INTRODUCTION
Nearly six months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Greece in 2023, the first prime ministerial visit of India to Greece in 40 years, Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in a show of reciprocity, arrived in India in February. The visit is shaped not merely by the spirit of reciprocity but is, in a bigger measure, by the growing proximity and alignment of strategic and economic interests between the two ancient civilizations that sit astride very critical locations on the world map. Greece, with its strategic location at the intersection of Asia, Africa, and Europe in the Mediterranean Sea, benefits from its proximity to these regions on both a political and geographical level, allowing it to play a significant role in the region. Commensurately, India is very vital strategically because of its location in the Indian Ocean. It facilitates communication with Southeast and East Asia from the eastern coast and with West Asia, Europe, and West Africa from its western shore. India possesses the longest coastline on the Indian Ocean, giving it strategic precedence when it comes to international sea routes. It is also to be noted that regimes and empires may rise and disappear, countries and their fortunes change, but opportunities and challenges, as it were and it is, remain owing to being located in a particular geography and embodying particular value-systems. In this regard, a brief perusal of ties between the two ancient civilizations shall place the main argument of this write-up in its proper context, resonating and connecting the historical significance of ties with the current developments and newly found lease of life in bilateral ties.
A HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
The interaction between India and Greece dates to 2,500 years ago. The period of 4th century BCE holds testimony to the campaign of Alexander the Great which reached the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent. Ashoka’s edicts also have elaborate mention of cultural, diplomatic and trade relations between the two nations. Trade, as evidenced by coinage and writings, took place during Mauryan dynasty. The Indian treatise Arthashastra records about the Yavan ambassador in Chandragupta’s court. The Indo Greek cultural camaraderie can be seen in the Gandhara art that flourished in the present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan. The recent past too has seen developments between the two nations. For instance, as per the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, 518 identified soldiers of undivided India, sacrificed their lives, defending the Allied cause in Southern Europe during the First World War have been buried/commemorated in different cemeteries in the territory of Greece. At the 1985 Delhi Declaration on Nuclear Disarmament, Greece was one of the six participating countries. Greece’s official position on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)/National Register of Citizenship (NRC), the Abrogation of Article 370, the Reorganization of new Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh is that they are matters of internal Indian affairs. Each nation promised to back the other’s candidacy for a non-permanent UNSC seat. Greece also voted in favor of India’s UNSC candidacy for the 2021-2022 term. Additionally, in the 2008 Nuclear Suppliers Group, it backed India.
With the Prime Minister of India and his Greek counterpart announcing the elevation of ties to the level of a “strategic partnership” last year in August 2023, the trajectory of this old relationship is poised for a major transformation. And this transformation will be pivoted by complementarity of interests and concerns in the domain of security, strategy and economy.
PIVOT OF STRATEGY AND ECONOMY
A region of fluctuating alliances and power struggles is the Eastern Mediterranean. Having once been a part of the Ottoman Empire and then experiencing colonialism in the first quarter of the 20th century, the region is currently experiencing disruptions from various troubling developments in its vicinity ranging from the Russia-Ukraine war, US-Iran relations, Arab Spring, illegal immigration as well as deepening ideological fissures and movements. The region’s gas finds are jeopardizing regional cooperation by escalating rivalries between governments and international oil and gas firms, as the conflict between Greece and Turkey with regards to the Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline and the issue of illegal migration into Greece, are cases in point. Talking about the South Asian region, following the overturning of Article 370 in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India was subjected to a protracted diplomatic trial on a number of international forums. The fact that Turkey appeared to be the most vociferous on the bulk of these forums has not been lost on the Indian establishment. Furthermore, it is increasingly being recognized today that in the South Asian region, Turkey maintains ties with Pakistan-based groups such as Jamaat-e-Islami. Additionally, the Turkish government generously donated weapons and financial support to groups like Jamaat-e-Islami and the “Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army” (Bangladesh), groups adhering to radical ideologies.
At the strategic level, India and Greece are being drawn towards each other by the discernment of a common threat arising from the strengthening links between Turkey and Pakistan and the Turkish government’s backing of Pakistan regarding the Kashmir dispute. Nowadays, India and Greece increasingly collaborate on subjects including cooperative defence manufacturing, cyber defence, military personnel training, navy ship visits, and other security concerns. In 2017, there were agreements and an additional Memorandum of Understanding for cooperation in the field of innovative and renewable energy. Recently, Indian Air Force participated in “Iniochos 2023,” a yearly multinational air force combat exercise that has been held since the late 1980s. Another area worth mentioning is the one of maritime sector. Greece controlled shipping is the largest in terms of global percentage, with nearly 23% of global shipping controlled by them. This is crucial for India as it seeks to expand and upgrade its own maritime sector and gain critical access to important logistics hubs, as its economy and overall ambit of influence grow in the coming years. These complementarities entail a positive environment for the economic expansion of ties too.
As of 2022-2023 (April-May) export from India to Greece accounted for around US$1.1 billion, while import from Greece to India accounted for nearly US$575.82 million, thereby accounting for a total US$1.6 billion (CII, 2023). Need based cooperation in defence, upskilling people, new and emerging technologies, digital payments, education, security infrastructure can add fillers to the bilateral trade. As both countries have vowed to double bilateral trade by 2030, this will only enhance their strategic enterprise. There is also no direct airlink between the two nations, therefore, an Air Services Agreement which is under negotiation should gain momentum. It is quite evident that as we write, there haven’t been many substantial commercial or economic exchanges between the nations. Specifically, each nation receives relatively little bilateral foreign direct investment. But that is undergoing a welcome change. GMR, an Indian company is building an airport at Crete, Greece. This is a significant step as it is reflective of the growing realization of the need for enhanced cooperation by the two sides as well as indicative of the transformative elevation that bilateral ties shall undergo towards the end of the decade.
CONCLUSION
The strategic partnership between Greece and India could not have come at a more opportune time as the geo-strategic locations of both the countries, the recent and robust growth in their economies after a period of policy and enactment issues, and the implications that the current global order carry along for them are all coalescing and aligning into a symmetrical and actionable blueprint in so far as responding to common threats and collaboration on mutual gains is concerned. To state one instance, after Chinese investments in a Greek port through their Belt and Road Initiative, the recent pullout of Italy, another strategic partner of India, from the same initiative and the overall scepticism that prevails around China today in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, offer India with a historic opportunity to leverage ties with Greece which is actively seeking to diversify its options, not only in terms of economic investments but also rework its broader security calculus in the region owing to regional and pan-regional factors, much like India is.
Dr Aparna Varma is an Assistant Professor at the Rashtriya Raksha University, Gujarat. Manish Barma has completed his PhD from the Centre for European Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.