INDIA AND NEW ZEALAND:

a sixty-year roller coaster

Sekhar Bandyopadhyay
reviews the evolution
of New ZealandIndia
relations.

istorically relations between New Zealand and India go back to the time when
both were parts of the same British Empire.
Within this imperial structure of exchange,
consumer goods from India such as
rum, tobacco, tea, rice and curry powder
regularly found their way into New Zealand markets in the 19th century, and New
Zealand timber was shipped off to India to
pay for these imports. By the early 20th century many New Zealanders regarded India
as a prized possession of the British Empire.
And the dominant ideology of that empire
also shaped their attitudes to India and the
Indians, who were regarded as distant and
civilisationally inferior members of the imperial family, still needing the enlightening
touch of the Raj! This explains why restrictions were put on their free entry into this
white settlement colony. However, it was
also this imperial connection that shaped
the Indo-New Zealand relationship after
India achieved independence in 1947, as
the Commonwealth now became the bond
between the two countries.
This relationship was not without its
initial tension. As India came out of the
empire New Zealand Prime Minister Peter
Fraser welcomed the new nation, and persuaded Jawaharlal Nehru to remain in the
Commonwealth. Nehru agreed; but his
countrymen did not like dominion status
and India decided to move towards becoming a republic. Fraser felt uncomfortable
Sekhar Bandyopadhyay lectures
in the School of History and
International Relations at Victoria
University of Wellington. This article
is the edited text of an address he
gave at the NZIIAs seminar on
IndiaNew Zealand relations in
Wellington on 29 March 2007.
Readers wanting the full references
for this article should contact the
editor.

10
Jul-Aug issue.indd 10

Jawaharlal Nehru

Peter Fraser

with the idea, as he believed that the presence of a republican India would weaken
the traditional bonds of the Commonwealth. Therefore, at the Commonwealth
conference of 1949, when London was
prepared to bend the rules to accommodate
a republican India in the Commonwealth,
it was only Fraser who opposed the move.
However, when this opposition failed, he
accepted the change in the structure of the
Commonwealth and subsequently had
good relations with Nehru.
But after Fraser, when a National government came into power, it had much less
sympathy for a socialist India under Nehruvian leadership. Moreover, although New
Zealand valued the Commonwealth, the
growing self-assertion of the New Commonwealth remained an irritant. Nehrus
policy of non-alignment was neither understood nor appreciated in New Zealand,
which was gradually moving towards the
anti-communist camp under the leadership
of the United States, ultimately signing the
ANZUS treaty in 1951. Particularly in
195051, during the Korean War, Nehrus
policies came under criticism, as India, unlike some other Commonwealth countries,
refused to be involved as a belligerent in
this conflict. New Zealands adherence to
the Colombo Plan and her ambivalent attitudes to the Bandung conference of the
non-aligned nations in 1955 revealed her
fear of communism and suspicion of the

non-aligned movement. Yet New Zealand

never completely gave up on India or Asia.
The situation improved with a Labour
Prime Minister, Walter Nash, in office
(195760). Asia once again figured prominently in New Zealand foreign policy.
Although Nashs attention was occupied
more by South-east Asia, he maintained a
warm friendship with Jawaharlal Nehru,
visited New Delhi in 1958, and contributed $1 million for the foundation of the All
India Medical Institute. But before these
Walter Nash

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overtures could go further, India became

embroiled in two wars one with China
in 1962 and the other with Pakistan in
1965. New Zealands anti-communist position led her to lend support to India during her China war, and this was gratefully
acknowledged by Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi, when she visited New Zealand on
2729 May 1968. However, it was not until
Norman Kirks tenure as the Labour Prime
Minister (197274) that New ZealandIndia relations acquired any substance.
Warm welcome
In December 1973 Kirk embarked on an
Asian tour, which included Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, India and Bangladesh.
On 27 December 1973 he arrived in India on a five-day state visit and was given
an extraordinarily warm welcome. I have
not said or done anything to deserve this,
Kirk wondered. But indeed he had done
something for which India remained beholden to him. When the West Pakistani
genocide had started in East Pakistan in
1971, Kirk was one of the very few Western
leaders who had raised a voice of protest,
doing so as the chairman of the Asian Bureau of Socialist International. When the
Western world refused to listen, the Indian
Army marched into Dacca and Bangladesh
was born against the wishes of the United
States. Kirk was the first Western statesman
to visit that war ravaged country. India had
good reasons to feel grateful.
At the end of her visit Indira Gandhi
therefore expressed the appreciation of her
Government for the new outlook and attitude of New Zealand not influenced,
of course, by any US diktat. The joint communiqu that was issued expressed their
Norman Kirk

Indira Gandhi

support for the Middle East peace talks

and making the Indian Ocean a zone of
peace. It also expressed firm support for
an immediate and permanent cessation of
all test explosions of nuclear weapons. Kirk
talked about the prospect of a South Pacific
nuclear free zone. He promised more aid to
India and agreed to explore possibilities for
bilateral trade and closer co-operation in
the fields of education, agriculture, medicine and animal husbandry.1 This was followed by an Indian official delegation visiting Wellington in March 1974. It seemed
as if New Zealand and India were almost
on the road to a more substantial bilateral
relationship.
Nuclear barrier
Kirks efforts did not, however, lead to a
quantum leap in bilateral relations, as India
within four months of his visit exploded her
first nuclear device on 19 May 1974. The

New Zealand media fiercely criticised

the Indian action, as the anti-nuclear
movement had by this time gathered
momentum in New Zealand. By contrast, the governments response was
more cautious and reflected greater
understanding of Indias position. On
22 May, in his first public statement on
the issue, Kirk said that New Zealand
understood Indias desire for peaceful
use of nuclear energy and respected Indias scientific capability and resources
that went into this experiment. He also
expressed his faith that India would
not manufacture nuclear weapons.
But Kirk was worried, nonetheless,
that such explosions could take the
world away from nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Therefore
he urged Gandhi to make a formal
commitment not to manufacture nuclear weapons and, in keeping with her
past tradition, to take the lead towards
global disarmament. On 30 May he
emphatically claimed that there was no way
to prove that the modest $8 million which
successive New Zealand governments had
given to India in aid had been used for her
nuclear programme. So despite concerns,
New Zealands aid programme, which was
to help Indias production of small protein,
would continue.
The fallout of the nuclear controversy
was that India almost completely disappeared from the radar of New Zealand
foreign policy, at least for some time. The
next Labour Prime Minister Bill Rowling
outlined his governments foreign policy in
Asia in February 1975; India was nowhere
in that long policy document.2 And then as
a National government came to office at the
end of 1975, there was a distinct shift in focus in New Zealand foreign policy from
Labours emphasis on morality and idealism to Sir Robert Muldoons preference for
trade and alliance with the United States.

Historically the relations between New Zealand and India go

back to the days when both were members of the British Empire.
This imperial connection also shaped the Indo-New Zealand
relationship in subsequent years as the Commonwealth became a
major bond between the two countries, but India has never been
crucial to New Zealands security concerns or trading interests.
And therefore the relationship remained personality driven it
became cold during the Muldoon era and warmed up under the
Labour governments of Norman Kirk and David Lange. In recent
years it has again developed some momentum in response to
Indias fast growing economy.

Jul-Aug issue.indd 11

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 INDIA

India became irrelevant to this new policy.

Closed mission
However, India began to figure in New
Zealand headlines again when in early 1982
Robert Muldoon decided to close down the
New Zealand High Commission in New
Delhi. He announced on 16 February that
the New Zealand mission in New Delhi
along with the consulates in Toronto and
Port of Spain would be closed to reduce the
cost of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by 3
per cent as a part of a general cost cutting
measure for all government departments.
Muldoon branded the New Delhi mission
as the least productive, as trade with India
was declining. The Indian government did
not reciprocate the measure; it announced
that it understood the financial difficulties
of the New Zealand government and hoped
that the mission would soon be reopened.3
The decision was greeted with shock
and disbelief in New Zealand, as Indias
importance as the emerging leader of the
post-colonial Afro-Asian nations or the
Third World was gradually being recognised. If trade was the real reason, then,
as the Dominion reported, trade prospects
in India had actually increased over recent
years, with New Zealands exports to India
increasing three times over that of the previous year to $39.5 million. So, was it then
to snub India? In fact, from the time of the
New Delhi meeting of the Commonwealth
AsiaPacific regional leaders (CHOGRM)
in September 1980, Muldoons relations
with India and the Commonwealth had
been deteriorating over the forthcoming
Springbok tour and other issues.
A year later, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
(CHOGM) at Melbourne in October
Robert Muldoon

12
Jul-Aug issue.indd 12

1981, Muldoon wanted an endorsement that his governments

actions during the 1981 Springbok tour had been adequate under the Gleneagles Agreement of
1977. New Zealand had already
been at the receiving end of the
Commonwealths criticism, as a
finance ministers meeting had
been moved away from Auckland. There was a real possibility
of a sporting boycott of New Zealand threatening the coming Brisbane Commonwealth Games. The site of Indias first atomic detonation in
Pokhran during May 1974
At the Melbourne CHOGM
African leaders like Julius Nyerere
and the Secretary-General Sonny Ramphal
firmly refused to give that endorsement or
to reopen any discussion on the Gleneagles
Agreement, as desired by Muldoon. He left
Melbourne with bitter resentment against
the leaders of the Third World countries.
Indira Gandhi emerged from this meeting
as the leader of the New Commonwealth
and in recognition the next CHOGM was
awarded to New Delhi. Whether or not the
unpleasant experience at Melbourne had
anything to do with Muldoons decision
to close down the New Zealand mission in
New Delhi four months later is, however, a
matter of conjecture.
Disappointing outcome
As far as India and Gandhi were concerned, more disappointment was in store
for Muldoon as he arrived at New Delhi in
November 1983 for the next CHOGM.
Since 1981 he had been advocating reform
of international financial organisations like
the International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank. He came to the New Delhi
CHOGM looking for Commonwealth
support for his idea of a new Bretton
Woods conference on world trade and payments problems, where the major powers
would have single votes, while the smaller
powers would be grouped together to be
represented by one member-state.4 The
prospects initially seemed good, as Ramphal and the chair of the meeting, Gandhi,
seemed to be supportive of the proposal, for
it had also been recommended by a nonaligned summit meeting held in New Delhi
a few months before.
But soon the differences between the
developed and the developing members of
the Commonwealth became apparent. The
meeting opened with Margaret Thatcher
dismissing any such possibilities of reform.
Canada and Australia also seemed to be opposed to any sweeping structural economic
changes. Gandhi, on the other hand, took a
rigid stand, demanding immediate changes

Supporters of Indias nuclear

programme

to the international economic systems and

institutions shaped nearly 40 years earlier.
Muldoon found it difficult to bring the two
extreme positions to any agreeable middle
ground, more so as the Indian delegation
rejected his weighted representation proposal and demanded an immediate international economic conference on the basis of
a one-country-one-vote system. Ultimately,
what he got in the shape of the New Delhi
statement on economic action was the
formation of a consultative group, which
would consult as appropriate and report
to the Commonwealth Finance Ministers
meeting at Toronto the following year.5 He
described it as a great personal success, a
claim which few took seriously.6
Wounding action
Then in December 1983 Muldoons government decided upon a step that would take
the diplomatic relations between the two
countries to an all time low. It proposed to
sell the piece of land in the exclusive Chanakyapuri area of New Delhi which had been
given to New Zealand twelve years before
by the government of India to build the
chancery building. With real estate prices

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 INDIA

The government of India enthusiastically welcomed the appointment of Hillary,

certainly one of the best-known New Zealanders in the region, and the Indian media
gave it wide coverage.9 The opening of the
mission was, however, delayed by happenings in India. Indira Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984. Lange and his wife
went back to Delhi to attend the funeral. It
was attended by a number of international
dignitaries, but Lange was one of the few
heads of government present. It was not
until February 1985 that Hillary arrived in
India and took up his office.

David Lange

in Chanakyapuri having soared, the land

could now yield several million dollars. The
Indian government objected to the sale and
proposed to buy back the lease at a price of
$30,000. The New Zealand government
argued that the lease document gave it the
ultimate right to do whatever it liked with
the property, and the lawyers of the two
sides began talking about the legality of the
proposed sale.
Whether legal or not, emotionally the
proposal badly hurt Indo-New Zealand relations. There was certainly bad feeling in
New Delhi and there was speculation that
India might at last withdraw its High Commissioner from New Zealand.7 The Labour
Party strongly objected to the sale so close
to the election when their professed policy
was to reopen the New Delhi mission if
elected. Ultimately, under concerted pressure the National government decided not
to go ahead with the sale.
Welcome change
Meanwhile, the 1984 election approached
and this was perhaps the only New Zealand
election to hit the headlines in Indian newspapers. The Labour victory was front page
news. Indira Gandhi sent a warm congratulatory telegram to David Lange, and Lange
announced that the New Zealand mission
in New Delhi would be reopened as soon
as possible.8 By the end of September it was
known that Sir Edmund Hillary would become the new High Commissioner in New
Delhi and the mission would be opened
by the end of December at the latest. On 4
October Lange went to New Delhi on a 36hour visit. At the Indian capital he formally
announced the appointment of Hillary and
discussed with Gandhi a wide range of international issues.

Healing gestures
The Lange period was indeed the high
point of Indo-New Zealand bilateral relations. His friendly gestures managed to heal
some of the emotional wounds inflicted by
Robert Muldoons actions. There was a visible eagerness on the part of India to develop a more substantial relationship with
New Zealand. During his first meeting
with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Lange
identified a number of possibilities for developing bilateral relations in terms of nuclear policy, negotiating a zone of peace in
the Indian Ocean, joint naval exercises and,
above all, trade. This new turn he described
as the new awakening in New Zealand foreign policy.10 This happened partly because
Lange was being drawn away from the
United States as a result of his anti-nuclear
policy, but largely because of his personal
fascination with India and his matured understanding of the country and its politics.
The high point of this new cordiality in the
Indo-New Zealand relationship was certainly Rajiv Gandhis visit to New Zealand
in October 1986.
The two prime ministers, both in their
early forties, had developed a unique personal friendship. The visit, which lasted for
only 56 hours and was a security nightmare
for the New Zealand authorities, attracted
huge public attention in New Zealand and
was even compared with a royal tour. Gandhi charmed the New Zealand public as he
told them what they wanted to hear. He
praised New Zealand for its anti-nuclear
policies and claimed that India had shown
nuclear self-restraint by not weaponising
her nuclear capability for the last twelve
years. India had voluntarily chosen that option and would continue to do so in future.
The visit resulted in the signing of a double
taxation treaty and the New Zealand/India
Trade Agreement. Under its provisions a
New ZealandIndia Joint Trade Committee was formed, and it has continued to
meet regularly since its first session in New
Delhi in June 1987.

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Rajiv Gandhi

Dramatic change
Lange was ecstatic about the success of Rajiv Gandhis visit, which he thought had
dramatically changed New Zealands attitude to India in two days. But it did not,
as the warmth of this relationship was more
personality driven than based on any substantial policy shift. So the euphoria gradually disappeared, as Lange resigned from
the premiership and Gandhi was assassinated in 1991. Other than the personality
factor, there were two other reasons. First,
in the 1990s there was a remarkable shift in
New Zealands attitude to Asia. From being
seen as the other and the exotic, it came
to be regarded as different but acceptable.
But that shift was motivated mainly by economic pragmatism and the North-east and
South-east Asian economic miracle.11
In India the economic liberalisation
process had just started in 1991 and the
results were still hard to foresee. Hence in
New Zealands new Asia policy the focus
of attention shifted away from India. In the
meanwhile India, too, lost interest, as the
1995 CHOGM in Auckland was attended
by the Minister of External Affairs, Pranab
Mukherjee, not the Prime Minister. But
there was a more important reason for the
soured the relationship between the two
countries. The solemn promise of self-restraint in nuclear proliferation which Rajiv
Gandhi had given in 1986 was arrogantly
broken in 1998 by the new BJP-led government when it crossed the threshold by
taking the long avoided step to weaponise
Indias nuclear technology. The old sense of
distrust came back with zest.
The strong condemnation that the second Indian nuclear explosion in May 1998
evoked in New Zealand was expected,
given the fact that there was now an even
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 INDIA

more firmly grounded national consensus

on anti-nuclear policies. A National-led
government was now in power. Almost
immediately after the explosion, the New
Zealand High Commissioner in India was
called back the same measure that was
taken when the French had resumed nuclear
testing at Mururoa in 1995. A condemnatory resolution in Parliament was passed with
the support of all political parties. And the
new Indian High Commissioner was summoned to the Beehive for a dressing down
even before he had presented his diplomatic
credentials. The New Zealand media were
unified in their unequivocal condemnation.
But New Delhi refused to listen, while the
Indian High Commissioner-designate in
Wellington failed to understand the public
hue and cry and angrily commented that
India needed to review its relationship with
New Zealand. It was another low point in
Indo-New Zealand relations.
Remarkable shift
The relationship began to improve again
with the dawning of the new century. There
was a remarkable shift in the Labour-led
governments attitudes and policies in relation to India. There were, of course, many
reasons for that. First, there was by now a
clearer understanding of the importance of
Asia. At the same time attitudes to the socalled Asian tigers had become more cautious in view of the financial meltdown of
1997. On the other hand, the Indian economy after a decade of liberalisation policies
now began to grow at an astounding pace.
The Indian market, as Foreign Minister
Phil Goff remarked in 2001, is now at its
most open for 50 years.12 This coincided
with Indias own Look East policy. This
new awareness of Indias potential, and also
her problems, was evident in Prime Minister Helen Clarks address at the launch of
the Seriously Asia Look at the Future
project on 29 August 2003:
We know that India is developing fast
as an economy and knowledge society,
and could overtake China as the most
populous nation on earth. We know
that there are problems in the Indian
subcontinent too, including threats of
nuclear proliferation and the realities
of terrorism. But as history has shown,
we also know that there are many opportunities.13
If historically the peak period in the IndoNew Zealand relationship was the Lange
period, at that time trade between the
two countries was worth only $99 million
each way. Since then things have certainly
moved, although rather slowly. In the year
to June 2005 New Zealands exports to In-

14
Jul-Aug issue.indd 14

dia increased to $194.4 million and India

became its 25th biggest trading partner. Although the growth had been modest, it was,
of course, the result of the initiatives taken
by successive Labour-led governments since
2000, despite China being at the centre of
New Zealands Asia policy. The high point
of this initiative was Clarks visit to India
in October 2004 exactly twenty years
after Langes first official visit. But what
it achieved was still much less than what
could have been achieved.
Nuclear controversy
Clarks visit in 2004 was clouded by the
nuclear controversy even before it began.
A story in the Hindustan Standard quoted
her as saying that during her visit to India
she would raise questions about Kashmir,
take a strong position in expressing New
Zealands displeasure at Indias nuclear programme and urge signature of the Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty. Clark immediately refuted
the report and both she and Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh tried to move
past this controversy. Singh announced
that India had a close, very cordial relationship with New Zealand. This visit, he
hoped, would give this relationship a more
solid content.14 Apart from Singh, Clark
had important meetings in India with Sonia Gandhi and some of the leaders of the
Indian business and film industry. But these
were ignored by the Indian media, and the
New Zealand media focused more on the
controversial aspects of the tour, giving very
little coverage to the positives and possibilities of Indo-New Zealand relations.
Historically, New ZealandIndia bilateral relations have lacked substance, because
India has never been crucial to New Zealands security concerns or trading interests.
And New Zealand is too distant and too
small for India to be concerned about. Yet
there is lot of goodwill and common interests between the two countries starting
from their shared imperial heritage, English language, Commonwealth membership and, above all, love of cricket. But New
Zealands early discomfort in dealing with
the New Commonwealth and the tendency to look to the United States for security
made the Commonwealth and India relatively less important in New Zealand foreign policy. In the absence of substance the
New ZealandIndia relationship remained
personality driven it became cold during the Muldoon era and warmed up under
the Kirk and Lange Labour governments. If
there was a policy shift in relation to Asia
in the 1990s, Asia for New Zealand meant
primarily China and the South-east Asian
economic giants. And then the cross-party

consensus on the nuclear issue became a

further cause of misunderstanding that alienated India.
So New ZealandIndia bilateral relations are perhaps just about to take off. But
this recent policy shift also emanates from
the same discourse of economic pragmatism of the 1990s, which ignores the fact
that trade and business can flourish only
when we know the country and the people.
The National Foreign Minister of the time,
Don McKinnon, sounded a cautionary
note:
You cannot just trade with Asia and live
off the spoils of trade. Youve got to actually involve yourself and engage yourself in the region, and that means trade
flows, cultural exchanges, sister-city exchanges, sporting exchanges, the lot.15
This closer engagement can help break
the old stereotypes and change perceptions. And the growing Indian diaspora in
New Zealand can be an important link in
establishing contacts with this expanding
economy and matured democracy. There
have been remarkable movements in this
direction in the last few years and the results obviously are spectacular. But the full
potential remains to be realised.
NOTES
1. NZ Herald, 2,7 Jan 1974.
2. W.E.Rowling, New Zealand and the
Asia/Pacific region, NZ Foreign Affairs
Review, vol 25, no 2 (1975), pp.316.
3. NZ Herald, 18 Feb 1982; Dominion,
19 Feb 1982.
4. NZ Herald, 20, 22 Nov 1983; Press, 22
Nov 1983.
5. Auckland Star, 29 Nov 1983.
6. NZ Herald, 30 Nov 1983.
7 . Ibid., 6,7,8 Dec 1983.
8 . NZFAR, vol 34, no 3 (1984), p.27;
Press, 27 Jul 1984.
9. NZFAR, vol 34, no 4 (1984), p.21; NZ
Herald, 4,5 Oct 1984.
10. NZ Herald, 16 Apr 1985.
11. For details see Seth Hartdegen, Perceiving Asia 19451998: Shifts and
Changes as Seen in Official Speeches,
in Y. Zhang (ed), New Zealand and
Asia: Perceptions, Identity and Engagement (Auckland, 1999), pp.1826.
12. Phil Goff, Address to the New ZealandIndia Business Council, 30 Nov
2001, NZFAR, vol 10, no 5 (2001),
p.55.
13. Helen Clark, Speech at the launch
of Seriously Asia Look at the Future, 29 Aug 2003, ibid., vol 12, no 2
(2003).
14. NZ Herald, 24 Oct 2004.
15. Quoted in Hartdegen, p.25.

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