Guest Lecture (Europe-India lecture).

EU-India Relations: An Expanded Interpretive Framework.
By Stig Toft Madsen (Copenhagen).
12th of April 2010- 15-17, in Building 1324, auditorium 025.

For questions regarding this event please contact CISCA at cisca@hum.au.dk

“India is rightly called a `status quo´ power as it has no ambitions to extend its reach beyond
its territory... Visitors to India will come to know that the Indian giant is a friendly one who
does not threaten others, but aims at peaceful coexistence.” (Rothermund 2008: 244-5)

“A significant section of the Indian elite, that of the nouveaux riches, seemingly drunk with
a sense of newly acquired power, does not bother to hide its disdain for a Europe seen as
mired in its economic stagnation and content with the bourgeois comfort of elderly
retirees... Explaining this in terms of the haughtiness of the new winners does not go far
enough. India is seeking its revenge for its colonial past.” (Jaffrelot 2006).

Emanating from Germany and France respectively, the two views above exemplify major
contra sting readings of India’s role in world affairs and global governance. My aim in this
chapter is to expand the discussion on this contrast by detailing seven scenarios that
portray diverse permuta tions of the EU-India relationship. Some scenarios are be presented in brief and others are described more illustratively in order to throw light on the key discursive nodes in the ongoing debate. In putting forward this enlarged framework I hinge my analysis on a simple pseudo-mathematical memotechnical device that may be of use in conceptualizing the emerging relationship between India and the EU. Representing the First World, the EU (or Europe) is termed 1, and India, representing the Third World, is termed 3. The meeting between the twain is termed 1+3. At stake is the “outcome” of the 1+3 equation.

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