Why Latin America Loves India And Vice Versa

The warmth and respect for India were evident wherever I went and noticed how most Latin Americans have Indian gurus either directly or online and yoga was very much in vogue, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.

Kerala has a romantic linkage with Latin America, which defies all affinities of proximity, culture, language, music, trade, migration and even politics.

Therefore, the Kerala chief minister recently chose to fly to Cuba straight from a visit to New York aimed at inviting US businesses to India, ignoring the sensitivities in US-Cuba relations.

Similarly, the Kerala government announced last year that it would support the only full-fledged Latin American Centre in India.

According to Ambassador R Viswanathan, one of the foremost Latin American experts, "Malayalees have a special fascination for Latin America with their Triple M interests: Marquez, Maradona and Marx."

The Latin American country I visited most was Cuba because Fidel Castro became the chairman of the Nonaligned Movement when I was posted in New York as the point person of NAM.

Even before New York, I was attached to the then minister of external affairs, Shyam Nandan Mishra, who led the Indian delegation to the Havana summit of NAM.

In the next three years, I made frequent visits to Havana with various delegations.

I had also occasion to visit other countries in Latin America such as Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Guatemala, Colombia and others on several diplomatic errands, the most important being to canvass votes against a resolution on Jammu and Kashmir proposed by Pakistan in the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

I was also a member of the Antarctic Treaty meetings, which met in Latin America occasionally.

The warmth and respect for India were evident wherever I went and noticed how most Latin Americans have Indian gurus either directly or online and yoga was very much in vogue. Indian cuisine was easy to find.

Cuba, most of all, had considered India a natural ally as the Soviets did and worked with India closely as one of the 'Gang of Four', together with Yugoslavia and Algeria to maintain some balance in the NAM, even while being criticised by the US as pro-Soviet.

At the NAM summit, where I saw Fidel Castro in action for the first time, we had a problem of protocol as the Indian delegation was led only by a minister and this was the first summit without the presence of the Indian prime minister.

Our minister kept working on his speech, expecting to be called early in the debate, but he was not called even after two days of the conference.

He was agitated and he had an encounter with Castro in the conference hall and complained bitterly that India had not been called to speak.

Castro patiently explained to him that the heads of State and government had to speak first and so the minister had to wait.

But the minister insisted that as a founder member of NAM and a big country, India should have priority.

Castro walked away, but he called the minister to his chamber to appease him and even offered to make him chairman of one of the sessions.

Castro handled the situation delicately and with respect, but stuck to the established protocol.

Castro broke protocol at NAM's New Delhi summitwhen he tried to hug Indira Gandhi, while handing over the conference gavel to her. She moved back, but he managed a bear hug nevertheless.

The press made a hue and cry that Indian tradition was not respected.

Castro innocently asked them what else the Indians would do when they greet their sisters.

The big issue at the conference was a proposal to expel Egypt from NAM on account of Egypt signing the Camp David Accords to become the first Arab country to recognise Israel.

Castro would have supported the Arabs, but he joined with India, Yugoslavia and Algeria to oppose expulsion of Egypt and in the process, gained some goodwill from the Americans.

Castro's prediction 45 years ago that 'the US will come and talk to us when it has a black President and the world has a Latin American Pope' came true when President Barack Obama made a feeble attempt to normalise relations with Cuba."

Though some Americans welcomed the idea of Cuban cigars and Havana rum being available in the US, the normalisation did not last long as Castro did not trust the Americans.

The love-hate relationship continues. Cuban intellectuals have much in common with the Americans and Cuban diplomats are at home negotiating with the Americans.

Castro had become a fan of the Gurkhas after the Malvinas (Falklands) war at which the Gurkhas killed the Argentine soldiers one by one with their khukris.

When an Indian delegation called on Castro, he had many books on the Gurkhas on his table. He showed us those books and sought detailed information from us.

Finally, he heaved a sigh and said that if only he had a thousand of them, he could have taught his neighbour a lesson.

Once, several Latin Americans, including Cuba, co-sponsored a resolution in the UN General Assembly to mark an anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the region, but it had to be withdrawn as the Africans pointed out that this was glorification of colonialism.

Cuba was a champion of the resolution and we had agreed to support it because, after all, Columbus had come looking for India!

US policy on Cuba and the rest of Latin America is dictated by Cuban exiles who have important positions in the US Senate and Congress.

Once a US congressman of Cuban origin asked me in his chamber as to why India was friendly with Cuba even after the Cold War.

I gave him an honest answer that, as members of NAM, we had certain affinities with Cuba and that we do not abandon our friends.

He was very angry about this and spread the word on the Hill that Indian diplomats were pro-Cuban. But when it came to the proposal to erect a Gandhi statue in front of our embassy in Washington, the biggest support to us came from the Cuban Americans.

It is a matter of history that the world came close to a nuclear war in 1962 when the Americans gave the Soviet Union an ultimatum to pull out nuclear warheads from Cuba.

It was at the last moment that the two leaders held back when each was told by their advisers that they could not guarantee that an enemy bomb would not strike them.

Latin American diplomats, enamored by history, Indian art and culture, are very active and friendly in promoting relations with India.

Octavio Paz, the Nobel winning Mexican poet, was posted twice in New Delhi, first as a young diplomat and later as ambassador.

Pablo Neruda, the Chilean Nobel Laureate poet and diplomat, is much revered in India.

Indian links with Latin America are strong and recently trade, sports, economic relations and cultural interactions have also been flourishing despite the distance and the politics.

India's relations with Cuba was an irritant in India-US relations during the Cold War, but one day it may become another reason for greater cooperation between India and the Americas.

Ambassador T P Sreenivasan is a long-time contributor to Rediff.com.
You can read his earlier columns here.
This is from a distinguished lecture delivered at a conference on Latin America at Kerala University.

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com