Out of the Xi Fire into the Modi Frying Pan
New Zealand-India relationship ‘rejuvenated’ – but what about that $20 billion commitment?
India Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for an “ambitious business programme” out of the free trade agreement signed with New Zealand in April.
At the business event in Auckland, Modi gave a speech for nearly 10 minutes, outlining key aspects of the agreement for India.
“Friends, this meeting is taking place at a time when the relations between India and New Zealand are at a turning point,” Modi said.
“This year, a free trade agreement was concluded between both countries in a record time of nine months.
“This will bring new opportunities for all of you, related to market access, investment, services, technology and talent mobility,” Modi said to the crowd of business and political leaders.
The Indian PM was “confident” that “with a new enthusiasm and new energy” the goal of doubling bilateral trade by 2030 could be achieved.
Modi highlighted a controversial aspect of the agreement in his speech, saying, “New Zealand has committed to invest $20 billion in India over the next 15 years”.
He said, “this is not just investment, it is also a commitment to partner with India in its development journey”.
Previously, Trade Minister Todd McLay said the provision “doesn’t require us to invest in India. It requires us to promote investment.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was asked whether Modi had misunderstood the commitment, as in February, the Government said it had agreed to “promote investment” from the private sector into India.
“It’s all well understood, a commitment to promote,” Luxon said. “We understand what we agreed in the FTA. Both sides understand that well.”
Stuff
The moment we haven’t invested $20billion, India will pull the plug and anyone silly enough to have invested in trade will lose the lot.
Luxon’s desperation to sign any deal to rebuild his reputation as a ‘deal maker’ has driven this fiasco.
New Zealand’s pivot away from China is accelerating — but the real question is whether replacing one global power with another actually solves anything, or simply swaps one set of risks for another.
As NZ desperately scrambles to geopolitically decouple from China (right when Trump’s America is doing more to destabilise the economy than Beijing ever has), we are bewilderingly attempting to make India our new China!
Is India really a safer trade partner than China?
But is India a trading alternative from an authoritarian regime with questionable human rights practices or is India another authoritarian regime with questionable human rights practices?
Arundhati Roy: The dismantling of democracy in India will affect the whole world
I thank the Charles Veillon Foundation for honouring me with the 2023 European Essay Award. It may not be immediately apparent how delighted I am to receive it. It’s even possible that I am gloating. What makes me happiest is that it is a prize for literature. Not for peace. Not for culture or cultural freedom, but for literature. For writing. And for writing the kind of essays that I write and have written for the past 25 years.
They have mapped, step by step, India’s descent (although some see it as an ascent) into first majoritarianism and then full-blown fascism. Yes, we continue to have elections, and for that reason, in order to secure a reliable constituency, the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party’s message of Hindu supremacism has relentlessly been disseminated to a population of 1.4 billion people. Consequently, elections are a season of murder, lynching and dog-whistling – the most dangerous time for India’s minorities, Muslims and Christians in particular.
It is no longer just our leaders we must fear, but a whole section of the population. The banality of evil, the normalisation of evil is now manifest in our streets, in our classrooms, in very many public spaces. The mainstream press, the hundreds of 24-hour news channels have been harnessed to the cause of fascist majoritarianism. India’s Constitution has been effectively set aside. The Indian Penal Code is being rewritten. If the current regime wins a majority in 2024, it is very likely that we will see a new Constitution.
It is very likely that the process of what is called “delimitation” – a reordering of constituencies – or gerrymandering as it is known in the US, will take place, giving more parliamentary seats to those Hindi-speaking states in North India where the BJP has a base. This will cause great resentment in the southern states and has the potential to balkanise India. Even in the unlikely event of an electoral defeat, the supremacist poison runs deep and has compromised every public institution that is meant to oversee checks and balances. Right now, there are virtually none, except a weakened and undermined Supreme Court.
…I’m not sure moving our trade from an Authoritarian Communist Regime that is committing cultural genocide and mass repression to a Racial Supremacist State that is committing hate crimes is really all that much of a win for New Zealand ethically.
Our trade is jumping out of the Chinese pan and into the Indian fire while our American Capitalist masters demand more heat.
India doesn’t want our Dairy, they want access to NZ for their citizens.
Modi may well be a race baiting extremist who is bordering on authoritarian overlord, but he ain’t no fool! India’s own subsidies on food to ensure they can feed their own massive population is a far more national strategic goal than allowing a tiny farm deep in the South Pacific to sell them food to undermine their own farmers.
We don’t produce anything they want, what we do have is literal population space, and that’s what they want!
India wants more path ways to residency and they want more educational opportunities to study in NZ, that are then linked to pathways to residency.
Seeing as NZ is already overrun with exploitative migrant New Zealanders who exploit their own fellow migrant citizens (supported by a low wage addicted host population happy to exploit both), that seems like a rotten deal all around.
What New Zealand actually needs from an India trade deal
What we should be doing is focusing on our woeful skills shortage and when I say skills shortage I don’t mean importing Indian students to be exploited at the local bottle shop or Tobacco retailers, I mean bringing in more engineers and drs. NZ Universities should have Campuses set up in India that allow Indian students to upgrade their so they can pick up skilled jobs in NZ.
The easiest solution to the problems of mass exploitation (which undermines working conditions for domestic workers and immediately generates cultural resentment) is Universal Union membership for all migrant workers coming across the border to ensure basic working standards and that they are paid the same as domestic workers.
That way you protect the migrant worker and you reassure the domestic worker that they aren’t being undermined.
There are ways to make the Free Trade Deal with India work, universal union membership is one of them.
Simply allowing more Indian students to come to NZ to be exploited here with no real promise of residency or high skilled job is a disservice to them as guest and an abuse of us as hosts.
But the wider question of the Authoritarian nature of Modi remain.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a third term in office in June 2024. The authorities continued to discriminate against members of minority communities. Officials failed to take adequate action against BJP supporters responsible for attacks, and instead targeted victims of the violence, including through unlawful demolitions of Muslim homes and properties. Government critics faced politically motivated prosecutions under tax and foreign funding regulations, and the draconian counterterrorism law.
Indian authorities failed to end the ethnic violence in the northeast state of Manipur, which has killed over 200 people and displaced more than 60,000 since May 2023.
Several foreign governments accused Indian intelligence agencies of targeting terrorism suspects and separatist leaders for assassination in Canada, the United States, and Pakistan. In October 2024, Canada’s national police service issued a public statement on the alleged role of Indian state agents in criminal activity on Canadian soil, including homicide, extortion, and other violence. Indian authorities also canceled visas or denied entry to government critics, including members of the diaspora.
Despite the Modi administration’s deteriorating human rights record, several countries strengthened strategic and economic ties with India. However, in January the European Parliament adopted a resolution that raised urgent human rights concerns, including “violence, increasing nationalistic rhetoric and divisive policies” against minorities. In May, for a second consecutive year, the United Nations-linked Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions deferred accreditation to India’s National Human Rights Commission.
Independent Media is more important than ever, especially in the lead up to the Election. TDB is the largest Left Wing Blog in NZ and we have been operating for 13 years now. We get zero funding g from NZ on Air and we don’t have no rich backers. If you can donate please do so here or directly into our account – 12-3065-0133561-56
Out of the Xi Fire into the Modi Frying Pan into the US gas oven
https://www.dcreport.org/2021/11/21/the-u-s-is-heading-into-a-perfect-storm-of-fascism/?
Some of the best words I have read in these confusing times.
Written by Shaneel Lal on Face book:
Narendra Modi’s visit to New Zealand is more complicated than what meets the eye.
One of the biggest mistakes we can make is assuming that everyone opposing him is doing so for the same reason. They are not.
There are people like me who oppose Narendra Modi and the BJP government because of their human rights record. I am concerned about the treatment of queer people, Muslims, Dalits and other caste-oppressed communities, women, journalists, activists and political dissenters. I stand against India’s blind support for Israel’s genocide in Palestine. I also oppose the rise of Hindu nationalism and the policies that have deepened religious division in India. That is my objection.
There are also people associated with the Khalistan movement who oppose Modi for different reasons. The Khalistan movement broadly seeks an independent Sikh state in the Punjab region. It has a long and complex history that cannot be explained in a Facebook post. Importantly, Khalistan supporters do not speak for all Sikhs, just as Narendra Modi does not speak for all Indians.
There are others whose opposition is primarily political. They oppose Modi because he leads the BJP rather than another Indian political party. Indian politics is deeply polarised, and political rivalries there often look very different from what New Zealanders are used to. That is not necessarily the same as opposing him because of human rights concerns.
And then there are people like Brian Tamaki.
Brian Tamaki is not campaigning against Narendra Modi because he suddenly cares about queer people, Muslims, women or human rights. He is using Modi’s visit as another opportunity to attack Indians, migrants and religious minorities. That is racism.
Ironically, Brian Tamaki and Narendra Modi share a number of political positions. Both have advanced anti-queer politics, both have used religion as a political tool, and both have contributed to hostility towards Muslim communities. It is difficult to believe that Tamaki’s objection is to Modi’s politics when there is so much ideological overlap. His objection appears to be that Modi is Indian.
Support for Modi is as diverse. Some people support him out of national pride. Some support the Hindu nationalist politics his government represents. Others are focused almost entirely on trade, business and economic relationships, and pay little attention to what happens inside India.
All of this means we need to be careful about who we stand beside and why. Opposing Narendra Modi does not automatically make someone anti-racist or committed to human rights. Likewise, supporting Modi doesn’t make one pro-Indian.
I oppose Narendra Modi because of the actions and policies of his government, not because he is Indian and Hindu. Equally, I will always oppose racism directed at Indian communities in Aotearoa.
We should be able to hold both positions at once: we can hold governments accountable for their human rights records, and refuse to scapegoat entire communities for the actions of politicians.
Firstly, the idea that trading with a civilized country like China is a bad idea, is ridiculous.
Secondly, the idea that there is anything good to be had out of a free trade agreement with India is absurd. It’s all bad. India produces nothing we want or need. The only possible ‘good’ to be had from it would be access for our agricultural producers.
And- what would we be selling to them? Beef? India, under the psychotic dictator Modi, has Hindutva extremists running around killing anyone who transports beef or cattle, calling themselves ‘cow protectors’.
OK, maybe we aren’t selling actual high value products like beef, just some wheat to compete with their domestic producers? India already has tens of thousands of farmers commit suicide each year, often by drinking pesticide (I wouldn’t recommend this as a way to go), because foreign trade and corrupt merchants drive down their crop prices? And we should be aiming to exacerbate this? I don’t think so.
On radio this morning McLay was insisting that “an investment commitment ” was not the same as “a commitment to invest”.
National obviously believes we are all total dumbasses.
Yes the outrage and hand wringing over a super power that seems able to launch a missile and not kill a classroom full of kids beggars belief! I’m not China’s biggest fan and as to being a communist society, well how many communists do you know who would tolerate that number of billionaires? But I will say this. While our allies in the USA are cruelly strangling Cuba, China is running the blockade to deliver food and supplies. Not something you would catch India doing.
Oh this looks like a rerun of the treaty of Waitangi .The Indians have been led to believe we will give them 20 billion and the white colonists have no intention of doing what they promise .
What the white colonists really want is more cheap labour at the expense of their own kids getting well paying jobs when they leave school .
All NZ will get is more people ,more blocked drains and higher house costs and massive increase in poverty and people living on the streets .
Other than milk and meat what else have we got to sell to any other country other than our soles .Every other industry is being closed faster than Usain Boult .A new wave of colonists is about to arrive .
Keep in mind the $20billion over a 15 year period is in US Dollars. Convert US dollars into NZ dollars and it could well over NZ$35billion. Because of currency conversion fluctuations even today and into the future it could be likely it will cost the NZ Taxpayers more than NZ$35billion.
And who is to know where Exactly that money is heading. Many of us know that India has Rampant Corruption and for all we know that NZ$35billion Plus could well disappear into a Quagmire of “Dodgy(suspicious business deals”)that will Never Benefit NZ one bloody Dollar or Rupee.
Due to the lack of Transparency by this government in that particular part of the FTA Contract for the sake that Luxon looked good and wanted to claim credit on we don’t know the long term ramifications of this FTA that may not be in NZs best interest.
And if NZ defaults at any time due to lack of funds to “donate” a portion of the NZ$35billion what can India do? Will they cancel the FTA via say a Text Message i.e do a Nicola Willis???!!! Or will they claim that NZ entered into a contract and MUST abide by the Signed Contract???!!! Thereby NZ ends up paying more than NZ$35billion in a “breakout clause/fee” again doing a Nicola Willis.
Also what does Luxon hope to gain personally from all this dealing however Shady as it seems to be? Is he hoping to add it to his CV for his next employment eg somewhere in the Trump business world? Luxon, like Trump, doesn’t do something unless he can get something out of it for himself. And if it costs the NZ Taxpayers more over the years he simply will not care or be too bothered.
Meanwhile we now see a Desperate Luxon going from Shoulder Grabbing Photo Opportunities to now the Full Blown Cringe-worthy Body Grabbing Photo Opportunities. What next from the Embarrassment that is Luxon eg Full Lip Kissing??? And all for the sake of a Photo Opportunity.
Let’s get this straight. Modi has publicly announced that, “New Zealand has committed to invest $20 billion in India over the next 15 years”. Previously, McLay, said the provision, “doesn’t require us to invest in India. It requires us to PROMOTE investment.” Two very different things! Who’s telling porkies here, Modi, Luxon or McLay? And if Luxon/McLay they both need to be sacked NOW. What a disgrace! Luxon was asked whether Modi had misunderstood the commitment, as in Feb, the Govt said it had agreed to “promote investment from the ‘private sector’ into India.” Come on Luxon, come clean on this one, it is important and if you have lied again, you need to go immediately. “It’s all well understood, a commitment to promote,” Luxon said. “We understand what WE agreed in the FTA”, Both sides understand that well”, but clearly India doesn’t and has agreed to a very big ‘something else’. It has always been clear that India was after our population space and jobs. What’s in it for NZ unless we have priority access to well trained doctors, engineers etc? As Martyn has continually said – any agreement should contain Universal Union membership for all migrant workers coming across the border to ensure basic working standards and that they are paid the SAME as domestic workers! He also pointed out. “The moment we haven’t invested $20b, India will pull the plug and anyone silly enough to have invested in trade will lose the lot!” Has the NZ public been hoodwinked and ripped off again, by a devious lying, desperate and vain CON ARTIST? Front up now National – right now! Is it another ‘pie in the sky’ deal?
Chris Hipkins has warned today, while “overall” the agreement was a positive step, that ‘investment’ had been a “long-standing discrepancy” in the FTA and the way India perceived the clause was “quite different” from how New Zealand saw it. “That’s something that New Zealand exporters doing business in India need to be eyes wide open to.” So I ask again, who transcribed it incorrectly, India or NZ? And was this an innocent act or done deliberately to muddy the waters and push the agreement through – we all know Luxon was desperate. And where did the $20b figures come from – you couldn’t have missed that? I have serious doubts that this was accidental? It stinks to me and has corruption written all over it! If we can still pull out, I wouldn’t hesitate – do it now! It can be reworked after the election!