India-Italy ties: How the ‘melodi’ came after setbacks, what is at stake

In the last century, Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore visited Italy in May-June 1926, a visit arranged by Carlo Formichi, a Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Rome.

Mahatma Gandhi visited Rome in December 1931 on his way back from the Round Table Conference in London. Leaders of the Indian freedom struggle read the works of the Italian revolutionary Mazzini.

Indian troops, serving with the British Indian Army, were deployed in Italy during World War II, fighting against the Germans and Mussolini’s forces.

After Independence, political relations between India and Italy were established in 1947. Since then, there has been a regular exchange of visits at political and official levels between both countries, including several visits by Heads of States.

Decade of setbacks

The Italian marines case: The bilateral ties faced a setback in 2012, when two Italian marines were accused of killing two Indian fishermen in February that year.

The marines, Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre, were guarding an Italian oil tanker off the coast of Kerala when they fired on the boat carrying the fishermen. The marines said they mistook the fishermen for pirates, and Italy argued the fishermen failed to heed warnings to stay away from the MV Enrica Lexie tanker. The two were arrested and charged with murder.

They were moved from Kerala to New Delhi, and stayed at the Italian embassy complex while their trial was on. The Italian ambassador at that time had to be their guarantor.

The case blew up, with then Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi raising it in his poll campaign in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2014.

With the trial pending, the two men were allowed to return to Italy. In 2015, the two countries took the case to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in Hague.

The PCA ordered Italy to pay compensation to India “for loss of life” and the cases were closed after Italy paid the agreed amount of Rs 100 million. Finally, the case was closed in 2021.

AgustaWestland allegations: Another controversy was the corruption allegations over the AgustaWestland deal.

In 2011-12, an investigation by the Italian attorney general’s office into alleged unethical dealings by the state-backed defence major Finmeccanica widened to include corruption in an over Rs 3,500-crore deal signed with India by the group’s subsidiary AgustaWestland.

The 2010 deal was a contract to supply 12 AW-101 helicopters to the IAF. After the corruption allegations came to light, the issue quickly snowballed in India. Sonia Gandhi’s Italian origins gave the BJP further ammunition to attack the Congress, already reeling under graft scandals.

After the cancellation of the contract and after winning a legal case in Italy in June 2014, the Indian government encashed guarantees to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore. The Italian courts in 2018 dismissed all charges, on grounds of insufficient evidence. This verdict was upheld by the Supreme Court in Italy in 2019.

The repair

Work to repair the ties started 2018 onwards.

When then External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj led an official delegation for the canonisation ceremony of Mother Teresa at the Vatican from September 2-5, 2016, she met her Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni, and the two sides decided to celebrate the 70th year of diplomatic ties. In 2018, this celebration was observed through a series of cultural events.

External Affairs minister S Jaishankar visited Rome in December 2019 and met then Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

PM Modi and PM Conte co-chaired a Virtual Summit between India and Italy on November 6, 2020. At this, the 2020-2025 Action Plan was adopted, setting the ambitious agenda for an enhanced partnership between the countries.

Modi paid his first official visit to Italy in October 2021 to attend the G20 leaders’ summit. On the sidelines of the Summit, he held a bilateral meeting with then PM Mario Draghi.

On March 2-3, 2023, PM Meloni paid a state visit to India following her election win in September 2022. This was the first high-level visit from Italy to India after a gap of 5 years. During the visit, Meloni and Modi held discussions on promoting green economy, energy security and transition, defence co-production and co-innovation, and the blue economy.

The major outcome of the visit was the elevation of the bilateral relationship to the level of Strategic Partnership. A startup bridge between Indian and Italian startup companies was also established. She was also the Chief Guest and Keynote Speaker at the Raisina Dialogue 2023.

When Meloni visited again in September this year for the G20 leaders’ summit, the two sides were on the same page for the India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor.

And, Italy’s move to pull out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative has added a strategic dimension to the ties.

The stakes

With Italy, India had a bilateral trade of USD 13.229 billion in 2021-22, a more than 50% increase over the previous financial year. Italy is India’s 4th largest trading partner in the EU.

Over 600 large Italian companies are active in India, covering varied sectors. Italian brands such as Fiat and Piaggio to the recent Ferrero Roche, KinderJoy, Tic Tac, etc. are household names in India.

Strategically, Italy wants to partner with India in the defence sector. In 2016, following a corporate reorganisation, AgustaWestland merged into Leonardo SpA, Finmeccanica’s new name, as its helicopter division. Then Chief of Army Staff, General MM Naravane visited Italy from July 7-9, 2021. His visit took place after 14 years and at the Service Chief Level, the interaction occurred after more than a decade.

The Italian Defence Minister conveyed Italy’s desire to “reboot defence relations with India”. Dr. Matteo Perego Di Cremnago, Italian Minister of State for Defence, led the Italian delegation in the Aero India Show in February 2023. With Leonardo again back in play, the Italian defence major is trying to rebuild ties.

Italy has also deployed an official from its Embassy for the Information Fusion Center–Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) in February 2023 to enhance maritime security and to counter anti-piracy operations across the Indian Ocean Region.

Rethink by Italy on China

India has opposed the BRI since its inception, since it violated India’s territorial integrity by crossing through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

In 2019, during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Rome, Italy became the first G7 country to join the BRI, in the hopes of China serving as a market for Italian products and Chinese investment boosting Italian infrastructure.

But the BRI would not meet Italian hopes and expectations. “Since Italy joined the BRI, its exports to China have increased from 14.5 billion euros to 18.5 billion euros, while Chinese exports to Italy have grown far more dramatically, from 33.5 billion euros to 50.9 billion euros. Similarly, Chinese FDI in Italy also dropped from $650 million in 2019 to just $33 million in 2021,” an assessment by David Sacks, a fellow for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), said in August this year.

For the past year, Meloni has indicated that joining the BRI was a “big mistake” that she intended to correct. With its five-year memorandum of understanding up for renewal in March 2024, Italy has officially conveyed its position to Beijing.

Thus, while Delhi and Rome view Beijing from different prisms and vantage points, India-Italy ties have found another strategic glue: that Beijing is no benevolent and benign power.

The improvement in ties is music to the ears of both New Delhi and Rome. And while the melody is most apparent under Meloni’s term, the long and arduous process was set in motion under Conte and Draghi.