India-Thailand Relations

In News: The External Affairs Minister attended the ninth India-Thailand joint commission meeting.

India-Thailand

• India’s bilateral relations with Thailand are rooted in history, age-old social and cultural interactions, and extensive people to people contacts.
• The classical Sanskrit and Pali texts from India carry references of the region using various names such as Kathakosha, Suvarnabhumi (the land of God) or Suvarnadvipa (the golden island).
• A French scholar named George Coedes coined the term ‘Farther India’ to refer to those states that experienced “the civilising activity of India’. Geographically, it refers to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, and the Malay states.
• In the past two decades, with regular political exchanges, growing trade and investment, India’s ties with Thailand have now evolved into a comprehensive partnership. India’s ‘Act East’ policy has been complemented by Thailand’s ‘Act West’ policy in bringing the two countries closer

India’s religious links to Thailand

• The most important influence of India on Southeast Asia was in the field of religion and how Shivaism, Vaishnavism, Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, and later Sinhalese Buddhism came to be practised in the region.
• The Mon kings of Dvaravati and the Khmers had patronised Buddhism and built several Buddhist edifices, but at the same time had also adopted Brahmanical customs and practises.
• Apart from the popular Brahmanical deitiesof Ganesh, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, those that are largely absent in Indian socio-religious landscape, such as Indra are also worshiped in Thailand.
• Although there is no archaeological evidence of the story of Rama in Thailand, but the Ayutthaya in Central Thailand, which emerged in the 10th century CE, is derived from Ayodhya, birthplace of Lord Rama.

Cultural Cooperation:

• The nationalist historian RC Majumdar, for instance, noted that “the Hindu colonists brought with them the whole framework of their culture and civilisation and this was transplanted in its entirety among the people who had not emerged from their primitive barbarism”.
• Many local languages in the region, including Thai, Malay, and Javanese contain words of Sanskrit, Pali and Dravidian origin in significant proportions. The Thai language is written in script derived from Southern Indian Pallava alphabet.
• The Thai language translation of the Constitution of India was launched by the President of the National Assembly and Speaker of the House of Representatives of Thailand in March 2021 at an event organised by the Embassy under the banner of India@75.

Indian Diaspora in Thailand:

• There are an estimated 250,000 people of Indian origin in Thailand, many of them having lived in the country for several generations.

Economic & Commercial Partnership:

• The bilateral trade and investment between our countries is robust and growing.
• Our bilateral trade was US$ 12.12 billion in 2019 and it reached US$ 9.76 billion in 2020 despite the pandemic situation.

Connectivity:

• The number of Thai tourists to India was close to 160,000 (mainly to Buddhist pilgrimage sites).
• India and Thailand are closely cooperating on improving regional connectivity through initiatives such as India- Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, Asian Highway Network (under UNESCAP), BTILS under BIMSTEC framework.

Defence Cooperation:

• Since 2015, India is participating in Ex-Cobra Gold, the largest Asia Pacific Military exercise as ‘Observer Plus’s category.
• Bilateral exercises are held annually between the armed forces of both countries.
• Exercise MAITREE (Army).
• Exercise SIAM BHARAT (Air Force).

Multilateral Forum Cooperation

• Both countries are important regional partners linking South and Southeast Asia.
• They cooperate closely in the ASEAN, East Asia Summit (EAS), Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi- Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) groupings , Mekong Gang Cooperation (MGC), and Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD),

The Indo-Thai relation today is not just looked upon from the angle of socio-cultural ties. Since the relation in today’s context has become very comprehensive in its scope. This bilateral engagement has the potential to foster growth not only restricted to the two nations but for the entire region.

This is very much evident given the fact that cooperation in the areas of security, economic, and connectivity being interconnected, would also have the same level of impact on the neighbouring States and the region.

Source: Indian Express