A growing recognition of shared security interests in the Indian Ocean region and mutual concerns about Chinese assertiveness have underpinned closer ties.
The fast-growing Indian diaspora is another big positive. The2021 census showed nearly a quarter of the 1 million people who arrived in Australia from other parts of the world between 2016 and 2021 were from India,far more than any other country. The Indian community,which numbers about 750,000,is already a potent driver of the bilateral relationship.
Despite the progress,Australia needs to get to know India better.
Lisa Singh,chief executive of the Australia Indian Institute,which promotes research and understanding about the two nations,says Australia’s “India literacy” is still lacking.
“There’s a lot of work to be done to ensure that literacy improves,” she says.
Business links and trade between the two countries have lagged the rapid improvement in diplomatic and strategic ties. India was Australia’s sixth-largest trading partner in 2021-22,one behind the relative minnow Singapore. That year,a single commodity – coal – accounted for almost 70 per cent of the value of Australian exports to India. Despite recent tensions between Beijing and Canberra,the value of Australian exports to China was five times more than to India.
Patterns of investment provide a telling indicator. Australians tend to invest in nations where they have a high level of understanding and trust. In 2021,about half of all Australian overseas investment was in two very familiar locations – the US and the UK. India didn’t even figure in the top 20 destinations for Australian foreign investment that year,despite its mammoth scale and strong growth outlook.
This underscores the need for Australia to develop a much better understanding of India.
There are frequent calls for Australia to reduce its economic dependence on China by diversifying export markets. India is an obvious place to do this – there is a host of opportunities to expand economic collaboration,including new digital technologies,cybersecurity,higher education,critical minerals and clean energy.
But obsolete perceptions of modern India persist – many firms put it in the too hard basket.
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“So much of our mindset about India is outdated,” says Singh. “The reality is it’s a country that is developing in leaps and bounds.”
Our India literacy would benefit greatly from more consistent media coverage about politics,economics and social change in the subcontinent region. There are fewer journalists from major Australian news outlets based permanently in India today than a decade ago,despite growing bilateral ties.
The scope and depth of Australian scholarship about India also fails to match that nation’s economic and strategic importance.
Professor Robin Jeffrey,one of Australia’s leading academic experts on India,says the options for Australian students to take university courses in Indian history,politics and anthropology are very limited. When it comes to academic experts in those fields “we’ve exported more than we’ve imported” for years,he says.
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Few Australian universities offer courses in Indian languages. Hindi is spoken by more than 600 million people.
“There aren’t enough people in Australian public life who know Kannada from Canada,” says Jeffrey (Kannada is a south Indian language spoken by more than 40 million people).
Relations between Australia and India have been improving at breakneck speed and no other market offers better growth opportunities for Australian business over the next few decades.
But to make the most of those opportunities we need to pay the world’s most populated nation much more attention.
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