Brazil–India relations

History

India’s links with Brazil go back five centuries. Portugal’s Pedro Alvares Cabral is officially recognized as the first European to “discover” Brazil in 1500. Cabral was sent to India by the King of Portugal after the return of Vasco da Gama from his pioneering journey to India. Cabral is reported to have been blown-off course on his way to India. Brazil became an important Portuguese colony and stop-over in the long journey to Goa. This Portuguese connection led to the exchange of several agricultural crops between India and Brazil in the colonial days. Indian cattle was also imported to Brazil. Most of the cattle in Brazil is of Indian origin.

Diplomatic relations between India and Brazil were established in 1948. The Indian Embassy opened in Rio de Janeiro on May 3, 1948, moving to Brasília on August 1, 1971.

One of the major sources of tension between the two nations was the decolonization process of the Portuguese enclaves in India, principally Goa. Despite pressure from India on Portugal to retreat from the subcontinent, Brazil supported Portugal’s claim for Goa. Brazil only changed course in 1961, when it became increasingly clear that India would succeed in taking control of Goa by force from an increasingly feeble Portugal, which faced too many internal problems to pose a potent military threat to India. Still, when Nehru’s armies overwhelmed Portuguese resistance and occupied Goa, the Brazilian government criticized India sharply for violating international law. While Brazil tried to explain to India that its position was to be understood in the context of a long tradition of friendship between Brazil and Portugal, the Indian government was deeply disappointed that Brazil, a democratic and a former colony, would support a non-democratic Portugal against democratic and recently independent India.

During the Portuguese Empire, chillis were traded from the New World to India and cows were sent the other way, amongst other trades.

Cultural relations

A successful Festival of India was organised during the visit of President K.R. Narayanan to Brazil in May 1998. There is also a presence of ISKCON, Satya Sai Baba, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Bhakti Vedanta Foundation and other Indian spiritual gurus and organisations have chapters in Brazil.

A statue of Mohandas Gandhi is located near the Parque Ibirapuera at São Paulo and another statue is also at Rio de Janeiro. A group called the Filhos de Gandhi (Sons of Gandhi) participates regularly in the carnival in Salvador. Private Brazilian organisations occasionally invite Indian cultural troupes.

Caminho das Índias, a popular telenovela in Brazil aired in 2009, popularised Indian culture in Brazil. Books about India started to pop up on the best-selling list, the number of travels to India by Brazilians tourists increased dramatically and restaurants and even nightclubs with Indian themes starting to open.

Economic relations

In recent years, relations between Brazil and India have grown considerably and co-operation between the two countries has been extended to such diverse areas as science and technology, pharmaceuticals and space. The two-way trade in 2007 nearly tripled to US$3.12 billion from US$1.2 billion in 2004.

Global software giant, Wipro Technologies, also set up a business process outsourcing centre in Curitiba to provide shared services to AmBev, the largest brewery in Latin America. AmBev's zonal vice president, Renato Nahas Batista, said "We are honoured to be a part of Wipro's expansion plans in Brazil and Latin America." AmBev's portfolio includes leading brands like Brahma, Becks, Stella and Antarctica.

UNSC reform

Both countries want the participation of developing countries in the UNSC permanent membership since the underlying philosophy for both of them are: UNSC should be more democratic, legitimate and representative - the G4 is a novel grouping for this realisation.

South-South cooperation

Brazil and India are involved in the IBSA initiative.

The first ever IBSA Summit was held in Brasília in September 2006, followed by the Second IBSA Summit held in Pretoria in October 2007, with the third one held in New Delhi in October 2008. The fourth IBSA meet was again hosted in Brasília, just before the second BRIC summit. Four IBSA Trilateral Commission meetings were already held till 2007 since the first one was held in 2004 and had covered many areas such as science, technology, education, agriculture, energy, culture, health, social issues, public administration and revenue administration. The target of US$10 billion in trade was already achieved by 2007.

Both countries view this as a tool of transformation diplomacy to bring economic growth, sustainable development, poverty reduction and regional prosperity in the vast regions of Latin America, Africa and Asia. The IBSA Fund for Alleviation of Poverty and Hunger has already provided funds for capacity building in East Timor and for the fight against HIV/AIDS in Burundi and has won the South-South Partnership Award at the 2006 UN Day event held in New York City on 19 December 2006.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 2014 trip

In July 2014, he visited Brazil for his first multilateral visit, the 6th BRICS summit was held at the north-eastern beach city of Fortaleza. In the Fortaleza summit the group have agreed to establish a financial institution rivaling the Western-dominated World Bank and IMF, The bank would be named the New Development Bank as suggested by the Indian side but the Modi government failed to bag the bank's headquarters for New Delhi. Later the BRICS leader also attended an event in Brasilia where they met the UNASUR heads of government. At the same time, the Ministry of External Affairs added Spanish to its list of available languages, which the Hindustan Times read as "indicative of the government's intent to go beyond Europe, Asia and the US to forge diplomatic and trade ties with Latin American nations." He travelled there via Germany.