Bengaluru's gain in Australia's rush to India

Morrison announced a new Consulate-General in Bengaluru, and the city also hosts a new India-Australia Centre of Excellence for Critical and Emerging Technology Policy

From the Australian end, this was a frantic week in the burgeoning Australia-India relationship.

The virtual summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison was heralded as a great triumph as the pair agreed to developments across a dizzying array of disciplines: climate, defence, cyber, trade, taxation, energy, tourism, space, security and regional cooperation among them.

Some of those gained piquancy with news from the Pacific that China will likely establish what could become a People's Liberation Army base in the Solomon Islands, a touch away from Papua New Guinea off the Northeast Australian coast.

China's lifted Pacific presence has stirred much of this new Canberra enthusiasm for India, with a looming federal election, the American decline, challenging global economics and the Ukraine conflict all contributing to what some long-time observers see as an unseemly rush to Delhi.

Also Read: PM Modi thanks Australia for returning stolen artefacts

But Bengaluru now benefits particularly. Prime Minister Morrison announced Australia would open a new Consulate-General in the high tech hub, and even more significantly announced the city would also host a new India-Australia Centre of Excellence for Critical and Emerging Technology Policy.

The Australian government scarcely has such a body at home; most tech entrepreneurs having to go overseas to be successful, like software behemoth Atlassian. So the recognition that India and Bengaluru hold keys to the future is a major change in Australian strategic thinking, putting more substance into what has often been a "froth and bubbles" relationship commitment.

That new technology policy links directly to education and should draw upon the IITs, especially South India. That will strengthen Australia's STEM effort at a time when scientists there have bemoaned the slow take-up of the disciplines by Australian students.

Given that, there was no surprise in Morrison's other major announcement of a renewed Australian effort to mutually recognise university and skills qualifications with India. Australia's shortages here are manifest: almost all the National Broadband Network technicians who come to my house have trained in India. These new agreements should increase their presence.

Two days after that Modi-Morrison Summit, Manpreet Vohra, India's impressive High Commissioner to Australia, launched a Perth USAsia Centre publication advocating an investment-led relationship between India and Australia.

The High Commissioner pointed out that while other major and minor countries were investing heavily in India, Australia lagged noticeably. He put that down to a lack of understanding about the "new" India and an abiding Australian corporate elite view of India as a "hard place to do business".

Others, me included, lamented Australian higher education's declining expertise on India's history and culture. The BJP's recent electoral victories went almost unnoticed in the Australian press. In part that results from a lack of education - Perth was once a notable global centre for studying modern India, but interacting reasons like lack of government interest and higher education funding policies squeezed that out.

Which is the point where another Morrison announcement was important. He committed $A28 million to establish a Centre for India-Australia Relations, which, among other things, will work closely with the Australian Indian diaspora to further strengthen relations.

That is complicated, of course, because much of that diaspora comprises people of Indian descent from South Africa, Fiji, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and elsewhere.

We recently attended the wedding for the daughter of Indian friends in Melbourne who came from Durban years ago to become professionally successful. The two hundred people there were mostly like them, from all over the world.

The marriage celebrant priest was originally a South African Jew who trained in places like Tirupati and elsewhere. It was a sublimely moving and striking ceremony that underlined just how much Australia needs to learn about globalisation and India's role in that.

Education is the key, as it is for the room elephant that scarcely rated a mention through this week, India's role in the Quad. How else can that be understood other than from a close knowledge of India's post-Independence history.

So that education should start with the new Centre, but Australia is already debating its precise location. Early reports put it somewhere on the east coast, but logically it should be in Perth, right on the Indian Ocean rim and a much shorter journey to, say, Chennai or Bengaluru. And there is a Kannada Sangha in Perth.

After all, Western Australia already has a formalised relationship with Andhra Pradesh, and its new trade ambassador to India and the Gulf is of Indian descent. Expect a lot more activity over the coming months.

(Emeritus Professor Brian Stoddart is a former Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University in Australia. Among his published books is Land, Water, Language & Politics in Andhra: Regional Evolution in India Since 1850.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.

Watch the latest DH Videos here: