India, Indonesia and the new architecture of the Global South

The India-Indonesia story is no longer simply about rediscovering an old connection.

Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Modi-Prabowo bilateral at the New Delhi BRICS Summit points to a partnership whose importance is no longer confined to bilateral ties.

India and Indonesia could increasingly help shape how emerging powers cooperate in a changing global order.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the New Delhi BRICS Summit deserves attention beyond the usual diplomatic exchanges.

Indonesia’s arrival as BRICS’ first full member from Southeast Asia has widened the grouping’s geographical reach, while bringing India and Indonesia, two countries of considerable demographic, economic and maritime weight, closer within the same forum.

At a time of growing geopolitical fragmentation, New Delhi and Jakarta share an important instinct: preserving the freedom to engage multiple powers without being confined to rival camps.

That instinct has historical precedent. More than seven decades ago, India and Indonesia were important partners in the 1955 Bandung Conference, which sought to give newly independent Asian and African countries greater agency in international affairs.

Bandung belonged to a different era, but the question it raised remains relevant: how can countries outside traditional centres of power shape global affairs on their own terms?

BRICS is not Bandung recreated, but Indonesia’s entry reconnects two countries that participated in an earlier effort to broaden the international conversation.

Their ties stretch much further back. Centuries of exchange across the Indian Ocean left their imprint on language, literature, religion and architecture across the Indonesian archipelago.

Yet describing this merely as Indian influence misses the more interesting story. Indonesia transformed what reached its shores.

The Ramayana acquired Indonesian forms; Hindu and Buddhist traditions found distinctive expression in Prambanan and Borobudur; Sanskrit-derived vocabulary entered Bahasa Indonesia; and Garuda eventually became an emblem of the republic.

The enduring lesson is not about tracing ownership of cultural traditions, but about how societies can absorb external ideas while retaining identities unmistakably their own.

Today, that historical familiarity is accompanied by a much broader strategic agenda. Defence cooperation attracts headlines, but maritime security, digital technologies, critical minerals, healthcare, agriculture, education, investment and supply chains offer equally important possibilities.

Geography makes closer engagement particularly compelling. India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands lie close to the Indonesian archipelago, while Indonesia occupies a pivotal position between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

The waters between them are arteries of international commerce, making cooperation on maritime security and connectivity relevant not only to governments but also to businesses and households vulnerable to disruptions in energy and supply chains.

Economics offers another measure of how the relationship has evolved.

Around 2013-14, India-Indonesia bilateral trade stood at roughly US$20 billion. By 2024-25, it had risen to about US$28.4 billion, after touching a record US$38.8 billion in 2022-23.

Indonesia today is India’s second-largest trading partner in ASEAN.

The numbers show progress, but also suggest that the economic relationship still has considerable room to grow.

India’s expanding manufacturing base and demand for critical minerals complement Indonesia’s mineral wealth and downstream industrial ambitions, while India’s experience with population-scale digital systems meets one of Southeast Asia’s most dynamic digital economies.

The next phase should therefore move beyond commodity trade towards investment, technology partnerships, value-added manufacturing and stronger business-to-business links.

BRICS gives these convergences a wider platform. Its expanded membership has raised questions about how countries with different political systems and strategic interests can find common ground.

India and Indonesia offer one possible answer. India has long pursued strategic autonomy, while Jakarta’s tradition of free and active foreign policy, similarly emphasises independence in external affairs.

Both maintain relationships across geopolitical divides while seeking stronger representation for developing economies.

Their approach is based not on agreeing with every partner on every question, but on retaining the space to cooperate where interests meet.

Their domestic ambitions provide another area of convergence.

India’s Viksit Bharat 2047 envisions national transformation by the hundredth anniversary of its independence, while Indonesia Emas 2045 looks towards its own centenary with a similarly ambitious development vision.

The more meaningful similarity lies in the challenge confronting both societies: converting national scale into broad-based prosperity across diverse populations and geographies.

This opens room for exchanging experience in infrastructure, skills, food security, healthcare, urbanisation and digital governance.

The significance of the New Delhi meeting, therefore, lies in how many contemporary priorities now intersect.

Maritime security, resilient supply chains, digital transformation, energy transition and reform of global institutions are no longer separate conversations for India and Indonesia. They increasingly form part of the same bilateral agenda.

Bandung once represented the determination of newly independent nations to participate in an international system largely designed elsewhere. Seven decades later, India and Indonesia occupy a very different position.

The task today is not simply to secure a seat in global forums, but to translate their growing economic and political weight into institutions and partnerships capable of delivering practical outcomes.

That is what makes their encounter within BRICS significant. The India-Indonesia story is no longer simply about rediscovering an old connection.

It is about what two increasingly consequential Asian powers choose to build with it.

*) Malika Pandey is a public policy expert with years of experience working across key ministries of the Government of India.

*) The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the ANTARA News Agency