India, Fiji resolve to boost defence and maritime bilateral ties

PM Modi and Fijian PM Rabuka signed nine agreements and announced 17 new initiatives, with India pledging defence, maritime, and healthcare support to strengthen ties

India and Fiji on Monday announced an action plan to strengthen bilateral defence and security cooperation, with New Delhi promising to extend assistance to the island nation to ensure the security of its exclusive economic zone.

 

Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi and visiting Fijian PM Sitiveni Ligamamada Rabuka signed nine agreements, and announced 17 other steps to foster closer relations, especially in defence and the maritime sector, which are important in the context of China’s efforts to expand its strategic heft in the Pacific region. Since May, India has hosted leaders of the Maldives, Singapore, and the Philippines.

 

Rabuka is on a three-day visit to India, his first as PM. He had served as PM from 1992 to 1997, and was elected to office again in 2022. India’s relations with Fiji are on an upswing in Rabuka’s current stint, in contrast to his first tenure in the 1990s. 

 

 

On May 14, 1987, Rabuka, then colonel in the Fijian Army, had led the first of two military coups, to depose the elected government, dominated by ethnic Indo-Fijians (ethnic Indian), a first for that country, to  allegedly reassert ethnic Fijian supremacy.  He carried out a second coup on September 28 that year. In 2006, he apologised for having engineered the coups. On Monday, at the press briefing, Rabuka said Fijian-Indians had contributed to what Fiji was today. 

“They continue to contribute to Fiji's growth, to Fiji’s economy, and to Fiji’s stability," he said.

 

At his joint press briefing with Rabuka, Modi said India and Fiji were writing a new chapter in “our partnership” with the PM’s visit, and thanked him for announcing the “Girmit Rememberance Day” to commemorate the contribution of Indian indentured labourers to Fiji’s social, cultural, and economic spheres. In the 19th century, over 60,000 indentured Indian labourers were sent to Fiji. 

“India and Fiji may be oceans apart, but our aspirations sail in the same boat,” Modi said. “From the Indian Ocean to the Pacific, our partnership is a bridge across the seas,” Modi added. 

 

Modi said New Delhi would provide cooperation in training and equipment to improve Fiji’s maritime security. “We are also ready to share our experience in cyber security and data protection,” he said.

 

“In our cooperation with Pacific Island nations, we see Fiji as a hub. Both our countries strongly support a free, open, inclusive, secure, and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Modi said. He also lauded Rabuka’s vision of "Oceans of Peace” and welcomed Fiji’s association with India’s Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative.

 

India and Fiji held the first meeting of their joint working group on defence last month, with India committing itself to capacity building in Fijian military forces.  Rabuka welcomed the call for a planned port by an Indian naval ship, which will enhance maritime cooperation and interoperability. Modi recalled that in 2014 he became the first Indian PM to visit Fiji in 33 years. At the time, India launched the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC).  

“This initiative has not only strengthened India-Fiji relations but also our ties with the entire Pacific region,” the PM said at the press briefing. 

 

India announced it would construct and operate a super-specialty hospital in Fiji, and it would cater to other island countries in the Pacific region. It also announced support for training for a cohort of Pundits from Fiji in India, and Suva allowing access to Indian ghee in Fijian markets.

 

Briefing the media later in the day, Secretary (South) Neena Malhotra said Fiji was a regional hub in the Pacific, and provided important air and shipping links to the other countries in the region.  It plays an important role in the regional body called the Pacific Island Forum, also in the other regional bodies and institutions of the Pacific.