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Indian diplomacy has been prominent this century, leveraging an economy that has shed inhibitions and grown impressively. Latin America however remains distant, geographically and conceptually. Political relations are cordial but seldom ascend to levels of strategic empathy. Both sides have deepened exchanges with almost all other regions and international partners in greater measure than with each other.
Still, trade has grown over thirty percent annually between 2000 and 2014. Latin American resources are an ideal fit for Indian technology, industrial capacity, and markets. The deceleration, since 2015, has as much to do with the global slowdown as with the lack of a strategy and measures to consolidate an evidently complementary relationship.
Relations have been predicated on bilateral priorities. Political diversity, varying economic endowments, lack of adequate human resources, and institutional underpinning, poor connectivity, and language issues present challenges for Indian stakeholders The Indian establishment needs to take a holistic view of its interests in, and exchanges with, Latin America. This includes collaboration in international forums, recognition of the importance of regional integration within Latin America, as well as the linkages being established by this region with other international players.
Latin American regimes have been focussed on commodity exports and investment incentives apart from stray investments in an India that offers promise for a region struggling to improve its international bargaining power. A re-prioritisation of the relationship is essential, and should be complemented by more discerning and energetic diplomacy.
This paper outlines issues, priorities, and impediments that define the relationship. It emphasises the need for both sides to develop a realistic model, based on factual realities, that enables India and its Latin American partners to forge a common strategy and assume their rightful place in the new global order.
Octavio Paz, the Mexican Nobel Laureate and Ambassador to India in the 1960's, said: "India did not enter me through my mind but through my senses."1 It appears Latin America and India have a 'sense' about each other, but their minds are still to be made up.
When India became a nation-state in 1947, independent Latin America had been around for over a century. Latin American societies were formed by descendants of European, in some cases African, origin, with relatively scanty indigenous presence. The civilisational differences...