Armenian-Indian Relations: On the Way to a Strategic Partnership
Armenia’s diversification policies following the 2020 Karabakh war have made India, along with France, its new most important security partner. A new era in Armenian-Indian relations began with the visit of Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to Armenia in October 2021.
By David Petrosyan
The historical ties of Armenians with India are very ancient and date back to the 4th century BC. Then, in 327 BC. Armenians first appeared in India with the army of Alexander the Great. Documents indicate that Armenians traveled to India in the 5th – 4th centuries BC and were well aware of the land routes to reach India, as well as the political, socio-cultural environment, and economic life. The point is that both peoples have known each other well for a long time. The presence in India of Armenians (mostly subjects of the Persian Empire), called the “Merchant Princes of India”, over several centuries, starting from the 16th – 17th centuries, led to the emergence of a number of large and small Armenian settlements in various places in India, including Agra, Surat, Mumbai, Chinsurah, Chandernagore, Calcutta, Madras, Saidabad and some other places in modern India.
The earliest discovered Armenian monument in India is a khachkar (cross-stone) from 1611, preserved in the Armenian cemetery in Agra. Akbar I the Great invited Armenians to settle in Agra in the 16th century and by the mid-19th century, Agra had a significant Armenian population. According to the royal decree, Armenian merchants were exempt from paying taxes on goods imported and exported by them. They were also able to move around the Mughal Empire while other foreigners were prohibited from entering. In 1562, an Armenian church was built in Agra.
For a long time, the British East India Company could not enter India, because all trade was carried out by Armenian merchants. The company tried to achieve trade privileges by force, but lost (Child’s War, 1686 – 1690), and was forced to ask the Great Mogul for mercy. Armenian merchants played the role of intermediaries here. In 1690, the East India Company settlement was founded in Calcutta, after appropriate permission from the Great Mogul. Thus, the British East India Company entered India with the assistance of Armenian merchants.
However, in the future, relations between the Armenians and the British in India did not work out. In Bengal (in the Bengal Nabab), the actual leader of this territory/Nabab) in 1761 – 1763 was a representative of the small Armenian family Gorgin – Khan (Grigor Harutyunyan). He organized stubborn resistance to the British and it was he and his comrades (Margar Hovhannisyan, Grigor Ayvazyan, Hakob Grigoryan, Mkrtich Zakaryan and others) who won the first victory over the British in 1761. The British were unable to achieve military success against the troops of Gorgin Khan in 1762-1763. But in August 1763 they organized a successful assassination attempt on him. After this, the uprising was brutally suppressed by the British, who brutally dealt with its leaders, especially the Armenians. After these events, the decision of the British House of Commons abolished the right of Armenians to free trade in all British colonies, as “an ungrateful people.”
After Indian independence in 1947, most of the Armenian community in India migrated to Australia, the United States and other countries. Indian President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan visited Soviet Armenia in 1964, and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited Soviet Armenia in 1976.
After the collapse of the USSR, India recognized the independence of Armenia in December 1991, and in 1999 the countries exchanged embassies. Armenian Presidents Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Robert Kocharyan visited India in 1995 and 2003, respectively. In 1995, an agreement on friendship and cooperation was signed between the countries. Bilateral relations developed slowly, despite the fact that the countries had genuine respect for each other.
At the present stage. Everything changed with the war in Karabakh in the fall of 2020, during which Pakistan, which does not recognize Armenia, openly supported Azerbaijan. For a number of objective and subjective reasons, Russia, the main military and political ally of Armenia, did not fulfill its allied obligations and did not provide assistance to Armenia in protecting its territorial integrity and sovereignty in 2021-2022. After which, Armenia began to diversify its foreign and security policies. The complete takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan in 2023 changed the balance of power in the South Caucasus, making Armenia more vulnerable and Azerbaijan more aggressive towards Armenia. The only reliable way to stabilize the situation in the region is to reduce the gap between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It appears that India is ready to contribute through military supplies to Yerevan, thereby reducing the likelihood of a potential Azerbaijani attack on Armenia.
Armenia’s diversification policies following the 2020 Karabakh war have made India, along with France, its new most important security partner. A new era in Armenian-Indian relations began with the visit of Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to Armenia in October 2021.
India supported Armenia in the UN Security Council after the Azerbaijani aggression in September 2022, and Armenia fully supported India’s position on the Kashmir issue. In October 2022, Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikyan visited India to initiate defense cooperation, and in 2023, Armenian and Indian delegations exchanged visits, with Armenian Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan also visiting India.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan took part in the “Raisin Dialogue 2023” conference, while Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Narek Mkrtchyan attended this year’s special Armenia-India Dialogue event organized by the Indian and Armenian think tanks Observer Research Foundation and APRI Armenia. The event opened the “Raisin Dialogue” conference. In March, the head of the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in an interview with the Turkish TRT World: ““We are building relations of a new quality with India…”
In 2023, India became the main supplier of weapons to Armenia, effectively replacing Russia, which is immersed in the war in Ukraine. Defense cooperation is in the wake of the Armenian-Indian cooperation, while discussions are underway to establish partnerships in other areas such as strategic software development, including space technology, infrastructure, and renewable energy. Both countries are working to open direct flights, which will facilitate economic cooperation and people-to-people contacts. There is a growing interest in the South Caucasus and Armenia among the Indian think tank and academic community, and the expert communities of the two countries play an important role here. Thus, in two years, Armenia and India have successfully developed close bilateral cooperation based on common interests. Armenia and India are exploring ways to establish cooperation in multilateral formats such as Armenia-India-Iran and Armenia-India-Greece-France.
With global changes in supply chains and logistics driven by geopolitical rivalries and economic transformations, India needs new and secure routes to Russia and Europe. In both directions, the South Caucasus is the shortest option. It could connect India to Russia via Iran and Azerbaijan, Iran and the Caspian Sea, or Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. At the same time, the South Caucasus can become an alternative route for India to Europe, bypassing the Suez Canal along the Iran-Armenia-Georgia-Black Sea route. In the South Caucasus, Armenia is the only country that is a member of the EAEU and therefore serves as a direct bridge between Iran and this economic union, which clearly highlights the importance of the Persian Gulf-Black Sea international transport and transit corridor for Iran. Western sanctions on Iran are hampering Tehran’s transit potential, but Iran’s membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, as well as the free trade agreement signed between Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union, increase Iran’s chances of becoming a transit hub for India.
India needs these routes, India also needs a stable South Caucasus, since it will be impossible to organize large-scale cargo transportation through an unstable region. India’s efforts to stabilize the situation in the South Caucasus by supporting Armenia, as well as the historical and civilizational ties between Armenia and India, naturally make Yerevan a potential key partner for India in the South Caucasus, which is part of its extended neighborhood where it seeks to project its power. India is not just interested in maintaining stability in the region: it has its own interest in maintaining security in the South Caucasus, since a new attack by Azerbaijan on Armenia with the aim of creating a land corridor to Nakhichevan will cut Armenia off from Iran and close the Iran-Armenia-Georgia-Black Sea route to Europe for India.
At the same time, Armenia needs to diversify its foreign and defense policies to adapt to the changing security architecture of the South Caucasus, which has more Turkish and Azerbaijani influence and less Russian presence. Meanwhile, Armenia should be careful not to antagonize Russia or alarm Iran by moving too close to the West and moving away from Russia. In this context, India is a natural choice for Armenia as India has strategic partnerships with Russia and the US and is developing close cooperation with Iran. Thus, geopolitical and geo-economic factors contribute to the transformation of the Armenian-Indian friendship into a strategic partnership.
In connection with the above, we draw attention to the Ambassador of India in Yerevan to Armenia Nilakshi Saha Sinha, who, in our assessment, works very effectively. Note that before her appointment she was a high-ranking government and diplomatic official. There is no doubt that she is part of the upper strata of India’s political and intellectual elite. In recent years, she has been the official translator for Prime Minister Narendra Modi (2014 – 2022). According to Indian sources, she speaks 15 languages. Sinha accompanied the Prime Minister on 14 important foreign trips.
Please note that there are over 30 thousand Indian citizens legally in Armenia who work in various sectors of the economy. Let us also note that India is showing serious interest in the Dry Port project in the Shirak region of Armenia. This project fits well into the larger transport project of the North-South corridor.
In 2023, the volume of mutual trade grew by more than 7%, reaching $380 million. This is a good figure; if we consider it as a starting point, it is even high. Despite the fact that the level of investment from India in the Armenian economy is still very low ($1.1 million).
49% of Armenian respondents assess relations with India as “very good”, while another 44% assess them as generally good. In fact, we are talking about a 93% positive rating of India in Armenia. Few countries can boast of this.
In conclusion, we note that in June the results of the next parliamentary elections were announced, as a result of which Prime Minister Modi retained his seat. Some Indian experts say that after his re-election, Modi plans to visit 10 countries important to India. They also believe that Armenia may be on this list. There is no confirmation of this, nor any refutation. If such a visit actually takes place, it will be of exceptional importance for advancing the agenda of the Armenian-Indian strategic partnership.
The author is a free-lance journalist based in Yerevan and author of a number on books on Armenian politics
