- Modi’s Visit to France
- Strengthening Ties amid China Concerns
- Defense Deals and Strategic Partnership
Thursday marks the beginning of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to France, where he will be the honored guest at the traditional Bastille Day military parade and discuss significant new defense deals.
The red-carpet welcome for the Hindu nationalist leader by French President Emmanuel Macron comes weeks after Modi was accorded the rare honor of a White House state dinner in Washington, a city he was once forbidden to visit.
New Delhi and Western democracies are eager to strengthen ties due to shared concerns about China, despite disagreements over the conflict in Ukraine and tensions over human rights in India.
“India is one of the pillars of our Indo-Pacific strategy,” a Macron aide told reporters anonymously this week.
Macron has made Modi the guest of honor for the military parade on July 14, which sets off France’s national day celebrations, with the participation of Indian troops and French-made fighter aircraft flown by Indian pilots to demonstrate the countries’ close defense ties.
India is one of the largest purchasers of French arms, with Modi announcing a landmark deal for 36 Rafale fighter aircraft worth approximately $4.24 billion during a trip to Paris in 2015.
During this visit, he is expected to announce the purchase of three Scorpene-class submarines and an additional 26 marine variants of the cutting-edge aircraft, according to reports from the Tribune news website in France and the Hindustan Times newspaper in India.
Fears about China’s assertiveness are heightened by festering disputes along India’s Himalayan border, prompting New Delhi to modernize its armed forces rapidly.
Legal implications
Since Macron’s ascension to power in 2017, Modi has visited France four times, while Macron paid a state visit to New Delhi in 2018.
As part of the 25-year-old “strategic partnership” between France and India, aides on both sides have praised the personal chemistry between the two leaders and highlighted cooperation on climate change, photovoltaic energy, space technology, and nuclear power.
The visit is expected to be “both substantively and stylistically rich, and we believe it will establish new benchmarks for our strategic partnership in the years to come,” Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra told reporters on Wednesday.
However, the 72-year-old Indian leader remains a divisive figure at home and in the West, dating back to his 2002 tenure as chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, during which approximately 1,000 people, predominantly Muslims, were slain in sectarian riots.
As a result of his alleged complicity in the violence, he was once subject to a travel prohibition imposed by the US State Department. The Indian government’s investigations absolved him of any wrongdoing.
Since his first resounding electoral victory in 2014, Modi has been regularly criticized by human rights organizations for increasing discrimination and violence against the country’s Muslims, as well as for suppressing independent media.
In an article published this week, prominent French academic Christophe Jaffrelot stated that Modi was “in the process of deconstructing India’s democratic institutions.”
Few observers anticipate that Macron will publicly highlight rights concerns.
“Unlike the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and a few other European countries, France has rarely commented on India’s internal affairs,” Constantino Xavier, director of the Centre for Social and Economic Progress in New Delhi, said this week.
This has been lauded by the Indian side.
Balancing game
With its growing middle class and fifth-largest economy, India is a key market for Western corporations.
European and American companies, including Apple, are growing production in India to reduce supply chain interruptions from China.
The war in Ukraine has increased Western concerns regarding the possibility of conflicts disrupting the flow of critical raw materials and technology from China, but it has also exposed a rift with India.
New Delhi, which has long attempted to maintain a balance between its relations with Moscow and the West, has declined to condemn Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and has emerged as a leading purchaser of discounted Russian oil during the most significant conflict in Europe since World War II.
“This has been a major stumbling block for the India-Europe partnership,” Garima Mohan, an Indian foreign policy expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think tank, said this week during an online debate at the Brookings Institution.
