Keynote Speech at Institute for Australia-India Engagement: Commemorating India’s 75th Year of Independence on India’s Constitution Day (26 November)
Topic: Role of constitutional democracies in the shaping the emerging world order
Friday 26 November, 9.30am (IST) (2.30pm AEDT)
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Thank you Dr Ashtosh Misra.
It is a pleasure to talk on India’s Constitution Day, in its 75th year of Independence, on a topic that I know of great interest to both our Prime Ministers.
Shared democratic fundamentals
As Prime Minister Morrison said at the Observer Research Foundation’s Raisina Dialogue in April, Australians and Indians are free people.
We are constitutional democracies built on respect and responsibility for the dignity and aspirations of our people.
In September, on a much larger stage - the United Nations General Assembly – Prime Minister Modi reflected on the success of India’s 75 years of democracy.
This success is the culmination of thousands of years of democratic traditions.
Our Prime Ministers’ personal rapport is built on this shared appreciation of democracy.
Coincidently, three years ago we had an almost simultaneous re-election of governments headed by these two leaders.
This allowed our prime ministers to get straight back into business, with renewed vigour and a popular mandate for the bilateral relationship.
Our democracies, as represented by parliaments and governments, are true partners. We see the world in this vital respect in the same way.
Despite the significant differences of scale and process between our electoral systems, the feat of democracy is truly celebrated by people in both our countries.
In Australia, we have a tradition of a ‘democracy sausage sizzle’, which creates a carnival atmosphere at the voting booth on election day.
Deputy High Commissioner Mehta – I look forward to hearing of your experiences early next year whipping up a BBQ to the background hum of ballots being counted.
Here in India, the rallies and roadshows and rolling election schedule build a sense of excitement that cascades across the country: the “festival of democracy”.
I know High Commissioner O’Farrell is itching to get out and witness such rallies in the upcoming state elections in India.
It is easy to make light of these festivities. But what they show is the strength of democratic values in each of our political cultures.
Democracy in the Indo-Pacific
Far across the Indo-Pacific, it is these values that tie us together and underline our shared vision for the kind of world we want to see.
To quote PM Modi at the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2018, in the same speech where he articulated his vision for the Indo-Pacific, it is the ideals of democracy that define us as nations and shape the way we engage with the world.
As democracies, we want a world where the rule of law prevails over ‘might is right’ politics. A world free of coercion and intimidation.
We believe in the importance of maintaining and benefitting from diversity and are committed to promoting values of tolerance and pluralism continuously.
Democracies working together
How we view the world matters for how we engage with the world.
It is natural then, for likeminded democracies to undertake practical cooperation based on their foundational shared values.
This is an approach we share with India. As External Affairs Minister Jaishankar has argued in the past, there is a strategic imperative to democracies working together: we are more comfortable with people who approach governing and consensus building in a similar way.
And, in a similar vein might I add, we are more comfortable absorbing and including those with whom we may not always agree on every issue.
Minister Jaishankar recognises this too, in his recent book The India Way: saying India is inherently comfortable with pluralism, given its own internal diversity.
It is not surprising then, that India and Australia fit so comfortably together in the Quad.
The Quad is an important grouping involving four likeminded democracies committed to supporting the principles they believe in.
It’s an important tool for dialogue – and for us to respond collectively and swiftly to the most pressing challenges facing the region.
Through the Quad, we are working together to promote an inclusive, positive agenda for the Indo-Pacific.
This positive and practical agenda shows our regional partners they have our strong support.
But also, Australia and India have consolidated separate trilateral consultative mechanism with Japan, Indonesia, France—three vibrant Indo-Pacific democracies.
Working with these three countries is vital to building regional architecture and cooperation in support of our shared Indo-Pacific interests.
Through these trilateral mechanisms, we are developing coordinated approaches on issues vital to the region, including supply chains, the blue economy, and multilateral institutions.
Challenges to democracy
Democracies working together has only become more important in an increasingly volatile world.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated many of the concerning trends we already faced in the Indo-Pacific, indeed globally.
These include rising tensions over sovereignty, whether in the South China Sea or high in the Himalayas.
The use of grey zone tactics and disinformation has been increasing.
And there have been challenges to established rules and norms in ways that concern all countries, whether large or small.
Internally too, we recognise that our systems are not faultless.
Many of the regional issues intersect with internal challenges to democracy, including the misuse of new technologies, risks of disinformation, and terrorism.
Other challenges to which we must adapt to include the distortionary impact of social media on information, increasing polarisation, and the rising cost of elections.
The beauty of democracy is how it confronts change and challenges.
In the words of US Secretary of State Blinken, during his visit to New Delhi in July, every democracy is a “work in progress”: we are all on a quest for a more perfect union.
Like High Commissioner O’Farrell – who likes to draw on his former life on the democratic ‘frontlines’ as a politician – I am big believer in self-correcting democracies.
The past two years of pandemic, protest, and polarisation bring to life Tocqueville’s insight that while democracy reveals its shortcomings at first sight, its strengths are always revealed at length.
The ability to correct mistakes, to reflect the popular will, and protect plural consensus is what makes constitutional democracies special.
The voters are never wrong, to quote High Commissioner O’Farrell.
And the wonderful thing about democracies is that they are not static. In Australia, we continually make changes to our electoral system to be more inclusive, representative, and transparent.
From implementing the secret ballot from our very first federal election in 1901, to beginning to extend the right to vote in federal elections to women the following year, to introducing compulsory voting in the 1920s, all the way through to changes to our system of distributing preferences in the last several years.
Throughout this perennial adaptation, it is our constitutional democratic framework that ground us with a principled stability.
For Australia and India, our constitutions guide our approach to changing times and anchor us in the spirit of our nations’ founding ethos.
Nowhere is this more evident than in India’s constitution – one of the most remarkable legal and social documents in history.
It is the constitution that guarantees that voting opportunity to every citizen.
It is the constitution that requires Australia and India to go to incredible lengths to ensure we all have a say – whether we’re on isolated islands, in scorched deserts, or even overseas.
I marvel at the Indian Election Commission’s efforts, for example, to set up a poll booth for a single voter in the forest mountains of Arunachal Pradesh, or the teams that hike high into Himalayas near Ladakh carrying voting machines – and oxygen cylinders for the altitude.
This capacity for renewal, for dynamism, for adjustments and inclusion – anchored in a set of laws - these are fundamental to the Indo-Pacific of the future.
It is vital then, that Australia and India continue to uphold and celebrate our fundamental democratic values.
Conclusion
Democracy is one of the relentless forces that brings India and Australia together.
High Commissioner O’Farrell talks of four ‘Ds’ that are the foundation of our relationship: defence, diaspora, dosti, and most importantly to our approach to the world, democracy.
We are both strong, vibrant, secular and multicultural constitutional democracies. Our shared democratic values and rule of law underline our collective vision for the world: a world better served by respecting all individual sovereign states, working together to uphold an inclusive, open and rules-based system.
To return to Prime Minister Modi’s speech at the UN General Assembly: “Democracy can deliver, democracy has delivered.”
In the emerging world order, Australia is proud to partner with India, the largest democracy of them all.
Thank you.