Today the Indian PM Modi arrived in DK, as a part of a tour to several European countries. The visit in DK will also cover Norway and Sweden, perhaps Iceland and Finland as well. I'm not sure.
This is the simplified background info.
Modi is a nationalist and a populist, he represents the Hindu majority in India, tolerate other religious minorities, like Sikhs, Christians and Buddhist but is less than tolerant (to put it mildly!) towards the Muslims, who constitute the largest religious minority in India.
As a result he has antagonized the Muslim world with the consequence that India is dependent on Russian oil. - Rather than sailing around the corner to the Golf States, which would be cheaper, faster and more reliable.
Modi himself and his administration's policy towards Muslims in particular made him a less than welcome person in the West for many years, with the result that Modi turned towards Russia for support and that includes lots of weapons. The West has for many decades used the "spare parts weapon" to keep a foreign government reined in. In short: You get the weapons, you get the ammunition, but if you don't behave you don't get the spare parts, which after a while renders the weapons useless.
Modi cannot turn towards China, because India and China have border disputes and India would very much like to eventually take over as the global factory from China - or at the very least take a substantial part of China's global position.
The Modi administration has however worked hard for the past ten years to improve relations with everybody, not least the West.
It's as always about money. The Modi administration stays in power as long as the Indian economy is going well. And one way of securing the economy going well is to have good trade relations with USA but also very much EU.
Hence Modi is on a "sucking up tour" to EU.
It goes both ways though, EU is of course also interested in the India market, and EU (and not least USA!) won't mind at all if India becomes another global factory, - rivaling China.
Back in the 90's a Danish citizen was caught delivering weapons to an Indian insurgent group. Operating for ideological reasons, he was sentenced to prison in India, but managed to escape and flee to DK. Here India wanted him extradited back to India, but the courts in DK turned that request down on the basis that it was considered a likely risk that the Dane would be subjected to torture if extradited. India put pressure on the Danish governments, which refused to intervene against the Danish courts, that would be illegal.
Understandably IMO India was annoyed and since DK is a small country and a nationalist governments needs to act tough DK was put on ice for more than 20 years - and that includes major trade relations.
But pragmatism is the name of the game. So in more recent years and as mentioned above India has worked hard on improving international relations. It's still a nationalist government, it still goes to considerable lengths to annoy the Muslim minority and it still aims to turn India into a full Hinduist country. But in order to do that they need money and money doesn't smell, so in 2020 the Danish PM visited India and all of a sudden the relations are a-okay again. (Danish diplomacy has of course also been working behind the scenes.)
So instead of not visiting DK during this tour, the Indian PM is now in DK, and we have no intention of ruining a good business opportunity! So the big red carpet is rolled out for the India PM and that includes wheeling out the DRF - even though this is merely a government business visit.
We all agree we are not going to talk about the Dane who was gun-running in India and we are not going to talk too loudly about some details about the humans rights in India.
In fact the main foreign political theme during the Indian PMs visit to Europe has been Ukraine. He has been urged to "talk sense to Russia" = Cut off trade relations with Russia as much as possible and "come over to us."
The problem is of course is that India has done "a Germany" that is become too dependent of Russian energy supplies for India just to cut of relations with Russia. That would at least for some years harm the Indian economy - and seriously risk the Indian government, which might be voted out of office.
It's really very simple: The Indian government came to power by picking on the Muslims and appealing to the Hindus. Now that it is in power and has established its power base, it's now about staying in power. And one good way of doing that is to increase the India middle-class. As long as the middle class is growing and doing well, all is well. For that you need economic expansion = money. Good trade relations = more money.
So if we can agree of increased trade relation between Europe (mainly EU) and India everybody will be happy
- Well, perhaps with the exception of the Muslim minority in India... - But there is a nice carpet over there we can sweep that little problem under.
Are you still with me? ?
That was the simplified version.
If you want the complex version, let me know. ?
