Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Brazil and Guyana is an important milestone in India’s relations with the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries. Brazil has been India’s major partner in the LAC in areas of trade, defence and energy cooperation. Guyana, with its newfound status as a crude oil and natural gas hub is expected to become one of India’s energy partners in the near future. Guyana is also expected to be a destination for India’s defence exports.

Modi’s visit provides a much-needed focus for India on the LAC. The LAC has been the region with which India’s ties had remained in an underdeveloped stage for decades. In the past one decade India has made efforts to reach out to the countries and regions that had received less attention in India’s foreign policy previously. The LAC has been one such region which is beginning to see a steady rise in its engagements with India.

This apparent lack of enthusiasm on the part of India towards the LAC countries could be attributed to several factors. The most prominent factor held responsible for sub-optimal level of development of bilateral ties is the tyranny of geography. For a long time distance between India and the LAC countries was blamed for minimal interaction. However, with improved communication, transport and connectivity distance can no longer be an impediment in the India-LAC relations.

Apart from distance, perception too played an important role in India’s ties with the LAC. The general impression about the LAC was that it was a region of ‘banana republics’, unstable economies and hubs for drug trafficking. From political perspective, the perceived instability, the protest movements and voting practices were the result of disenchantment among people on economic grounds. This disenchantment often manifested itself in the form of people causing regime change.

While India and the LAC countries have been taking steps to enhance their interaction, limited bilateral engagements have restricted the development of their ties. India’s engagements with the LAC countries has mostly been through various multilateral platforms. The multilateral platforms are important to forward external engagements. However these platforms only provide either collective interaction or a limited interaction by way of sideline or pull-aside meetings between the concerned countries. This phenomenon is very pronounced in India’s ties with the LAC region.

India engages with various countries of this region more through forums like the G20, the BRICS, Sistema de la Intergración Centroamericana (SICA), the Central American Integration System, La Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños (CELAC), the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the India-Latin America Conference, el Mercado Común del Sur (MERCOSUR), the Southern Common Market, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) etc.  

Modi’s visit to Brazil and Guyana has tried to address this imbalance to a certain extent. His ’s visit to the LAC combined bilateral engagements with multilateral meetings. Visit to Brazil was for the G20 Summit while visit to Guyana included a bilateral meeting between Modi and the Guyanese President Irfan Ali as well as the India-CARICOM Summit.

Brazil remains the most visited country in the LAC by an Indian prime minister. In the last 10 years, Modi has visited Brazil three times. However, all his travels have been either for the BRICS Summit or for the G20 Summit. Overall a bilateral visit to an LAC country has been rare in India’s foreign engagements. This makes Modi’s travel to Guyana a major step in India’s approach to this region.

External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar has also highlighted the importance of this region for India. While addressing the India-Latin America Conference in New Delhi in February 2023, he said that India’s ambition to become a global power requires a footprint in Latin America.

The underdeveloped nature of India’s ties with the LAC could be attributed more to the lack of regular high-level engagements i.e. between the Heads of State and the Heads of Government.

India and the LAC do enjoy close ties in soft power area. The two are connected more in cultural area which include literature, cinema, music, cuisine and sports, particularly cricket in case of the Caribbean countries. However, to build strong relations with any country or a region, a push from the highest levels of political dispensation is essential. This factor, hitherto lacking in the India-LAC ties, is now being gradually addressed.

Modi’s visit to the LAC, in particular to Guyana, would provide a boost to India’s engagements with the region. It is important to carry forward this momentum with more regular bilateral interactions.

Mr. Niranjan Marjani is a political analyst and researcher based in Vadodara, India.