When trust trumps deal making: How India just built its quietest, sharpest alliance

Read the 19 May statement and one adjective breaks the diplomatic rhythm: trusted. The relationship was upgraded to a 'Trusted Green Technology and Innovation Strategic Partnership.'

- RAJESH MEHTA & MANU UNIYAL

On 17 May, Swedish Gripen fighters peeled off the wingtips of PM Modis aircraft as it crossed into Gothenburg airspace, a salute Stockholm reserves for very few.

Two days later, in Oslo, six Prime Ministers signed off on the joint statement of the Third India-Nordic Summit. The headlines tracked the obvious: $100 billion of EFTA investment, a “Green Technology and Innovation Strategic Partnership,” the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Norway in 43 years. The deeper story sits underneath the press releases. India has, without commentary, assembled post-great-power decade architecture.

Call it the Nordic Doctrine: “Trust trumps deal making”. “Trusted partners shake hands. They don’t shake you by the hand.” “Trustworthiness scales better than size.” And this is none too obvious but in today’s fragmenting geopolitics.” The best partnerships aren’t “deal making drills” but “mutual recognition and respect” of the fact that we live in an interconnected and interdependent world and all political aspirations and acrimonies should be settled keeping that in mind.