An ambitious intention

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was invited by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to come on a state visit to India on August 20. In diplomatic protocol a state visit is the highest form of visit of a Head of State or Government to a foreign country.

Each host country follows its own prescribed set of ceremonials and events for such visits. While additional gestures may be done to a guest to demonstrate the importance of a visit, no downward departure can be made in the prescribed ceremonials. The significance of a state visit in the case of Anwar’s Indian trip is being specially noted by this writer because it has come after a difficult period in India-Malaysia bilateral ties caused by the gross insensitivity of former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed towards India.

He had, in 2019, made factually wrong and anti-Indian comments at the United Nations General Assembly on the constitutional changes in Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019. India naturally reacted very strongly to Mahathir’s comments.

Mahathir who is now 99 years old is known for his acerbic views on Western domination of the world. In office and out of it, he considers himself to be the conscience keeper of the developing world. His achievement in becoming Prime Minister for a second time in 2018, when he was almost 93 years old and after a gap of 15 years, was an astonishing political achievement.

That stated, the fact is that in his first term as Prime Minister (1982-2003) India Malaysia relations did not achieve their full potential because of two reasons. The first was that he did not think that India could achieve economic success because of its policies and therefore it really could not offer much to Malaysia. Some of this prejudice continued even after the process of liberalizing the Indian economy began in 1991.

A few projects were awarded by the Mahathir government to Indian companies and India’s import of Palm Oil and export of meat was bilaterally commercially important but Mahathir’s eyes were set on East Asia particularly Japan, China and South Korea. The second reason was his constant attempt at balancing Malaysia’s ties with South Asian countries.

Mahathir’s lack of interest in India was in sharp contrast to the policies of the first Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rehman. His successors were not as committed to the Indian relationship as the Tunku but were conscious of India’s importance.

Mahathir’s successor, once removed, Najib Tun Razak who served as PM from 2009-2018 tried to infuse momentum in the India-Malaysia relationship. It is also true that during his tenure Indian economic potential was becoming translated into reality and the country was making economic progress while maintaining social and political stability. Anwar who has had a tumultuous political career became Prime Minister in 2022. He is seeking to follow in the footsteps of Najib and the Tunku.

It is an interesting sidelight of Malaysian politics that both Anwar and Najib who were Mahathir’s deputy PMs and close to him earned his wrath. Anwar spent, in all, eight years in jail on convictions for sodomy. Najib was sentenced for corruption and sent to jail in 2022. He will remain there till 2028. In another twist, in 2018, Anwar and Mahathir joined hands. They defeated Najib in the 2018 elections and Mahathir became PM. He obtained a Royal pardon for Anwar, enabling him to assume political office again. There is an element of Greek drama in Malaysian politics!

The Modi-Anwar Joint Statement issued on August 20 after the discussions of the two leaders emphasizes their commitment to upgrade bilateral ties from an Enhanced Strategic Partnership which was put in place in 2015 to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. These terms by themselves only indicate intentions. Indeed, the fact is that neither India nor Malaysia formally decided to downgrade their ties after 2019.

Thus on paper, the relationship was still an “Enhanced Strategic Partnership” but the reality became different. Now, the two countries will have to work to develop mechanisms and projects which enable the relationship to become in reality worthy of being called a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership”. Such a bilateral relationship would have to stretch from cooperation in security and defense to commerce and economy and a shared approach to the critical regional and global issues of our times. Paragraph 6 of the Joint Statement is relevant in this context.

It states “Both Prime Ministers held discussions on the entire range of bilateral cooperation including political, defence and security cooperation, economic and trade, digital technologies, start-ups, fintech, energy including renewables, healthcare, higher education, culture, tourism and people-to-people relations”. This is a very ambitious intention and it remains to be seen if the bureaucracies of the two countries and their private sectors will work to realise the Modi-Anwar vision.

During his visit Anwar gave a thoughtful lecture at the Indian Council of World Affairs. It shows—what has been known from his student days---that he has a fine mind. It is clear that he has honed it through the decades (he is now 77 years old) by vast study of a vast corpus of knowledge and by his years in public life and also through undergoing suffering.

In the lecture he displayed an understanding of the thoughts of some of the leaders of the Indian Renaissance, including Vivekananda, Aurobindo and Mahatma Gandhi. He also recalled the “friendship” of Jawaharlal Nehru and the Tunku and their “legacies” that, he said, “resonate” now more than ever. He also showed an awareness of India’s great progress including in the digital field.

It is ironic that in these contentious times in India it takes a foreign leader to remind us of Jawaharlal Nehru’s great legacy.