Editorial
Indonesian President H.E. Prabowo Subianto was kind enough to accept India’s invitation to be the Chief Guest for 76th Republic Day celebration of India and grace the occasion. He landed on January 23, 2025 in India and held series of meetings in Hyderabad House with Indian officials to sign number of MoUs and agreement for cooperation in different sectors of each-other’s polity. Indian President Smt. Droupadi Murmu received him on January 25, 2025 and hosted a banquet in his honour. This was President Prabowo’s first state visit to India though he was fourth President of Indonesia to be the Chief Guest on the occasion. He facilitated a 352-member marching and band contingent to participate in the Republic Day event. India reiterated that India and Indonesia shares more than thousand years of civilizational ties and both countries share values such as pluralism, inclusiveness and rule of law which continues to be the foundations of bilateral relations. Thus, their bilateral ties are multi-dimensional continuing since India adopted its constitution. An India-Indonesia Joint Declaration was also done on January 26, 2025 to mark the visit.
Contemporary India too is relevant for Indonesia in number of ways: the vast emerging markets; cultural assets and India’s soft power prowess as recently showcased on number of occasions; India’s growing trade and commerce volumes; India’s growing defence sectors; digital technologies; and India’s ever-expanding space programs, etc are to name a few. Given the geographical proximity of both these countries the economic engagement could be enhanced as their economic structures are also similar in many ways. Thus, the contemporary world and the regional dynamics offer tremendous opportunities to expand bilateral trade and opens vistas for investment in each other’s economic space. Strong presence of Indian Diaspora in Indonesia has been a bridge to build and strengthen friendly ties between both the countries.
Indonesia on the other hand continues to be an important pillar of India’s Act East Policy and Indo-Pacific Vision. Both these countries are part of Indo-Pacific maritime region which has turned out to be hotbed of international politics over recent past
The visit was in complete alignment with India’s aspirations of projecting itself as the voice of global south. Both these countries have been cooperating on number of multilateral platforms including G-20 and ASEAN. Indonesia has recently joined BRICS as permanent member which could be of great advantage to India if bilateral relation strengthens between these two countries. Both these countries became ‘comprehensive strategic partners’ in 2018 when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Indonesia. Since then, both these countries have been working and cooperating closely in different sectors of their polity. Consequently, bilateral trade touched to $29.4 billion in 2023-2024. During Modi’s visit both the countries also adopted the shared vision of India-Indonesia Maritime Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. Prabowo’s visit has further provided boost to the ever expanding bilateral ties
B.K