Tony Abbott to reach out to India

TONY Abbott will attempt to schedule a visit to India before the G20 summit meeting in ­November in a bid for a much closer relationship.

TONY Abbott will attempt to schedule a visit to India before the G20 summit meeting in ­November in a bid to use the election of Narendra Modi as India’s Prime Minister as a stepping stone for a much closer relationship with New Delhi.

In results declared on Saturday Australian time, Mr Modi won a historic landslide victory in India’s national elections, which saw 550 million people vote in a record turnout.

Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party won a parliamentary ­majority in its own right, the first time any party has done that since 1984. With his coalition partners, he will hold up to 330 seats out of 543 in the Indian Lok Sabha.

The Prime Minister will also invite Mr Modi to make a full bilateral visit to Australia if he comes for the G20.

Such an invitation was also made to the outgoing Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, in association with the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Perth in 2011.

Dr Singh was sounded out about the possibility of addressing a joint sitting of the two houses of parliament in Canberra, if he had come to Australia, and it could be expected that the ­Abbott government would make every effort to provide similar honours for Mr Modi.

No Indian prime minister has visited Australia since Rajiv Gandhi, in 1986.

Dr Singh’s failure to attend CHOGM in Perth was widely interpreted as a snub to the Gillard government because it had a policy of banning uranium exports to India.

The Gillard government later reversed that policy and restored the position under John Howard, who had approved uranium exports for India.

The Abbott government is working towards finalising the uranium export agreement with New Delhi.

This languished under the previous Australian government, but the pre-election paralysis and caution within the Indian bureaucracy also kept movement slow.

Mr Modi’s US visa was ­revoked in 2005 in a belated ­reaction to anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat in 2002, where he was chief minister. Mr Modi was ­officially cleared of any complicity in the riots by the Indian ­Supreme Court.

He had visited Australia before he became Gujarat chief minister and was never denied a visa for Australia.

Many Indians believe that US President Barack Obama has ­neglected his country’s relationship with India, and Mr Abbott is determined not to make the same mistake.

The Australian high commission in New Delhi has delib­erately reached out to Mr Modi over the past three years. This ­combination presents Australia with a historic chance to ­dramatically upgrade relations with India, according to the Australia India Institute’s professor Ambitabh Mattoo, Australia’s foremost expert on Indian politics.

“This is a huge window of opportunity,” Professor Mattoo told The Australian.

“There is a very robust diaspora in the US and Britain, some of which is very left liberal and opposed to Modi, so if he wants a soft landing in the West, Australia is a good place to start.”

Some of the biggest Gujarati industries, notably the Adani Group, are also big investors in Australia.

Mr Modi’s election saw a big jump in the value of the Indian stock exchange.

Economic analysts believe a Modi government will see a substantial rise in Indian economic growth, which could have immense benefits for Australia. He will also tend to restore strategic self-confidence to India and change the Asian power equation with China.

Professor Mattoo also points out that Australia fits into Mr Modi’s overall foreign policy vision, which has a “look east’ emphasis.

Close Modi confidantes believe his first overseas visit will be to Japan, but that he also has close connections with Singapore and Israel.