Brazil–India relations
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Brazil–India relations (
Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
: भारत-ब्राजील संबंध;
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...
: Relações Índia-Brasil), also referred to as Indo-Brazilian relations, are the bilateral relations between
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
and
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. The relations are based on a common global vision, shared democratic values and a commitment to foster inclusive economic growth for the welfare of the people of both countries. Brazil was the first Latin American nation to establish diplomatic relations with India in 1948. The ties were elevated to a strategic partnership in 2006, opening a new phase in the bilateral relations. Both the countries are members of
BRICS BRICS is an acronym for five leading emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The first four were initially grouped as "BRIC" (or "the BRICs") in 2001 by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill, who coined the ter ...
,
G-20 The G20 or Group of Twenty is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the European Union (EU). It works to address major issues related to the global economy, such as international financial stability, climate change mitigation, ...
, IBSA and G4, and aspire for a permanent seat at the
UN Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the Organs of the United Nations, six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international security, international peace and security, recommending the admi ...
. The Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro was the chief guest at the
Republic Day Republic Day is the name of a holiday in several countries to commemorate the day when they became republics. List January 1 January in Slovak Republic The day of creation of Slovak republic. A national holiday since 1993. Officially cal ...
celebrations of India in 2020. According to a 2013
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
World Service Poll, only 16% of Brazilians view India's influence positively. Indian opinion on Brazil is also sharply divided, with 20% viewing Brazil positively and 18% viewing Brazil negatively.


History

India's links with Brazil go back five centuries.
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
’s Pedro Alvares Cabral is officially recognised as the first European to “discover” Brazil in 1500. Cabral was sent to India by the King of Portugal after the return of Vasco da Gama from his pioneering journey to India. Cabral is reported to have been blown off course on his way to India. Brazil became an important Colonial Brazil, Portuguese colony and stop-over in the long journey to Goa. This Portuguese connexion led to the exchange of several agricultural crops between India and Brazil in the colonial days. Indian cattle was also imported to Brazil. Most of the cattle in Brazil is of Indian origin. Diplomatic relations between India and Brazil were established in 1948. The Indian Embassy opened in Rio de Janeiro on May 3, 1948, moving to Brasília on August 1, 1971. One of the major sources of tension between the two nations was the decolonisation process of the Portuguese enclaves in India, principally Goa. Despite pressure from India on Portugal to retreat from the subcontinent, Brazil supported Portugal's claim for Goa. Brazil only changed course in 1961, when it became increasingly clear that India would succeed in taking control of Goa by force from an increasingly feeble Portugal, which faced too many internal problems to pose a potent military threat to India. Still, when Nehru's armies overwhelmed Portuguese resistance and occupied Goa, the Brazilian government criticised India sharply for violating international law. While Brazil tried to explain to India that its position was to be understood in the context of a long tradition of friendship between Brazil and Portugal, the Indian government was deeply disappointed that Brazil, a democratic and a former colony, would support a non-democratic Portugal against democratic and recently independent India. During the Portuguese Empire, chili pepper, chillis were traded from the New World to India and cows were sent the other way, amongst other trades. In 2009, Brazil approved the sale of 100 MAR-1 anti-radiation missiles to Pakistan despite
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
's pressure on Brazil not to do so. Brazil's Ministry of Defence (Brazil), Defense Minister Nelson Jobim called these missiles "very effective ways to monitor" areas flown by war planes, and said the deal with Pakistan was worth 85 million euros (167.6 million dollars). He dismissed protests by India. "Brazil negotiates with Pakistan, not with terrorists," Mr Jobim said. "To cancel this deal would be to attribute terrorist activities to the Pakistani Government."


Cultural relations

A successful ''Festival of India'' was organised during the visit of President K. R. Narayanan, K.R. Narayanan to Brazil in May 1998. There is also a presence of ISKCON, Satya Sai Baba, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Bhakti Vedanta Foundation and other Indian spiritual gurus and organisations have chapters in Brazil. A statue of Mohandas Gandhi is located near the Parque Ibirapuera at São Paulo and another statue is also at Rio de Janeiro. A group called the Filhos de Gandhi (Sons of Gandhi) participates regularly in the Brazilian Carnival, carnival in Salvador, Bahia, Salvador. Private Brazilian organisations occasionally invite Indian cultural troupes. Caminho das Índias, a popular telenovela in Brazil aired in 2009, popularised Indian culture in Brazil. Books about India started to pop up on the best-selling list, the number of travels to India by Brazilians tourists increased dramatically and restaurants and even nightclubs with Indian themes starting to open.


Economic relations

More recently, Brazil and India have co-operated in the multilateralism, multilateral level on issues such as international trade and development, environment, reform of the United Nations, UN and the Reform of the United Nations Security Council, UNSC expansion. The two-way trade in 2007 nearly tripled to US$3.12 billion from US$1.2 billion in 2004. In 2016, trade between the two nations had increased to US$5.64 billion. Global software giant, Wipro Technologies, also set up a business process outsourcing centre in Curitiba to provide shared services to AmBev, the largest brewery in Latin America. AmBev's zonal vice president, Renato Nahas Batista, said "We are honoured to be a part of Wipro's expansion plans in Brazil and Latin America." AmBev's 1 portfolio includes leading brands like Brahma, Becks, Stella and Antarctica.


21st century relations


UNSC reform

Both countries want the participation of developing countries in the United Nations Security Council, UNSC permanent membership since the underlying philosophy for both of them are: UNSC should be more democratic, legitimate and representative - the G4 is a novel grouping for this realisation.


South-South cooperation

Brazil and India are involved in the IBSA initiative. The first ever IBSA Summit was held in Brasília in September 2006, followed by the Second IBSA Summit held in Pretoria in October 2007, with the third one held in New Delhi in October 2008. The 2010 IBSA summit, fourth IBSA meet was again hosted in Brasília, just before the 2010 BRIC summit, second BRIC summit. Four IBSA Trilateral Commission meetings were already held till 2007 since the first one was held in 2004 and had covered many areas such as science, technology, education, agriculture, energy, culture, health, social issues, public administration and revenue administration. The target of U.S. dollar, US$10 billion in trade was already achieved by 2007. Both countries view this as a tool of ''transformation diplomacy'' to bring economic growth, sustainable development, poverty reduction and regional prosperity in the vast regions of Latin America, Africa and Asia. The IBSA Fund for Alleviation of Poverty and Hunger has already provided funds for capacity building in East Timor and for the fight against HIV/AIDS in Burundi and has won the South-South Partnership Award at the 2006 UN Day event held in New York City on 19 December 2006.


Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 2014 trip

In July 2014, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Brazil for his first multilateral visit, the 6th BRICS summit was held at the north-eastern beach city of Fortaleza. In the Fortaleza summit the group have agreed to establish a financial institution rivaling the Western world, Western-dominated World Bank and IMF, The bank would be named the New Development Bank as suggested by the Indian side but the contributing parties could not come to an agreement to base the bank's headquarters at New Delhi. Later the BRICS leader also attended an event in Brasilia where they met the UNASUR heads of government. At the same time, the Ministry of External Affairs added Spanish to its list of available languages, which the ''Hindustan Times'' read as "indicative of the government's intent to go beyond Europe, Asia and the US to forge diplomatic and trade ties with Latin American nations." He travelled there via Germany.


Bolsonaro administration

Relations between India and Brazil further improved after the election of Jair Bolsonaro as President of Brazil in October 2018. Bolsonaro's administration took similar sceptical stances to India on relations with China, particularly with regards to the Belt and Road Initiative. This culminated in Bolsonaro attending the Delhi Republic Day parade as chief guest in January 2020, along with a delegation of Brazilian officials. During the visit, both Modi and members of the Brazilian delegation such as Ernesto Araújo and Eduardo Bolsonaro stressed the role of ideological ties in the growing relations between the countries, given the shared nationalist outlook of the countries’ respective leaders. Immediately prior to Bolsonaro's visit, the Brazilian Ambassador endorsed the Indian government's stance that the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, 2019 Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir were internal issues for India.


References


Further reading

* Malone, David M., C. Raja Mohan, and Srinath Raghavan, eds. ''The Oxford handbook of Indian foreign policy'' (2015
excerpt
pp 524–538.


External links


The Sino-Brazilian Principles in a Latin American and BRICS Context: The Case for Comparative Public Budgeting Legal Research
''Wisconsin International Law Journal'', 13 May 2015
Embassy of Brazil in India




India, Brazil South Africa Forum {{DEFAULTSORT:Brazil-India Relations Brazil–India relations, Bilateral relations of Brazil, India Bilateral relations of India