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India’s perceptions and interests with regard to IBSA

Varun Sahni, Professor - Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

(27/11/07)

The IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa Dialogue Forum) initiative was formally inaugurated by the Brasilia Declaration of 6 June 2003. This trilateral initiative involves three significant countries of the Global South. As emerging powers, they are similarly situated in the international system and have similar aspirations regarding their future global role. Their policy coordination in world trade negotiations has been truly impressive. Intuitively, it therefore makes a lot of sense to expect that they can share experiences and strategies.
Nevertheless, the IBSA Three fit uneasily together:

  • In terms of sheer size, South Africa cannot be sensibly compared, either geographically or demographically, with Brazil and India.
  • From the domestic political perspective, while Brazil and South Africa are still in the process of consolidating their respective democracies, India has been a robust functioning democracy for 55 years.
  • Their respective regional settings are also dissimilar: unlike Brazil and South Africa, India belongs to a fractured region.

Given these incompatibilities, is IBSA viable? The IBSA initiative aggregates power, enhances cooperation and builds community. IBSA exists because it serves the interests of Brazil, India and South Africa. This makes it viable.
How important is IBSA for India? India’s bilateral external relationships can be prioritized as follows:

  • The US, China and Pakistan are India’s cardinal bilateral relationships today.
  • India’s immediate neighborhood, which comprises India’s security perimeter, ranks second in terms of policy attention.
  • Next in importance for India are the UK, France and Germany, the European Union (EU) Big Three, which share policy priority with the Russian Federation and Japan.
  • India’s extended neighborhood, the states of Central Asia and Southeast Asia, come next in India’s policy priorities.
  • Thanks largely to IBSA, Brazil and South Africa follow. Considering that India hosts approximately 120 foreign embassies in its capital city, this is quite a high ranking.

IBSA is not driven by bilateral trade, as recent Indian data reveal. Although India’s exports to Brazil and South Africa have experienced relatively high growth rates (43% and 64%) comparing data from 2005-2006 and 2006-2007, the share on total Indian exports is still very low: 1,3% for Brazil and approximately 2% for India. The share Brazil and South Africa hold on total imports to India is rather insignificant too (0,5% and 1,6%) showing modest growth rates between 2005 and 2007 (Government of India, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Department of Commerce, Annual Report 2006-2007).

The IBSA initiative is about India’s future place and role in the world. Nevertheless, as IBSA ceases to be a speculative venture and becomes an integral part of India’s diplomatic repertoire, new expectations will surely arise. For instance, could IBSA ameliorate some of India’s current security challenges? Thus, how Brazil and South Africa vote in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) regarding India’s inclusion within the nonproliferation architecture would be an interesting test case.
What does the future hold for IBSA? Four futures can be envisaged:

  • The IBSA Three could develop dense and multifaceted relations and evolve as a distinct grouping of states. This would involve a substantial growth in trade, the evolution of a security personality—built around maritime cooperation and defense industry—and intense society-to-society linkages.
  • The IBSA Three could expand to include some other countries. BRICSA (IBSA + China and Russia) is a possibility, the Outreach Five in the G8 (IBSA + China and Mexico) is another. Any expansion would diminish IBSA’s current cohesion.
  • IBSA could involve the regions, and evolve into a Mercosur-SADC-India grouping. The fact that SAARC is neither peaceful internally nor cohesive externally makes it difficult for India to present a regional face within IBSA.
  • IBSA could disintegrate as the three countries go their separate ways, pushed by different drivers along divergent trajectories at distinct paces.