India Foreign Policy Thread

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India has demanded "immediate action" against unidentified people who vandalised a statue of independence hero Mahatma Gandhi in London.

The bronze statue in Tavistock Square, unveiled to the public in 1968, was built as a tribute to Gandhi's years as a law student at University College London.

"This is not just vandalism, but a violent attack on the idea of non-violence," the Indian High Commission said in a post on X, calling it "shameful".

It's not clear who is behind the graffiti - police are investigating but have yet to identify any person or group responsible. Cleaning teams were on site power-hosing the statue when the BBC visited.

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The word "Terrorists" was spray-painted in black on the statue's plinth, along with "Gandhi, Modi and Hindustani [Indians]".

The High Commission didn't share photos of the damage, but several accounts on X and Indian media had already shared images showing the graffiti.

The Metropolitan Police and Camden Council authorities had earlier told the Press Trust of India news agency that they were looking into reports of vandalism. The Metropolitan Police told the BBC it would issue a statement soon.

The Indian mission said that its team was also on site, "co-ordinating with authorities to restore the statue to its original dignity".

The incident comes days before the 156th anniversary of Gandhi's birth on 2 October, which is also observed as the International Day of Non-Violence.

The bronze statue, crafted by Polish sculptor Fredda Brilliant in 1968, shows Gandhi wearing robes and sitting cross-legged. An inscription on its plinth reads: Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948.

Gandhi's birthday is usually commemorated at the statue with floral tributes and renditions of his favourite hymns.

This isn't the first instance of Gandhi's statue being defaced in the UK. In 2014, a statue in Leicester was vandalised with graffiti. In recent years, campaigns have been held in some parts of the UK asking for Gandhi's statue to be removed.
Why is BJP angry?? They killed him in the first place......
 
the indians should uproot and take the statue back to New Delhi and perhaps erect it there.......or maybe in modi's home......
 
Well current Indian Govt worship Gandhi's killer so I guess no big deal ?
 
We have many Gandhi statues in South Africa. Streets and buildings named after him as well
 
India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) in the new globalorder: interests, strategies and values of the emerging coalition

Abstract

A question of interest to scholars of International Politics concerns the mannerin which weaker states attempt to influence stronger ones. This article offers acase study of one recent exercise in coalition-building among southern powersas a vehicle for change in international relations. It analyzes the global interests, strategies and values of India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) and the impact of the IBSA Dialogue Forum on the global order. Five major points are outlined. First, common ideas and values shape the global discourse of the emerging coalition. Second, soft balancing based on a value-driven middle power discourse is a suitable concept to explain IBSA’s strategy in global institutions. Third, institutional foreign policy instruments such as agenda-setting and coalition-building are pivotal elements of IBSA’s soft balancing approach. Fourth, the trilateral coalition suffers from considerable divergence of interest in global governance issues and limited potential gains of its sectoral cooperation, particularly in trade, due to a lack of complementarities of the participating economies. Finally, despitethese obstacles the IBSA Forum has impacted the global order in recent years as a powerful driver for change. India, Brazil and South Africa have contributed to an incremental global power shift in their favour. The southern coalition also induced a change in the character of multilateralism and, in particular, its procedural values. :coffee:

Key words
India, Brazil, South Africa, IBSA Dialogue Forum, soft balancing, global order, global governance and multilateralism 👍

IBSA : Origin in the Context of a Shifting World Order

States playing a leading international role in rule-making are given specialimportance as far as the treatment of transnational problems is concerned. Thisapplies to questions of world trade as well as to transnational security risks.Attempts to solve problems under these policies can be organized both at theregional and global levels. In both cases, some state actors play a more importantrole than others in developing cooperation and negotiation processes and have,therefore, more influence on the results. The reason can be their greater militaryor economic potential. In the same way, their legitimacy, diplomatic effectiveness,moral authority as well as their representative function for a region or group ofstates might generate advantages in international bargaining.Recently, many studies have pointed to global power shifts in favour of theBRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and other rising powers (Cooper andAntkeiwicz 2008; Goldman Sachs 2007; Mahbubani 2008). Hitherto existingpower poles in Europe and North America are expected to lose relative militaryand economic power, and even the dominance of Western culture and values iscontested (Cox 2007; Ikenberry 2008; Zakaria 2008). The India-Brazil-SouthAfrica (IBSA) Dialogue Forum is a coalition of emerging powers intended tobenefit from the global power shifts. It was launched in June 2003 in Brasilia.Three months later, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, PresidentThabo Mbeki of South Africa and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayeeformed the Group of Three (G-3) during the fifty-eighth UN General Assemblysession and contributed crucially to the failure of the World Trade Organization(WTO) Conference in Cancun by pressing for fundamental changes in the agricultural subsidies regimes of the developed world. After several ministerial meetings, President da Silva, President Mbeki and Prime Minister Manmohan Singhheld the first IBSA Summit in Brasilia in September 2006. The three governmentscoordinated their standpoints and voting behaviour in the Non-Aligned Movement(NAM) conference in Havana and the sixty-first UN General Assembly session,where South Africa was elected a non-permanent member of the UN SecurityCouncil (2007–08) for the first time. Since then, IBSA has held regular ministerial meetings and heads of government summits in Pretoria (2007), New Delhi(2008) and Brasilia (2010). ☕

A quick glance at IBSA’s schedule highlights the strengthening of diplomatic ties between the three emerging southern powers over the last few years. ☕ Together ,India, Brazil and South Africa lobby for reforms at the United Nations that allows for a stronger role for developing countries, which constitute the majority of theUN member-states. Nevertheless, the troika is not envisaging an alternative world order that privileges the developing world. Its initiative is instead firmly located in the existing international order, as the Brasilia Declaration1 suggests: ‘Respecting the rule of international law, strengthening the United Nations and the Security Council and prioritizing the exercise of diplomacy as means to maintain international peace and security’.

While the IBSA initiative may thus be seen as an effort to increase the bargaining power of developing nations, it equally focuses on concrete areas of cooperation between South Africa, India and Brazil. Trade, energy security, health andtransport are the most prominent issues of IBSA’s sectoral collaboration. IBSA can therefore be characterized as both a strategic alliance for the pursuit of common interests of developing countries in global institutions and a platform for bilateral, trilateral and interregional South–South cooperation. Sectoral cooperation will form a sound base for trilateral diplomacy in world affairs. How does and will the emerging coalition’s diplomacy impact the global order?Different scenarios of the future world order have been suggested: the systemic transformation can open out into a concert or cartel of powers (Kagan 2008), a‘non-polar world’ (Haass 2008), ‘unstable multipolarity’ (Humphrey and Messner2006), ‘multi-multipolarity’ (Friedberg 1994; Nolte 2008) or a ‘multi regional world order’ (Flemes 2008; Hurrell 2007). The point of departure is the current global order, which reflects a mixture of a concert of great powers and multi regional structures. It consists, on the one hand, of Europe as a relatively functional regionand, on the other, of many great powers without functional regions, such as the United States, China, Russia and India. Brazil and South Africa are now at crossroads and can actively pursue global strategies with or without their regions. The choices and strategies of Brazilian and South African foreign policy-makers can affect the balance between the aforementioned conceptions of global order.

The positions of emerging powers from the South (on the one hand, between the centre and the periphery of the current global order and, on the other, at the nexus of international and regional politics) demand particularly complex foreign policy strategies. Strategic approaches have to consider at least three contextual factors: first, the continuing superiority of established (the United States) and emerging (China) global actors in terms of material power; second, the fact that regional and global affairs are increasingly interrelated; and finally, the fact that foreign policy strategies are mapped out against the background of an international system moving from a unipolar to a multipolar order.

On the basis of these observations, the article, first, highlights the common ideas and values shaping IBSA’s global discourse; second, it addresses the foreign policy strategies pursued by IBSA; third, it reveals the common and divergent interests of the three players in global governance and sectoral cooperation; and finally, it analyzes the impact of IBSA’s policies on the global order. 👍
🇮🇳

 
@Indos

The IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) Dialogue Forum is a coalition of three major developing democracies from different continents, focusing on South-South cooperation and shared global concerns. In 2025, IBSA has been active with events like a Ministerial Commission meeting in September on the sidelines of the UNGA and an IBSA Fund side event at the July High-Level Political Forum, highlighting its role in poverty and hunger alleviation through development projects. The group also explores strategic areas like climate and energy, and recently formed the 'IBSA+Indonesia' coalition to foster collaboration. 👍

Key Initiatives in 2025
  • IBSA Trilateral Ministerial Commission Meeting (September 2025):
    The Foreign Ministers of India, Brazil, and South Africa met in New York to discuss various issues on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

  • IBSA Fund at the High-Level Political Forum (July 2025):
    The IBSA Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation (IBSA Fund) was highlighted at the 2025 High-Level Political Forum as a key platform for South-South cooperation in delivering sustainable development results.

  • IBSA+Indonesia Coalition (August 2025): 👍
    The World Economic Forum discussed the formation of the "IBSA+Indonesia" coalition, focusing on leading in climate and energy, and promoting peer learning and technology development.
Purpose and Focus
  • South-South Cooperation:
    IBSA serves as a platform for cooperation among developing nations, strengthening ties between Asia, Africa, and South America.

  • Sustainable Development:
    The Forum and its associated IBSA Fund are crucial in promoting best practices and accelerating progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

  • Addressing Global Challenges:
    IBSA provides a forum for its member countries to discuss and coordinate approaches to a range of global issues, including climate change and economic development.

  • 🇮🇳
 

G4 Ministerial Joint Press Statement on the reform of the UN Security Council​

Ministry of External Affairs, Government of IndiaMinistry of External Affairs Government of India

On 23 September 2024, the Foreign Ministers of the "Group of Four” countries, H.E. Mr. Mauro Vieira, Foreign Minister of Brazil, H.E. Ms. Annalena Baerbock, Federal Foreign Minister of Germany, H.E. Mr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs of India and H.E. Ms. Yoko Kamikawa, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, met on the margins of the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly to assess the state of play and discuss prospects for a reform of the United Nations Security Council.

2. The G4 Ministers noted the current significant challenges to the multilateral system with the United Nations at its core. They stressed that a comprehensive reform of the Security Council is an essential part of any endeavor to make the United Nations better reflect contemporary geopolitical realities and thus fit for the present and future. They welcomed the "Summit of the Future” on 22 and 23 September 2024, where world leaders strongly called for urgent reform of the Security Council.

3. In this regard, the Ministers of Germany, India and Japan also welcomed Brazil’s initiative of launching a Call to Action on Global Governance Reform in the context of the Brazilian Presidency of the G20. They stressed the importance of transforming global governance and emphasized that discussions on reform of the UN Security Council remain a top priority following the "Summit of the Future”.

4. The G4 Ministers reiterated their call for the expansion of the UN Security Council in both permanent and non-permanent categories of membership, which has been supported by a significant number of Member States throughout the negotiation process, in order to increase the Council’s legitimacy and ensure its effectiveness. They agreed on the need to enhance the role and participation of developing countries, and those significantly contributing to international peace and security, in the Security Council, in both membership categories. In this vein, they also stressed the importance of an improved representation of under-represented and unrepresented groups and regions, such as Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean, in both membership categories. Ministers reaffirmed their strong support to the Common African Position (CAP) as enshrined in the Ezulwini Consensus and the Sirte Declaration.

5. Reviewing the work of the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly, the G4 Ministers positively noted the efforts by the Co-Chairs of the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) including multiple rounds of debates on reform models proposed by States and Groups as a concrete step closer towards reform. At the same time, the G4 Ministers voiced strong concern over the persistent absence of substantial progress in the IGN and underlined the urgent need to begin text-based negotiations. In this context, the G4 Ministers welcomed the recent increase of support of text-based negotiations. They noted the importance of the IGN’s adherence to the decision-making requirements and working methods laid out in the Charter of the United Nations and the rules and procedures of the General Assembly. They looked forward to engaging in further model discussions, including collective effort to develop a consolidated model.

6. Looking forward to the upcoming 80th anniversary of the United Nations in 2025, the G4 Ministers underscored the urgency of the reform of the Security Council, as well as their strong dedication to this goal. To this end, they urged the international community to engage wholeheartedly in these efforts during the 79th UN General Assembly, and agreed to further reach out to, and work in good faith with, the wider UN-membership to advance the issue. They concurred on continuing to discuss current UN-related issues, including those in the Security Council.

7. The G4 Ministers reiterated their support for each other’s candidatures as aspiring new permanent members in a reformed Security Council.

 
@Indos

The G4 refers to Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan, nations pushing for permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council. Indonesia, while a significant country with a history of UN involvement and a commitment to its principles, is not a G4 member and its main claim is to increase the role of developing nations in the UNSC, not to join the G4's push for permanent status. Indonesia also has claims related to UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea), as shown in a note from the Permanent Mission of Indonesia to the United Nations in 2020 regarding its maritime boundaries. There is also the term "G4" that refers to "General Service and related categories" of UN contracts, which are a source of employment for Indonesian nationals.

The G4 and UN Security Council Reform
  • The G4 countries (Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan) advocate for greater representation in the UN Security Council (UNSC).

  • They support each other's bids for permanent membership on the UNSC, whose current structure reflects post-World War II realities and not today's balance of power.

  • Indonesia is not part of the G4, but it has supported calls to enhance the role of developing countries in the UNSC.
Indonesia's Role and Claims in the UN
  • Indonesia is a strong supporter of UN peacekeeping efforts and has offered troops for missions in Gaza and other conflict zones.

  • It has historically been a strong advocate for the UN's ability to deliver justice and support for developing nations, as shown by its increased support for social and economic justice in the world.

  • Indonesia is actively involved in the UN system, with its country results report in 2024 highlighting its work with the UN on sustainable development goals.
Other meanings of "G4"
  • "G4" also refers to General Service and related categories of UN contracts, which are a source of employment for Indonesian nationals.

  • It may also refer to various claims related to UNCLOS, which governs the law of the sea.

  • In summary, both G4 countries and Indonesia have different roles to play in the United Nations' activities and missions
 
@Indos
@Fatman17

good day gentlemen

further to my last post#135, we support Indonesia in place of Japan in G4. :)

yes, the Germany/Japan were World War 2 losers, and hence the winners France-Britain could get place, not Germany-Japan........

the US-China-SU/Russia were representing their continents, and hence we have India-Brazil in G4.
even the Germany, as NATO member is no reliable for us as a opposition of NATO, similar to Japan :)

we usually see support in our newspapers for Nigeria in place of South Africa for permanent seat of UNSC. :coffee:

and similarly of favorite is Indonesia in place of Japan in G4 👍
🇮🇳
 

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