India–Italy relations are the international relations that exist between

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. Historically, trade dates back to the era of the Roman Empire. India maintains an Embassy in Rome, and a Consulate-General in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

. Italy has an embassy in

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Ho ...

, and Consulate-Generals in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

and

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

Early history

Indo-Roman relations

Roman gold coins excavated in Pudukottai India one coin of Caligula 31 41 and two coins of Nero 54 68

Relations between India and Italy date back to ancient times. Works from authors such as Diodorus Siculus' ''Library of History'', Arrian's ''Indika'', and

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

's ''Natural History'' make references to India.

Middle Ages

Relations and trade between the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...

and India ended after the fall of the Roman Empire, but resumed after a few centuries. Marco Polo published his travelogue ''

The Travels of Marco Polo ''Book of the Marvels of the World'' ( Italian: , lit. 'The Million', deriving from Polo's nickname "Emilione"), in English commonly called ''The Travels of Marco Polo'', is a 13th-century travelogue written down by Rustichello da Pisa from st ...

'' in which he described the life and customs in India at the end of the 13th century. Many other notable Venetians also visited India.

Niccolò de' Conti Niccolò is an Italian male given name, derived from the Greek Nikolaos meaning "Victor of people" or "People's champion". There are several male variations of the name: Nicolò, Niccolò, Nicolas, and Nicola. The female equivalent is Nicole. The f ...

left

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

in 1419 to visit the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

and then India.

British Raj

During the

British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was him ...

, trade and travel between India and Italy reduced significantly due to prevailing political conditions. Italian scholars participated in Sanskrit studies, and Gaspare Gorresio created the first Chair of Sanskrit in Italy at the

University of Turin The University of Turin (Italian language, Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public university, public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont (Italy), Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the List ...

in 1852. Gorresio translated the ''

Ramayana The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th ...

'' into Italian. It was published as ''Ramayana, poema indiano di Valmichi'' in ten volumes between 1843 and 1858. The Italian unification movement inspired some Indian freedom fighters, and the works of the Italian patriot

Giuseppe Mazzini Giuseppe Mazzini (, , ; 22 June 1805 – 10 March 1872) was an Italian politician, journalist, and activist for the unification of Italy (Risorgimento) and spearhead of the Italian revolutionary movement. His efforts helped bring about the in ...

were translated and widely read by Indian intelligentsia. Gandhi Rome

In the 1940s, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, the British brought Italian prisoners of war, who were captured in either

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

, to

Bangalore Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...

and Madras. They were put up at the Garrison Grounds, today's Parade Grounds-Cubbon Road area.^{/sup> In February 1941, about 2,200 Italian prisoners of war arrived in Bangalore by a special train and were marched to internment camps at Byramangala, 20 miles from Bangalore.^{/sup>

Indian forces played a role in liberating Italy from Nazi control. India contributed the 3rd largest Allied contingent in the Italian campaign after US and British forces. The 4th, 8th and 10th Divisions and 43rd Gurkha Infantry Brigade led the advance, notably at the gruelling Battle of Monte Cassino.

Modern history

Diplomatic relations between the Republic of India and the Italian Republic were established in 1947. Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat—

*
*
*
* and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...
visited Italy in 1953. President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro

Oscar Luigi Scalfaro (; 9 September 1918 – 29 January 2012) was the president of Italy from 1992 to 1999. A member of Christian Democracy (DC), he became an independent politician after the DC's dissolution in 1992, and was close to the centr ...
was the first Italian head of state to visit India in February 1995. President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi

Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (; 9 December 1920 – 16 September 2016) was an Italian politician and banker who was the prime minister of Italy from 1993 to 1994 and the president of Italy from 1999 to 2006.
Biography Education
Ciampi was born i ...
visited India in February 2005.

Romano Prodi

Romano Antonio Prodi (; born 9 August 1939) is an Italian politician, economist, academic, senior civil servant, and business executive who served as the tenth president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He served twice as Pr ...
became the first Italian Prime Minister to visit India in February 2007. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Italy to attend the 35th G8 summit

The 35th G8 summit was held in L'Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy, on 8–10 July 2009. It was originally to be held at Sardinian seaside city of La Maddalena, but it was moved to L'Aquila as part of an attempt to redistribute disaster funds after the ...
at L'Aquila in July 2009. External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna represented India at the 150th anniversary celebrations of the unification of Italy in Rome In June 2011.

After some years of tensions due to the case of the two Italian marines

Marines, or naval infantry, are typically a military force trained to operate in littoral zones in support of naval operations. Historically, tasks undertaken by marines have included helping maintain discipline and order aboard the ship (refle ...
accused of killing two fishermen off the coast of Kerala

Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...
, the two countries revived normal relations thanks to Prime Ministers Paolo Gentiloni

Paolo Gentiloni Silveri (; born 22 November 1954) is an Italian politician who has served as European Commissioner for Economy in the von der Leyen Commission since 1 December 2019. He previously served as prime minister of Italy from December ...
and Narendra Modi

Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament fro ...
. The two leaders described Gentiloni's visit in India in 2017 as a "new beginning" and a great opportunity for both countries.Paolo Gentiloni in India, vertice con il premier Modi: "Grande opportunità di rilancio"
/ref>

Economic relations

Bilateral trade

Bilateral trade between India and Italy grew by 12 times in the 2 decades between 1991 and 2011, from EUR 708 million to EUR 8.5 billion. Bilateral trade began experiencing a decline from 2012, decreasing to €7.1 billion in 2012 and €6.95 billion in 2013.

On November 29, 2017, India and Italy signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for enhancing bilateral cooperation in the health sector.
This MoU was signed between Union Health Minister J P Nadda and the visiting Italian Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin.
The MoU envisages cooperation in health sector by pooling in technical, financial and human resources for accomplishing the ultimate objective to upgrade infrastructural resources, medical education and research in both countries.
Activities to be carried out under the scope of this MoU include exchange and training of doctors, setting up of health care facilities and promotion of business development opportunities in pharmaceuticals.

Foreign direct investment

Italian companies invested €694 million in India in 2011, and over €1 billion in 2012. As of December 2012, Italy had an accumulated investment of €3.75 billion in India, or 9% of the total European Union FDI in India.

Indian investment in Italy grew from €584 million in 2004 to €10 billion in 2011. Italy accounted for 2.3% of India's total investment in the European Union.

See also

* '' Roam Rome Mein''
* Indians in Italy

Although Italy and India have maintained important relations since ancient times, significant Indian migration to Italy is a recent phenomenon. Many Indians began immigrating to Italy in the early 1990s, when the Italian government initiated prog ...

* Italians in India
* Arikamedu
* Roberto de Nobili

Roberto de Nobili (1577 – 16 January 1656) was an Italian Jesuit missionary to Southern India. He used a novel method of adaptation ( accommodatio) to preach Christianity, adopting many local customs of India which were, in his view, not con ...

References

Further reading

*Meenakshi Jain, The India They Saw : Foreign accounts (co-edited with Sandhya Jain, 4 Volumes, Prabhat Prakashan), , , , .
* Majumdar, R. C. (1981). The Classical accounts of India: Being a compilation of the English translations of the accounts left by Herodotus

Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer

A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...
, Megasthenes

Megasthenes ( ; grc, Μεγασθένης, c. 350 BCE– c. 290 BCE) was an ancient Greek historian, diplomat and Indian ethnographer and explorer in the Hellenistic period. He described India in his book '' Indica'', which is now lost, but ha ...
, Arrian, Strabo, Quintus, Diodorus

Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which su ...
, Siculus
Siculus (from Greek) was a legendary king and son of Italus.

Thucydides and other Greek historians have suggested that he was the legendary progenitor of the Sicels (or Siculi), an Italic people who colonised Sicily three hundred years before the ...
, Justin

Justin may refer to: People
* Justin (name), including a list of persons with the given name Justin
* Justin (historian), a Latin historian who lived under the Roman Empire
* Justin I (c. 450–527), or ''Flavius Iustinius Augustus'', Eastern Rom ...
, Plutarch

Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for hi ...
, Frontinus

Sextus Julius Frontinus (c. 40 – 103 AD) was a prominent Roman civil engineer, author, soldier and senator of the late 1st century AD. He was a successful general under Domitian, commanding forces in Roman Britain, and on the Rhine and Danube ...
, Nearchus, Apollonius, Pliny
Pliny may refer to:

People
* Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE), ancient Roman nobleman, scientist, historian, and author of ''Naturalis Historia'' (''Pliny's Natural History'')
* Pliny the Younger (died 113), ancient Roman statesman, orator, w ...
, Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importance ...
, Aelian, and others with maps. Calcutta: Firma KLM.

External links

Embassy of India in Rome

Embassy of Italy in New Delhi

{{DEFAULTSORT:India-Italy relations

Italy

Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

Bilateral relations of Italy}}