What Is Driving Closer Australia-India Relations?

November was a big month for Australia-India relations. It began with a visit by India’s Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar for the 15th Australia-India Foreign Ministers’ Framework Dialogue. This was followed by the second iteration of Raisina Down Under, an offshoot of the annual geopolitical conference held in Delhi each year. Senior Congress Party MP and prolific author Shashi Tharoor made a visit to Melbourne for high-profile speaking engagements. And, quite possibly the most important of them all – the opening game of the Australia vs. India cricket Test Match series was played.

The increased intimacy of the relationship between the two countries is being driven broadly by four powerful forces: increased geostrategic interests, greater economic opportunity, the rapidly growing Indian diaspora in Australia, and the cultural pull of a mutual love of cricket.

The latter is often dismissed as a superficial element in the relationship. Yet sport is often the front door to trust and mutual understanding. Any Australian who has spent time in India would know that there will never be a shortage of people wanting to discuss cricket, and this can open a level of hospitality that other travelers may not otherwise experience.

The love of cricket also provides an immediate common bond that can be drawn upon for new Indian migrants to Australia. Such common cultural interests ease integration, and enable people to build greater trust and acceptance within the broader population.

Diaspora communities are also major drivers of one of Australia’s key strategic imperatives, which is diversifying its economic interests away from China. A 2022 Australian government report titled “Australia’s Indian Diaspora: A National Asset” highlighted the central role that the community was playing – and will continue to play as numbers increase – in fulfilling Canberra’s objective of India becoming one of Australia’s top three export markets by 2035.

In December 2022, the Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA), entered into force. This made around 85 percent of Australian goods exports to India tariff free, which will rise to 90 percent on January 1, 2026. Tariffs have also been lowered for Australian agricultural products. This is a hugely significant outcome for Australia; the instinctively protectionist India lowering its barriers is a sign of trust in Canberra that New Delhi doesn’t afford to others. In reciprocation, 96 percent of all imports into Australia from India are now tariff free, rising to 100 percent on January 1, 2026.

The increasing trust between the two countries can also be seen in the broader strategic partnership. The rise of China and its attempts to reshape many of the rules and norms of the international system have brought India and Australia closer together. This fueled the consolidation of the Quad partnership, which includes the United States and Japan, while also driving greater cooperation between India and Australia in the Indian Ocean. This has included joint maritime patrols and the first ever visit by an Indian submarine to an Australian port.

Although India recently negotiated an agreement with China to end the military standoff on their disputed Himalayan border, the deal does not necessarily indicate a strategic shift in New Delhi’s thinking. Suspicion of Beijing runs deep, and India is also seeking to become a peer competitor to China, across technology and manufacturing, as well as holding significant institutional influence. Greater partnerships with Western countries like Australia are seen as a key pathway to achieve this aim, even if India is far too independent-minded to fully align with the West.

India’s preference for non-alignment is something that Australia has come to respect.   Rather than expecting to be on the same page at all times, they opt to focus on issues where the two countries can work together. Australia is, of course, a far smaller country and one, despite its wealth, that cannot envisage a future of great power status the way India can. So it has to navigate the relationship in the knowledge that India may not consider Australia as important a priority as Australia does India.

But this means that before India reaches the great power status it seeks, Australia needs to build the habits of cooperation that will prevent it from being overlooked in this future. This is where cultural links like cricket will play an important role. With India’s obsession with the sport, cricket keeps Australia constantly in India’s vision – on its screens and in its newspapers. It embeds the country in the Indian psyche, making its value far greater than just sporting competition.