India and France have a very trustworthy relationship, one that’s not come into being recently but been so for many decades. The two nations are now cooperating significantly in the Indian Ocean to protect their interests, counter illegal activities and in ensuring an international rules-based order.
Just like India, France also understands and acknowledges the serious security concerns that China’s expanding clout can create in the Indian Ocean. Not only is it concerned about the massive volume of trade that flows through the Indian Ocean but also about undersea cables, including those in waters off Sri Lanka, which are used for 85% of the worldwide web. Cutting of undersea communications cables can turn into a massive international situation as that would affect business and communications and repairs of the same would take weeks. The focus of the two nations is on not just protecting what floats above the waters but also what’s below.
France has its own interests in the Indian Ocean. It has a possession in the Indian Ocean named Reunion Island. There are about 1.5 million French citizens living on islands in the Indo-Pacific, and it has about 93% of its exclusive economic zone of around 9 million sq. km in the Indo-Pacific. France also has had superpower dreams for decades. This is the reason why it maintains reasonably good terms with Russia and is very close to the US. However, France doesn’t blindly go by everything the US says or does. (Yes, France is a member of NATO but despite that France and Russia together conducted an air campaign against the ISIS which was labelled an ‘unprecedented’ move).
India is one nation that is closing in on superpower status and that can be considered a ‘neutral’ major power of the world. This suits France as aligning closely with India gives France a status of parity and not one of second-rateness that would be the case if its with either the US, Russia or China.
In 2020, the Indian Navy will conduct joint patrols with French frigates in strategic areas such as the Mozambique Channel. Similar patrols and operations will be undertaken in northwestern Indian Ocean, including the Gulf of Aden, and the Strait of Hormuz. A joint amphibious exercise could take place next year off the coast of Goa and a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercise in southern India in 2021. As the French don’t have many naval assets in the Indian Ocean they depend on countries like India, US and Australia for greater coordination.
France has also been quite open about China’s ‘interests’ in the Indian Ocean. Its naval commanders have spoken and raised concerns about China’s planned bases in Hambantota, Gwadar and Djibouti that could have a ‘dual use’ in the future – logistical and military.
To show how much trust France instills in its relations with India, France is desiring to have a secure link for exchange of classified information between its military headquarters in Abu Dhabi and the Indian Navy in Delhi. To have this sort of sharing of information is very rare for a NATO country with a non-NATO country.
A Peak Into the Past
In the 1970s, RA&W collaborated with French intelligence agency SDECE to track US and even Soviet ships in the Indian Ocean. France suggested cooperation with SAVAK, Iran’s intelligence agency, and so RA&W joined hands with SAVAK as well. The trio worked in the following fashion – Funds came from Iran, France bought the necessary equipment, and Indian manpower manned the TECHINT stations to gather information which was shared by all three. The agreement disintegrated when the Shah of Iran was toppled in 1979.
India and France became strategic partners in 1998. France was one of the few nations that did not castigate India post the nuclear tests under the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The Present
India and France are together setting up six nuclear reactors at a 10,000 megawatt nuclear power plant at Jaitapur in Maharashtra. In March last year, France and India signed a logistics agreement that allows both to use each other’s naval bases. France is also deeply involved in manufacturing submarines in India and in modernising our shipyards and other defence platforms. And the Rafale deal obviously is just the starting to a much elevated defence relationship between India and France.
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