India-indoneisa relation

India played an important role in helping Indonesian nationalists establish full national sovereignty over what was the former Dutch East Indies during the four years of struggle between August 17, 1945, when Indonesian independence was formally announced, and December 9, 1949, when freedom was finally wrested from the Dutch in an agreement signed between the two parties at The Hague under the auspices of the United Nations. Amongst the first political contacts made by the Indonesian nationalists after 1945 were with the leaders of the Indian National Congress, particularly with Jawaharlal Nehru, who had a personal relationship with Indonesian nationalist leaders like Mohammad Hatta and Soetan Sjahrir.

All India Radio functioned as the official ‘freedom radio’ of the Indonesian republic in the first years of its existence. India played an important role in the internationalisation of the Indonesian cause, first by giving it prominence at the Inter-Asian Relations Conference sponsored by the provisional government under Nehru in New Delhi in March 1947, and subsequently by bringing the issue before the United Nations later that year.

In January 1949, Nehru, on the urging of Prime Minister U Nu of Burma, convened a second conference, this time of independent Asian and African states, to discuss the Indonesian question. Its resolution and the general force of India’s moral authority amongst nations emerging from colonial rule helped galvanise international opinion against The Netherlands, leading finally to the independence of Indonesia.
. Indonesia is India’s third largest trading partner in ASEAN, with its trade valued at $6.5 billion in 2007. It has substantial Indian investments, particularly in the textile sector.

During the visit of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to India in November 2005, a Joint Declaration on the Establishment of a New Strategic Partnership between India and Indonesia was signed, followed in 2007 by an Action Plan between the two countries for its implementation.