Republic Day 2025: What Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s Visit Means For India | OPINION

Collectively, ASEAN accounts for 11 percent of India’s total global trade and it is diminutive Singapore, the city-state with which Delhi has the most comprehensive regional partnership, that is India’s largest trading partner.
For two proximate nations whose combined GDP is in excess of $5 trillion, a bilateral trade figure of under $30 billion points to the vast potential for steady growth. Subianto’s visit will thus hopefully prove to be the catalyst.
The only direct connection is from Delhi to Bali, the much-acclaimed tourist island.
India embarked upon its ‘Look East’ policy under the stewardship of then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao in the early 1990s as part of the economic liberalisation that Delhi was compelled to undertake. Since then, India’s ASEAN policy has acquired greater traction.
To his credit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi transmuted this into an ‘Act East’ policy at the 12th India-ASEAN Summit in 2014, and in his first term, Indonesia received visible high-level summit attention.
Historically, the maritime domain lies at the core of the bilateral relationship. The Indian influence in many parts of Southeast Asia, more so in places like Bali, was enabled by this very linkage.
In the modern period, both Widodo and Modi have in their own way sought to highlight the centrality of the oceans in their national strategic framework. This has been differently envisioned. In 2014, President Widodo introduced the concept of Indonesia (the world’s largest archipelagic nation whose 18,000 islands span the Pacific and Indian Oceans) as the critical ‘maritime fulcrum’ in the Indo-Pacific.
A year later, in 2015, PM Modi unveiled his vision of SAGAR (security and growth for all in the Indian Ocean region) and highlighted India’s credibility in the maritime domain. In December 2016, the two nations signed an ambitious ‘Statement on Maritime Cooperation’, which remains a work in progress.