SUMMARY: on Engaging with India in Multi-Polar World Conference held on 7-8 May 2025

AUTHORS
Clement Dillies
MA student in International Relations and Regional Studies
Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu

Kikee Doma Bhutia
Research Fellow and India Coordinator
Asia Centre, University of Tartu

There are three broad themes can be drawn as a concluding takeaway from this conference:

1. India and the Baltic states' cooperation has untapped potential in various sectors, and both would benefit from developing it. The question remains, how far are the Baltic States ready to engage at a realpolitik level with India?
2. India and the Baltic States share many commonalities, including concerns over China’s rise. India portrayed as a better reliable partner than China in various fields.
3. Lastly, Russia remains, unsurprisingly, a potential impediment to this cooperation. The Baltic states see Russia as an existential threat to their survival and strongly support Ukraine in resisting the invasion. On this issue, India has not clearly or overtly condemned Russia’s full-scale invasion, this presents the central challenge that both sides must discuss to implement further cooperation, as it might otherwise lead to tensions between the parties.

The conference opening ceremony was introduced by the organizer Kikee Doma Bhuta, research fellow and India coordinator at the Asia Centre, stressing the importance of thinking together in a world facing a tectonic shift in which the Baltic States are rising players. Elo Süld, the Head of the Asia Centre, also highlighted such importance and highlighted India's growing global role and its implications for its domestic and foreign priorities. Finally, Ashish Sinha, the newly appointed Indian ambassador to Estonia, reiterated earlier points and added that there was a common desire for peace and development despite apparent differences between both countries. He compared the independence of the Baltic states in 1991 with India's economic liberalization, highlighting India's early recognition of Estonia. Aside from multi-polarism, global responsibility, and democracy, His Excellency also highlighted the commitment of India to multipolarity. These opening words set the stage for these two days of intense conversations.

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The first keynote titled, Indian Foreign Policy at a Time of Global Churn by Harsh V Pant, chaired by Andrey Makarychev, Professor at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, offered a broad overview of India’s shifting foreign policy. He interestingly started with what he called the two stories that could be heard about India the day before the conference started. The first story was the signing of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the United Kingdom and India, and the second was about the crisis with Pakistan, which, to him, reduced India to the conflict over Kashmir. He added that both discourses about India indicate its rise and importance. The keynote first delved into the factors that shaped India’s Foreign Policy bringing distinction between structural factors, institutional factors, and domestic ones. He argued that India’s rise was juxtaposed with a shift in the balance of power in the world, which had reached an inflection point. India’s foreign policy can be explained by the shift from hyper-globalization to a certain degree of de-globalization. Additionally, a shift in how economic agreements and calculations are made was designed as a potential structural factor of this shift. Secondly, the keynote also highlighted that institutional factors such as the collapse of the multilateral architecture (UNSC, WTO) and a shift from multilateralism to minilateralism in foreign policy enabled this shift. Furthermore, he added that the simple fact that India’s absence in the UNSC shows the fragility and obsolescence of the UN architecture. He framed India as a contender as well as a creator of new platforms for international dialogue and decision-making. Finally, for domestic/internal political factors, a shift from center left to center right in India’s domestic politics is evident like in most ‘western’ politics, which allowed different viewpoints to be projected to the world and was described as enabling this change.

Depending on these three main factors, the keynote highlighted some consequences of this shift, such as it led India to develop or take a different role in world politics. If India has once positioned itself as a balancing power, it now thinks of itself as a leading power that should and can shape world politics. Thus, reinterpreting ‘non-alignment’ in foreign policy. If it was earlier thought of as a passive acceptance of Great Powers, India is now seeking strong partnerships with different poles of the international system to gain strategic autonomy and leverage. Moreover, the partnerships with the BRICS and Western actors are seen to gain leverage by benefiting from cooperation with different poles/partners. Additionally, it is also noted that the scale of India’s foreign policy is slowly moving away from a regional focus and Kashmir from de-hyphenating from Pakistan to more as a more responsible and reliable partner while managing China’s rise and aggressive behavior. Thus, in the global world order that is shifting, India’s foreign policy is trying to find its autonomy and voice by proposing partnerships and reliable partners.

Panel 1: Contesting Borders and Strategic Neighbourhoods
The second day of the conference started with the first panel titled: Contesting Borders and Strategic Neighbourhoods, which was chaired by Helen Haas.

The first presentation: Bordering an Aggressive Neighbour: "Can Estonia and India Learn from Each Other?”, given by Karin Dean brought insights on border studies through a comparison between Estonia-Russia and the China-India border. The presentation asked two main questions: Why aggressive? Karin Dean argued that China and Russia both employ irregular tactics and hybrid warfare in their foreign policy, which undermines governance and social stability in their vicinity. Hybrid tactics were defined as tactics that combine means that are below the threshold of conflict. She added that these tactics can be, as coined by Ferdinand Marcos Jr: “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive”. Russia includes the Baltic States in its near abroad and is waging a war of aggression in Ukraine, while China has claims in the Himalayas, Taiwan, and the South China Sea. Why compare? A comparison between India and Estonia was presented as a useful opportunity to learn from each other when it comes to calibrating responses to China and Russia’s hybrid attacks. In both cases, territorial expansion is involved. Thus, constituting a direct threat to their neighbors.

Utilizing a political geography approach that focuses on borderlands (not only solely linear borders) as fertile grounds for hybrid attacks that can be weaponized, but Dean also developed five interconnected categories where India and Estonia’s borderlands with aggressive neighbors can be compared. For instance, she looked at ‘grey’ zones where both powers rely on military presence and ambiguity. Russia increases troop deployment and conducts exercises near Estonia, while China engages militarily along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India. She then compared these borderlands in terms of border infrastructure, incursions, and infrastructure targeting. What can we learn from each other? The presentation concluded that while the India-China and Estonia-Russia borderlands differ in scale, terrain, and legal status, they do share similarities in how Russia and China manage hybrid threats. She noted an emerging pattern of mutual learning, deriving from the war in Ukraine. For instance, China appears to count on India’s restrained response to provocations, while Russia continues using pressure tactics on Estonia’s border. These shared experiences open space for dialogue and comparative learning between India and Estonia in facing irregular, coercive behavior.

The second presentation, Borderlands and Their People: Imperial Aspirations from Changthang to Estonia, by Natalia Munatajeva, aimed to uncover a similar theme. She adopted an ethnographic perspective to look at the borderland focusing on people living in conflict areas such as Changthang. To understand political dynamics, notably through personal experiences of people inhabiting the area, her presentation outlines that the outsiders often see this land as either a ‘no man’s land’ or ‘as a far away and exotic place’ where modern orientalism is performed. Her framework from anthropology and cultural studies views borderlands as “third spaces” where a multiplicity of identities intersects and hybridizes. According to her, the main blind spot of this type of approach lies in the overlooking of violence, colonization, and imperialism. In this presentation, she also presented an ethnographic account and interview with the people living in the area such as Changthang and Lohusuu in Ladhak, India, and Vasknarva in Estonia. Lastly, the presentation calls for an urgent need to revise border studies, which often ignore the lived reality of the communities’ lives that are affected and claims that the research in these regions are mostly driven by imperial aspirations.

The third presentation titled Baltic to Nordic from the Prism of History: India’s Growing European Miles by Jagannath Panda, started with a conceptual discussion about the meaning of multipolarity. Multi-polarism according to him, was about the distribution of power between different poles, while multipolarity referred to the existence of distinct structural spaces for countries where power is accumulated in their centres. To him, the time has come for India to give exclusivity to the Baltic Region. He suggested that the cooperation between the Baltic States could follow the India-Nordics model of cooperation, which includes a bilateral dimension, a regional dimension, as well as a supranational dimension through India’s engagement with the EU. Drawing upon the idea that the Baltic States and India are innovative and growing, the presentation highlighted a mutual-gain partnership that could be put in place. The central question of this presentation: What should be the medium of engagement? He first presented several options that the Baltic Sea states and India could pick to engage with each other. First, the type of minilateralism conducted by India in the Indo-Pacific region could be reproduced with the Baltic States; the need for trilateral or quadrilateral frameworks of cooperation; and in terms of connectivity, a multimodal way of engagement that would encompass road and rail connections; and lastly digitized modes of connection to put distance aside. Importantly, India-Baltic engagement was opposed to China’s way of interacting through the 16+1 format, which was qualified as a “divide and rule” strategy.

The fourth presentation titled Russia’s Pivot to Asia: Is India Just a Friendly Counterbalance Against China? by Anastasia Sinitsyna ended the panel with the idea that the Baltic states' security concerns over Russia should not undermine their cooperation and that Russia could not be a dividing factor. Her presentation adopted economic lenses to look at Russia’s engagement with Asia considering China’s rise. She began by explaining Russia’s pivot to Asia. It was described as a way to diversify geopolitical and economic engagement beyond the West by developing Russia’s Far East, re-establishing connections through the Eurasian region, and strengthening ties with a large range of actors in the region. Then, she delved into China’s footprint in Russia’s Far East. This region of Russia, where the two countries share 4000 km of borders, was described as underdeveloped, where 70% of the FDI comes from China. She added that China and Russia’s interests in the region converge in the domain of agriculture. Also, she mentioned several infrastructures such as the Blagoveshchensk-Heihe Bridge, which physically connects Russia and China, and the Power of Siberia oil pipeline. As opposed to China, India’s footprint in Russia’s Far East was described as lighter. After addressing China’s impact on Russia’s Far East, Sinitsyna turned to the Russian idea of “Greater Eurasia.”. In this context, India was described as a potential balancing power, with its interests often aligning with Russia’s in promoting a multipolar Asia. She concluded by noting that while China has a stronger presence in the region, both Russia and India share a common strategic goal: to counterbalance China’s growing influence by deepening their engagement across Eurasia and strengthening ties with other regional actors.

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The second keynote titled Indian Migrants in Lithuania: Their Sense of Belonging, Community Dynamics, and Geopolitical Views in the Context of the War in Ukraine presented by Kristina Garalyté and chaired by Urmas Hõbepappel, is based on an ongoing research project for the Research Council of Lithuania, which looks at how migrants (Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Indians) construct their identity in Lithuania. In the context of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the role of Indian migrants allowed a notion of how “distant” conflict was perceived by and influenced the migrants. The conceptual framework, which distinguished integration from convivial disintegration and their respective critiques, Garalyté described regular and irregular migration dynamics in Lithuania. Concerning regular migration those migrants in Lithuania essentially come from three regions: Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus), Central Asia, and South Asia. The migrants from South Asia and their Indian majority were more visible in Lithuanian society due to their appearance and were reduced to service workers due to their presence in food delivery services. Among these three regions of origin, migrants from central and South Asia were perceived as less likely to integrate, and as a majority, even though they are a minority. Concerning Irregular migration, Belarus and Russia’s weaponization of migration in the Summer of 2021 was a key event for border crossing to Lithuania. Thereafter, Garalyté presented her (temporary) findings on Indian migrants’ views on Russia’s full-scale invasion:

• The feeling of stigmatization and refusal to engage (due to India’s relations with Russia).
• Familiarity bias: supporting Russia because they are more familiar with it.
• Conspiracy view: war seen as a plan of Russia and Israel, Illuminati…
• Social media gaze.
• Support through historical ties.
• Neutrality: they see Modi’s “neutral” stance as a clever FP move.
• Situational and reflexive position: the desire to align with local expectations.
• Pro-Ukraine views.

In conclusion, Indian migrants' political views are shaped by their country of origin, leading them to identify with Russia as a defining marker of their national identity. There was often a disconnect between the political discourse among the interviewees and Lithuania's national political narratives. In closing, she suggested that Lithuania and its Indian migrants should engage in dialogue to balance their perspectives between one that is integrationist and one that is convivial disintegration.

Panel 2: Cultural Encounters, Memory, and Perceptions
The second panel, titled “Cultural Encounters, Memory, and Perceptions,” had four speakers and was chaired by Alevtina Solovyeva. The first presentation, titled Early Estonian Perceptions of India, by Erki Lind, explored the different ways in which India appeared in Estonian public discourse in the 19th century. By using early magazines and missionary literature, he showed how India was portrayed in Estonia through religious and scientific lenses. To him, such a portrayal of India reflected a growing curiosity toward distant cultures, largely devoid of the colonial-era prejudices that later came to dominate Western representations of the subcontinent.

The second presentation titled Potential Effects on India's Economy from the Ongoing – Drastic – Trade Diversion That Is Taking Place in Asia by Christer Ljungwall focused on the implications of Asia’s ongoing trade reconfiguration. To him, the global economic center of gravity has shifted to the East. In the meantime, he argued that India faces both structural challenges and strategic openings. Along the lines of the shift mentioned in the first keynote, he noted that these changes demand a rethinking of India’s trade policy and its integration into global value chains to ensure competitiveness amid rising regional competition.

Returning to culture, Shameema Binte Rahman gave the third presentation of this second panel: From Letters to Street Art: Gandhi and Tolstoy’s Ideals in Estonia’s Urban Landscape. She examined how street art in Estonia captures the philosophical bond between India and Europe. She analyzed a mural in Tartu depicting Gandhi and Tolstoy and noted that it serves as both a site of memory and a visual expression of Indo-European intellectual exchange. To her, this piece of public art reflects broader ideals of nonviolence, justice, and transnational cultural dialogue.

The last presentation of this panel was given by Gautam Chakrabarti titled Localising the ‘Indo-European’: Indian Interest in Baltic Neo-/Paganism/s. He explored how Indian audiences engage with Baltic neo-pagan movements such as Maavalla Koda and Romuva. Not focusing solely on ritualistic or philosophical parallels, he examined how these belief systems are interpreted in India within the context of rising public religiosity and postcolonial cultural self-assertion. His talk also suggested that Baltic interest in Indian culture—beyond yoga or Bollywood—reflects a deeper soft power dynamic that could shape longer-term political and economic engagement between the two regions.

Panel 3: Building Partnerships – Trade, Energy and Strategic Futures
The final panel titled Building Partnerships – Trade, Energy and Strategic Futures, was chaired by Maili Vilson. It started with Dr. Sriparna Pathak’s presentation: Engaging with India in a Multipolar World: India and the Baltic States. She first introduced her presentation by noting that India’s ties with the Baltic States (BS) are growing despite a limited history, and she presented areas where mutual interests exist. To her, both share concerns about China and find common ground in renewable energy, where the Baltic states have a high share and India offers expertise. This presentation detailed opportunities and ongoing cooperation between India and the Baltic states. In terms of economic cooperation, Sriparna Pathak highlighted that, although economic ties between India and the Baltic states are currently limited, opportunities exist, such as Estonia’s cybersecurity skills. Furthermore, potential cooperation exists via the INSTC and Rail Baltica, as well as growing interest in the blue economy. Concerning diplomatic engagement, she highlighted shared values such as democracy and multilateralism as aligning them in a multipolar world. She mentioned a geopolitical alignment using the example of the Baltic states backing India’s UNSC non-permanent seat candidacy in 2021, and India backing Latvia’s bid for 2026–2027. However, challenges to this cooperation, such as a limited diplomatic presence, low trade, and India’s focus on Germany, were identified. This raised the following question: What can India do better (than China)? She argued that compared to China, India is seen as a credible and trustworthy alternative due to its democratic system, pluralism, tech innovation, and green energy.

The second presentation, India–Baltic Renewable Energy Collaboration: Unlocking Opportunities, by Aleksandra Sharapova, analyzed the potential for collaboration between India and the Baltic states in renewable energy. It was highlighted that India and the Baltic states are complementary, as each other's strengths meet each other's needs. On the one hand, India’s strengths lie in its status as a manufacturing hub as well as its skilled workforce, while the Baltic states need renewable energy equipment and labor. On the other hand, the Baltic states have a modern grid and are advanced in offshore wind energy development, which India needs. On top of that, Aleksandra Sharapova identified two key areas for this cooperation: Smart Energy—where Estonia is notably advanced with projects relevant to India’s decentralized needs, such as EstFeed and X-Road—and Green Energy, which has good cost-efficiency potential and is already a mutual investment focus. Lastly, it was suggested that policy and strategic alignment could benefit both actors by unleashing this potential. Diversifying energy and forming joint ventures could increase energy security for the Baltic states.

The third presentation of this panel, The Baltic States in the Context of Indo-Chinese Competition by Daniel Riether, assessed both strategic opportunities and associated risks for the Baltic Sea states to collaborate with India and China. The presentation began with an overview of China’s foreign and domestic policy that could impact a potential relationship with the Baltic States. Elements such as China’s relationship with Russia, and vague statements on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, were evoked. Moreover, a porous and unclear division between the Chinese private and public sectors was presented as a source of difficulty for potential investor states aiming to do business in China. As the Baltic states are members of the EU, China’s paradoxical relationship—characterized by geopolitical rivalry over Taiwan despite strong trade ties—was mentioned. Regarding specific strategic perspectives on China, the 2024 suspected sabotage of cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea was discussed, with China suspected of having coordinated this together with Russia. Additionally, Russia and China have been conducting joint naval military exercises in the Baltic Sea since 2017. Thereafter, the Baltic Sea states' strategic perspectives on India were discussed. Like China, India has not condemned the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Additionally, criticisms over democratic backsliding in India and infringements of human rights were mentioned. The speaker argued that India has faced a steady decline in press freedom and civil liberties indicators since 2014. Considering all the above-mentioned factors, the speaker ended his presentation by trying to assess which actor offers more strategic opportunities with fewer risks. Overall, India was described as a democracy despite alleged backsliding. Potential investors do not have to deal with a porous public/private distinction, as is the case with China. Moreover, India’s larger and younger workforce, along with its religious and cultural soft power, reinforces the idea that India could be a better partner than China.

The last presentation of this panel—and the conference Why India–Estonia Need Stronger Ties by Dr. Mohan Jayaram. In this presentation, the health sector was described as an important area for future cooperation between Estonia and India. The field of research was described as particularly promising. Projects such as the Estonian genome and the National Personalized Medicine program were described as potential grounds for mutually beneficial cooperation. Dr. Jayaram highlighted that shared values offer a strong foundation to convert these opportunities into concrete cooperation.

The conference on “Engaging with India in a Multi-Polar World” was organized by the Asia Centre and Centre for Oriental Studies, in collaboration with the Embassy of India, Tallinn. It was held on 7th and 8th of May 2025. The conference aimed to bring together people with diverse backgrounds and professional statuses from India and the Baltics to evaluate and discuss the potential benefits of India-Baltic cooperation in a wide range of areas, as well as to identify potential challenges that might be faced. The conference inculcated a wide range of perspectives in both keynotes and panel discussions, with speakers approaching the topics from economic, international relations, cultural, and ethnographic lenses. Furthermore, the speakers were also transnational from places, such as Baltic States, India, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany, and multi-disciplinary backgrounds.