official visit to Guyana for high-level talks, completely bypassing Trinidad and Tobago, previously inconceivable. Some semblance of normalcy returned with the appointment of the current High Commissioner.
Restoration of the traditional warmth in T&T-India relations is particularly important. India is heading for the top. Experts say the world’s fastest-growing large economy will become the world’s largest by 2050, edging out America and China with GDP exceeding US$85 trillion.
And its growing economic power has made India a critical global player, producing “a seismic shift in US-India relations”, says the Financial Times. Shared distrust of China in the Indo-Pacific also drives the new relationship.
On a historic state visit by Modi to America, defence deals worth several billions were signed, increasing India’s military capacity for manufacturing upgraded high-altitude armed drones and jet engines that use “coveted” US technology never yet shared even with treaty allies, binding the two countries’ defence industries for decades.
President Biden says India and the US now have a “major defence partnership growing with more joint exercises, more cooperation between our defence industries, and more consultation and coordination across all domains”.
Including space. India and America will send a joint mission to the International Space Station this year and also facilitate collaboration between their private sectors in the space economy. New Delhi’s own homegrown space programme has already achieved Chandrayaan-3, India’s successful 2023 mission to the moon, and Aditya-L1 to study the outer atmosphere of the sun. It has four other missions to 2025, including manned flights and a Venus orbiter mission, Shukrayaan.
India is going places, folks. Our deep bonds forged through indentureship, decolonisation and the Non-Aligned Movement must not be squandered. Founding fathers Dr Eric Williams and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru would be deeply saddened. Every effort must be made towards full restoration of long-standing fraternal ties between Trinidad and Tobago and India, an emerging global power.
—Ralph Maraj
