At this year’s 76th Republic Day celebration on 26 January, India invited the President of Indonesia, Prabowo Subianto to be the Chief Guest. Indeed it was a strategic move on the part of the Narendra Modi government to engage with the Southeast Asian nation with the largest Muslim population in the world, and thereby deepen cooperation with the members of the Asean bloc. It transpired that energy, food security, defence and security ties emerged as the centrepieces of discussion. Both sides are aware that their engagements – both bilaterally on issues of trade and maritime security and on the global stage through forums such as the G-20 and minilaterals such as the India-AustraliaIndonesia group – have brought the two countries into a closer, complementary and mutually beneficial partnership. This two-part article shall address two separate issues in order to posit the India-Indonesia partnership in perspective.

The first part dwells on Prabowo’s handling of the domestic situation as the success or failure of his measures shall impact his foreign policy and relations with Indonesia’s partner countries. The second part examines the outcome of Prabowo’s India visit and what it brought to the table for providing dividends to both sides. The initial evaluation of Prabowo’s policy choices raises questions on his over-reliance on the military to sustain his democratic structure. By making his choice of officials in critical positions, the President has given people reason to worry if the political culture of past authoritarian leader Gen Suharto who lost power three decades ago is making a re-run. There are enough signs in peoples’ unease that see a flashback of Suharto in Prabowo turning to the once-all powerful military to carry out a governing vision.

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was Indonesia’s former defence minister. People now suspect that as President he would be replacing civilian functions with the military, thereby raising comparison to the Suharto-era doctrine called dwifungsi (dual function) that allowed the........

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