India's other neighbour-Indonesia

Indonesia's rise as a secular democracy and a modern nation is in Asia's interest

by Sanjaya Baru / New Delhi


In the heart of Indonesia’s capital city of Jakarta stands a magnificent larger-than-life statue of Lord Krishna with Arjuna on a chariot led by eight powerful horses. No other world capital has such a great tribute to Hinduism as this capital of a nation that has the largest number of Muslims. Indonesia is among the few Muslim majority nations that remain truly secular. Indonesia is India’s “other” neighbour.

At a seminar held in 1997 at the Neemrana Fort Palace, organised by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (London) on the theme “Rethinking India’s Role in the World”, Indonesian scholar S Djiwandono quoted the late President Sukarno saying: “In the veins of everyone of my people flows the blood of Indian ancestors and the culture we possess is steeped through and through with Indian influences. Two thousand years ago, people from your country came to Jawadvipa and Suvarnadvipa in the spirit of brotherly love. They gave the initiative to found powerful kingdoms such as those of Sri Vijaya, Mataram and Majapahit. We then learned to worship the very Gods that you now worship still and we fashioned a culture that even today is largely identical with your own. Later, we turned to Islam; but our religion too was brought to us by people coming from both the sides of the Indus.”

It is not, however, this shared past, howsoever grand, that brings India and Indonesia together again. When Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono arrives this week as chief guest at New Delhi’s Republic Day Parade, both he and his hosts will have the future rather than the past on their minds. President Yudhoyono comes to India in the first month of what has been called an “exciting year” for Indonesia by one of its foremost strategic policy analysts, Rizal Sukma, executive director of Indonesia’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

Writing an year-end column in the Jakarta Post, Dr Sukma identified six foreign policy priorities for Indonesia in 2011. First, to provide leadership in the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean), a grouping it chairs this year and one that Indonesia wants to become less constrained by; second, management of bilateral and regional disputes, including territorial disputes with Asean neighbours and differences with China over South China Sea; third, to make use of global opportunities and regional challenges posed by Indonesia’s membership of the G20; fourth, to evolve a strategy on issues like “climate change, human rights and democracy” and be able to “work closely with our partners such as Norway, Japan, Australia, South Korea and Canada”; fifth, “consolidate its strategic relationship” with “other major powers” like the US, Japan, Australia, South Korea, India, China and the European Union; and finally, be able to provide leadership and impart “substance” to the East Asia Summit that Indonesia will host and chair in October 2011.

Clearly, Indonesia views 2011 as the “coming out” year. Indonesia’s journey from crisis, in 1998-99, to confidence is not very different from India’s own journey up from the depths of 1991-92. Unlike in India’s case, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) treated Indonesia badly during the crisis years and even today the IMF remains a no-no in Indonesian politics. Indonesia has had its own share of Islamic extremism and jehadi terrorism from which it has slowly come out.

President Barack Obama’s visit to Indonesia, after his visit to New Delhi, last November cemented closer relations between the two, making Indonesia one of the few Muslim majority nations where the US is easily welcomed. All of this has imparted great confidence to Indonesian political, intellectual and business leadership.

During my own visits to Jakarta, and interactions with Indonesian strategic policy gurus like the late Hadi Soesastro, the elder statesman Jusuf Wanandi and the rising star Rizal Sukma, I have found a fundamental change in Indonesian attitudes towards the world and towards India. Much of this change in attitude has happened in the more recent past and President Yudhoyono’s visit to New Delhi in 2005 seems to have been an important marker.

As a result, Indian business presence in Indonesia has started rising again after many years of stagnation. Several Indian companies have been present in Indonesia for a long time but in the 1990s, India’s economic relations with Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand improved faster than with Indonesia. That seems to be changing with Indonesia once again attracting Indian business. In 2005, when bilateral trade was a mere $5 billion, the two set a target of $10 billion for the year 2010 but surpassed it with total trade being $12 billion. Now a new target of $15 billion has been set for the year 2015.

India’s spontaneous maritime outreach in December 2004, when the two Indian Ocean nations were hit by the tsunami, opened a new chapter in bilateral maritime and disaster management cooperation. The emerging defence cooperation and growing cooperation in the field of energy security, including nuclear energy, have also contributed to the strategic dimension of an old friendship.

While trade, business and defence are three important legs of a growing re-engagement between ancient civilisational neighbours, the domestic politics of Indonesia has added a new fourth leg that has dramatically stabilised the partnership. This is the growing commitment within Indonesian civil society to human rights, democracy, pluralism and secularism. A wave of middle class pride in democracy has been sweeping through Indonesia. It is this sentiment that the United States has tapped into in re-building bridges with a new Indonesia.

India has an even urgent and greater need to strengthen this aspect of the bilateral relationship. A plural, democratic, secular Indonesia in which a Muslim majority lives in peace with Hindu, Christian and Buddhist minorities is a source of inspiration for all of Asia. The growth of secular Muslim majority nations can reverse the tide of religious extremism and stabilise Asia as it prepares to regain its place in the world.