Twelve thousand kilometres of land and ocean separate India and New Zealand. Yet, they have been bound closer by a proactive Indian diaspora, as well as cricket. However, the bonds run deeper, tracing back to Sir Edmund Hillary’s historic conquest of Mount Everest and common pursuit of post-colonial causes, including apartheid and nuclear disarmament. While both governments might not have caught up with the pace at which the Indian diaspora has established a people-to-people and societal connect with the southern Pacific nation, the visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi turns a new epochal chapter in India-New Zealand ties. With a Strategic Partnership set to bind both democracies closer, common interests in the Indo-Pacific could elevate this into a lasting partnership in the region, points out Professor Swaran Singh in this 27th edition of Asia Watch.
Home page image: Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his New Zealand counterpart, Christopher Luxon
Text page image: Prime Ministers of India and New Zealand lead their delegations at the bilateral dialogue in Auckland on July 11, 2026
Banner image: PM Modi and PM Luxon attend a group photo session with business leaders in Auckland
Forty years ago, when young Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, landed in Auckland in October 1986, he had walked into one of the most memorable diplomatic anecdotes in Commonwealth history.
“And out there we have 70 million sheep that nobody will eat,” a quip attributed to his host — an equally young Prime Minister David Lange who was famous for his razor-sharp wit — referred to collapsing lamb exports, with the 20 sheep-per-New Zealander becoming a burden.
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi being given a traditional welcome at the Auckland airport in 1986 by children of the Indo-Fijian community (left); photo courtesy: Teara, and PM David Lange with PM Indira Gandhi during Lange's visit to India in 1984 (right); photo courtesy: Tales from NZ
However, Gandhi misinterpreted this quip as indicating the New Zealanders’ reverence for sheep the way Indians revered cows. This was immortalised in a cartoon by Trace Hodgson in the New Zealand Listener's November 1986 edition.
History often hides the most consequential relationship game-changers in such delightful anecdotes. Of course, standing quietly behind the dignitaries was the legend — Sir Edmund Hillary. The legendary Everest conqueror was then New Zealand’s High Commissioner to India and perhaps the most beloved foreigner in the Himalayan regions.
After becoming the world’s first human, in May 1953, to set foot on the Everest summit along with Tenzing Norgay of Nepal, who soon after settled in India — Hillary had set up the Himalayan Trust and continued to visit the region. What made him special was how he always gave full credit to Tenzing Norgay, which was not unusual during colonial times.
Also, Tenzing Norgay, as the first Director of field training at India’s Himalayan Mountaineering Institute at Darjeeling, had earned several sporting recognitions, including India’s third-highest civilian award and was known as the sporting hero of India.
Sir Edmund Hillary as High Commissioner with officials outside South Block (left), and Babu Gomez, who guarded the site of the New Zealand High Commission in New Delhi for a USD 2000 annual salary, in this December 1998 photo credited to Stuff Limited
This backdrop explains why Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to New Zealand last weekend marked much more than an end to an unusually long diplomatic hiatus between two democratic nations, 12000 km apart in terms of their geographies.
Goaded it may have been by the geopolitics of recent times, yet the visit marked no more than the rediscovery of a relationship that has rested on something stronger than geographies and geopolitics.
Their enduring inter-societal relationship is represented in their shared values, human connections, shared colonial and Commonwealth experience, English language and remarkably similar instincts about the international order.
In an era when the Indo-Pacific has become the centre of global strategic competition, India and New Zealand were finding themselves, rediscovering that their geographical distances mattered far less than their converging interests and inheritances.
Everest, cricket and diaspora
Most bilateral relationships begin with trade or strategic calculations. India and New Zealand relations are instead traced to a mountain summit. The first summit that connected these two countries was not diplomatic; it was the Mount Everest summit.
When Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the world’s highest peak in May 1953, Edmund Hillary became a household name across the Indian subcontinent. In post-colonial Asia, where recognition and dignity mattered deeply, Hillary’s humility left a lasting impression, especially amongst people of Himalayan regions.
As New Zealand’s High Commissioner in New Delhi (1985-1989), he often used to joke how his Everest fame made his diplomacy far easier.
If Everest built mutual admiration, cricket built their fraternity. India and New Zealand were soon meeting each other on cricket grounds. New Zealand’s first tour of India and Pakistan in 1955-56 inaugurated a cricket relationship that has remained remarkably free of bitterness, sustained by mutual respect rather than nationalist jingoism and hostility.
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on return from summit; photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
More recently, thanks to Indian broadcasting and the Indian Premier League, the popularity of New Zealand cricketers in India has transformed cricket into a billion-dollar cultural connector. Before trade connected these two economies, cricket had already connected their two peoples. Credit is also due to the multicultural disposition of New Zealanders' society and politics.
The third bridge, the strongest of all, flows from New Zealand’s multicultural policies. The Indian diaspora, which today constitutes over 5.8 per cent of New Zealand’s total population of 5.4 million, makes it New Zealand’s fourth largest ethnic group after the Europeans, the M?ori indigenous people and ethnic Chinese.
Over the past three decades, New Zealand has witnessed the Indian community as one of the fastest-growing anywhere in the developed world. Indian-origin New Zealanders are today influential entrepreneurs, doctors, academics, engineers, public servants and parliamentarians.
They celebrate both Diwali and Waitangi Day with equal enthusiasm, quietly weaving India into New Zealand’s multicultural identity.
The India schedule of the visiting New Zealand cricket team which toured the subcontinent in 1956-57 (left), and the Indian cricket team for this series (right)
Shared values, shared interests
During the Cold War, New Zealand’s bold declaration as a nuclear-free nation under Prime Minister David Lange had become one of its defining moments for its middle-power diplomatic bridge-building.
In 1984, Lange had banned nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from using the country’s ports or entering its waters, and as per the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act of 1987, the territorial sea, land and airspace of the country became nuclear-free zones.
India, despite eventually pursuing its own nuclear deterrent since 1998, has, since independence, consistently championed universal nuclear disarmament. Their methods may have often differed, but their aspiration never did.
Greenpeace activists on boats along the coasts of New Zealand, calling for a nuclear-free Pacific (left), and the nuclear weapon-free zones poster issued by the NZ Nuclear Free Peacemaking Association in October 1987 (right); photo courtesy: Disarmament and Security Centre, New Zealand
New Zealand’s own society was deeply divided, especially during the controversial 1981 Springbok rugby tour. Yet the national debate that followed ultimately strengthened New Zealand’s commitment to racial equality and justice.
Though New Zealand’s rugby tours continued, ever-growing public protests and incremental government actions opposing apartheid contributed to international pressure on F. W. De Klerk, who was the last white president of South Africa during 1989-1994.
These shared orientations and experiences reinforced Indian and New Zealand foreign policy being grounded in ethical principles. Such value-based grounding of their foreign policies explains why India and New Zealand have generally worked comfortably together within the Commonwealth, the United Nations and several other multilateral institutions.
More recently, with the rise of Indo-Pacific geopolitics, converging with New Zealand ‘looking west’ while India ‘looking east’ has further strengthened their convergences.
For instance, in the case of the Indo-Pacific, the recent past has witnessed both India and New Zealand narratives instinctively favouring a rule-based regional order, and prioritising dialogue over coercion and multilateral solutions to global challenges.
From ‘sentimental’ to ‘strategic partnership’
If history supplied emotion, the twenty-first century has supplied strategic compulsions. Indo-Pacific geopolitics has fundamentally transformed New Zealand’s strategic autonomy quest for building new partnerships.
Wellington today increasingly recognises that economic dependence on any single market — whether the United States or China — carries serious strategic risks. Diversifying partnerships has therefore become New Zealand’s imperative for de-risking.
India, with its rapidly expanding economy, technological capabilities and growing geopolitical influence, naturally figures amongst New Zealand’s options for diversification. This explains last weekend's upgrade of their relations to a Strategic Partnership, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to New Zealand, the first since Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s 1986 visit.
Indeed, besides establishing a ‘roadmap to 2030,’ the Strategic Partnership provides a long-term framework for cooperation across security, trade, technology, education, and, of course, the Indo-Pacific.
These include a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on maritime cooperation between the two defence forces, a Joint Working Group on Counterterrorism, and numerous MoUs covering sectors like disaster management, animal husbandry, dairying, tourism, sports and heritage, among others.
India, likewise, has also been broadening its engagement beyond its traditional strategic partnerships and peripheral geographies. The South Pacific, once far away for Indian diplomacy, now intersects with India’s Indo-Pacific vision, maritime outreach and development trajectories.
Economically, the complementarities are striking. No doubt, PM Modi’s visit saw them sign 18 agreements and initiatives covering defence, maritime security, trade, agriculture, science, sports, disaster management, tourism, culture and ocean research.
New Zealand possesses world-class expertise in dairy technology, agri-science, food-processing, education and renewable energy. India offers scale, digital innovation, pharmaceuticals, skilled human resources and one of the world’s fastest-growing consumer markets.
The two prime ministers also agreed to set a target to double their bilateral trade by 2030, building on that momentum from their Free Trade Agreement that was signed in April 2026.
Taking forward their defence cooperation, both sides also signed a Mutual Logistics Support Arrangement between the Indian Navy and the New Zealand Defence Force, a Hydrography and Nautical Cartography Cooperation Arrangement, which could significantly deepen defence interoperability in the Indo-Pacific.
India and New Zealand also launched a dedicated Maritime Security Dialogue for consultation and information sharing even as New Zealand joined India’s Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative, especially for combating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.
Wellington also agreed to join India’s Global Biofuels Alliance for expanding cooperation in clean energy and sustainable fuels. Their cooperation in agri-business will establish Centres of Excellence for Kiwifruit in Nagaland and Uttarakhand, promoting horticultural innovation and best practices.
On the other hand, people-to-people ties are also to be strengthened further through cooperation in education, sports, cultural exchanges, heritage preservation and other creative industries.
Education has quietly become one of the most dynamic sectors of cooperation, with increasing numbers of Indian students choosing New Zealand. Technology, start-ups, critical minerals, food security, clean energy and artificial intelligence present equally promising frontiers.
Strategically, both favour an open, stable and rules-based Indo-Pacific, where freedom of navigation, resilient supply chains and respect for international law remain non-negotiable. This convergence has become increasingly valuable as great-power rivalry intensifies across Asia.
Their commitment to a rules-based, free, open and stable Indo-Pacific now undergirds their strategic alignment on building their future regional security architecture, promising to make this visit consequential and beyond their bilateral ties.
The road ahead
The significance of Prime Minister Modi’s recent visit to New Zealand, therefore, lay not merely in symbolism, like his address to the Indian community that showcased the new genre of India’s global engagement, but in its timing as well.
Forty years ago, India was a protected economy looking inward. New Zealand was largely preoccupied with agricultural exports and its traditional Western partners. Today, both countries are guided by an entirely different strategic landscape.
India is seen as one of the principal architects of the Indo-Pacific. New Zealand has also redefined its regional orientation amid changing geopolitical realities. Both are vibrant democracies navigating an uncertain world where middle powers now matter more than ever before.
The relationship, therefore, no longer rests only on memories of Everest and cricket, however cherished those remain. This visit has clearly underlined how their relationship now stands on much broader foundations encompassing innovation, education, supply-chain resilience, maritime cooperation, clean technologies, food security and the shared commitment to a rules-based international order.
From dairy to food processing, tourism, disaster management, ocean research, maritime heritage, sports, culture, education, technology and innovation now mark an ambitious spectrum of their mutual engagement. Fructifying these ambitions will, of course, take time.
Prime Ministers Modi and Luxon sharing friendly vibes
India and New Zealand first met on a mountain, became friends on a cricket field, grew closer through migration and now find themselves converging across the vast strategic Indo-Pacific waters.
Prime Minister Modi’s New Zealand visit last weekend, therefore, was not simply an attempt to open a new diplomatic chapter in bilateral relations. It was aimed at reinforcing already strong inter-societal long-time connections of these two democracies.
Their greatest strength has always been that they discovered each other long before geopolitics finally intervened and is now making them aware of their middle-power credentials, which are now shaping their shared future trajectories.
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