Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s just concluded visit to Guyana — the first in more than 50 years — and his summit meeting with leaders of the Caribbean basin point to Delhi’s focus on a long-neglected region. The image of “West Indies” resonates in the Indian mind thanks to the intense cricketing connections. So do India’s diasporic links to the region. Between the early 19th and early 20th centuries, colonial Britain moved Indian labour to the Caribbean to farm the sugar plantations. Nearly a million people of Indian origin live in the Caribbean today and in some states like Guyana, Trinidad and Suriname, they form a sizable section of the population and contribute to nation-building.
Yet, there has been little Indian strategic engagement in the past with the region that occupied a critical geopolitical location. In the colonial era, the Caribbean has been the stepping stone for European expansion into the Western hemisphere. Given its proximity, a rising America in the 19th century displaced the Europeans to dominate the ebb and flow of commerce and the sea lines of communication that connect it to the rest of the world. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviet Union sought to penetrate the region, but did not have much success. Today, a rising China has emerged as a major economic player in the region with growing political influence. Besides being a logistics hub, the Caribbean has valuable natural resources and significant ocean real estate. As Beijing seeks to raise its profile in America’s backyard, the Caribbean states are diversifying their international relations. Their regional institution, the CARICOM, is focused on collective economic development, foreign policy coordination and cooperative security.
