Visit of India’s External Affairs Minister to Georgia is significant in more than one sense.
From Georgia’s perspective it is a major breakthrough in its political relations with India. The visit also signals India’s desire to enhance its focus on the South Caucasus
By Achal Malhotra
The External Affairs Minister of India, Dr S. Jaishankar paid an official visit to Georgia on 9th-10th July; this is the first ever high-level visit since the emergence of Georgia as an independent country in 1991 in the wake of the disintegration of the USSR. No high-level exchanges at the level of Head of State or Head of Government from either side have ever taken place in last thirty years.
There are no bilateral irritants between India and Georgia. On the contrary Georgia has been supportive of India at various international fora. Yet for multiple reasons, India’s relations with Georgia have moved at a snail’s pace since it recognised Georgia’s independence in December, 1991 and established formal diplomatic relations in September 1992. Georgia’s turbulent transition during the initial years and subsequently its uni-dimensional foreign policy of integration with Euro-Atlantic structures, particularly NATO and EU, probably were not inspiring for the Indian leadership. More than that Russia was an extraneous factor which occasionally put brakes on the development of India’s political relations with Georgia. Russia’s relations with Georgia were always less than normal and touched the lowest ebb following the war in August 2008 resulting in the recognition by Russia of Georgia’s two breakaway regions: Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia vehemently opposes the prospects of a NATO member country in its backyard and was upset with the NATO announcement in April 2008 that Georgia (and Ukraine) will be admitted to NATO, at an unspecified date. Russia describes the post-Soviet space as Russia’s “Near Abroad” and considers it as its “sphere of influence” and therefore is averse to the idea of any “ encroachments” thereon.
In deference to Russia’s sensitivities, India for past several years has slow peddled its political interaction with Georgia which remained confined to occasional Foreign Office Consultations at Senior Officials Level. Georgia on its part accelerated its outreach to India post Georgia-Russia war in 2008. In 2009, Georgia upgraded its Honorary Consulate to full-fledged Embassy in New Delhi and has been persuading India to set up a Resident Mission in Tbilisi on reciprocal basis. (Currently India’s Resident Ambassador to Armenia is also India’s Non-Resident Ambassador to Georgia).
Against the above backdrop, Jaishankar’s visit acquires significance in more than one sense. From Georgia’s perspective it is a major breakthrough in its political relations with India. The visit also signals India’s desire to enhance its focus on the South Caucasus (comprised of three former Soviet Republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia). At present India’s relations with Armenia are marked by high degree of political understanding but the same cannot be said of its relations with Georgia and Azerbaijan.
The visit to Georgia came soon after and in sequence to EAM’s visit to Moscow. The scheduling has raised some expected questions: Is this a signal from India that it has decided to de-hyphenate India-Georgia relations from India-Russia relations? Some observers have even gone to the extent of concluding that the decision to combine the visit to Georgia with the visit to Moscow was in retaliation of the Russian Foreign Minister’s decision to visit Islamabad soon after his visit to New Delhi in April this year.
In my opinion, the up-gradation of political relations with Georgia was overdue and EAM’s visit would go down as an important milestone in the annals of India-Georgia bilateral relations. As regards the issue of “de-hyphenation”, it requires to be discussed in a larger context of India-Russia relations. There was a brief phase in India-Russia relation around 2015 when Russia thought that India was strengthening her relations with the USA at the cost of Russia, particularly in the field of defence supplies. A certain degree of movement in dormant relations between Russia and Pakistan was also seen around the same time. During the last few years, India and Russia appear to have reached an understanding that the development of relations by either of the two “ special and privileged “ partner countries with any third country should not be automatically seen as being at the cost of the other partner country unless there are implications for the national interests of the other partner. India’s de -hyphenation of India-Russia-Georgia relations and Russia’s de-hyphenation of Russia-India-Pakistan relations should be viewed in this light rather than through any other prism.
Cultural diplomacy was also at play during the visit when EAM personally handed over a part of the holy relics of St Queen Ketevan to his Georgian counterpart on a permanent basis. The Georgian Queen was taken hostage after the Persian King Shah Abas 1 invaded her kingdom and was kept in Shiraz ( Iran) for a decade till 1624 and was eventually killed as she refused to convert to Islam. The Queen was posthumously canonised for preferring a horrible death to giving up Christianity. The torture was witnessed and documented by Catholic missionaries from Portugal, who later secretly excavated her body and transferred it to a monastery in Isfahan. Some of the other remains ended up in the Church of St. Augustine at Goa, India. These relics were finally discovered and excavated in 2016 and handed over in 2017 on loan for exhibition in Georgia. The decision to hand over a part of the relics on permanent basis has been applauded in Georgia where nearly 85% of the population is comprised of the Georgian Orthodox Christians. Georgia’s ruling party Georgian Dream Democratic Party has described it as “unprecedented gesture” which will be “remembered and appreciated”.
Irrespective of the relatively low level of political relations, the Indian community, comprised of medical students and businessmen has been increasing in size in Georgia. Indian farmers have bought land in Georgia and are engaged in agriculture. A certain number of Indian companies have also set up business ventures in Georgia. India and Georgia are also exploring the possibility of concluding a Free Trade Agreement the feasibility of which has already been determined. Georgia’s Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade( DCFT) agreement with EU offers an opportunity for the Indian business and industry to explore the possibility of setting up businesses in Georgia to reap the benefits of DCFT. Georgia also offers as a good transit location for access to Europe.
The visit of the External Affairs Minister to Georgia has added the desired political substance to cordial relations and the two countries can now work together to build upon the existing foundations to add content to relations in diverse fields.
The author is former Indian Ambassador to Georgia.
A compilation of recent writings by the author is available at
http://www.associationdiplomats.org/Authors.htm#MalhotraAchal
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