Greek Cypriots have enjoyed phenomenal support from India irrespective of the ideological dispensation of the party in power in New Delhi. This has included consistent support from right-wing and left-wing parties for a prosperous and united Republic of Cyprus. Indians and Greek Cypriots have had friendly relationships for quite some time now.
India’s support for Greek Cypriots at Global Forums
From the days of Prime Minister Nehru—the first Indian prime minister—and the Indian National Congress in 1947 all the way to current Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2022, leaders of the Republic of India have backed the cause for a prosperous Cyprus on global forums.
When Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi met President of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades on the sidelines of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 27, 2019, he acknowledged India’s consistent support for the “independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity” of the Republic of Cyprus.
On September 22, 2021, Foreign Minister of India Dr. S. Jaishankar made a statement in New York that it is “important that relevant UN Security Council resolutions in respect of Cyprus are adhered to by all.” More recently, just a few days ago on September 21, 2022, Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar again raised the Cyprus issue in his meeting with Mevlut Cavosoglu, his Turkish counterpart.
Archbishop Makarios’ Relations with India
India and Cyprus have had long, historical relationships, especially since the times of Archbishop Makarios III, who was considered a great friend of India. As per Indian journalist and political commentator Karan Thapar, a tree-lined avenue in Golf Links in Delhi was named after Archbishop Makarios III due to Indira Gandhi’s gratitude to the former Cypriot high commissioner.
Indira Gandhi has been the only female Prime Minister of India and is known for splitting Pakistan into two following the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. As a result, East Pakistan became the independent country of Bangladesh.
In relation to Indira Gandhi and the Greek Cypriot High Commissioner, the gentleman assiduously courted Gandhi during her dark days out of power. She was grateful for this upon returning to office. EOKA B’s assassination attempt on Archbishop Makarios III, who also served as the first president of Cyprus from 1960 to 1977 and whom EOKA B wished to overthrow, gave Indira Gandhi the excuse she needed to name the tree-lined avenue in Golf Links after him.
EOKA B was a Greek Cypriot paramilitary organization formed in 1971 by General Georgios Grivas based on ultra nationalistic ideologies. The organization aimed for the unification of Cyprus with Greece but was later outlawed by the Republic of Cyprus as a result of its attacks on civilians. It was deemed a criminal organization.
From the days of Prime Minister Nehru to the days of Yogi Adityanath, an Indian Hindu monk and politician currently serving as the 21st Chief Minister of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Archbishop Makarios III has been on Indian news numerous times. Yogi Adityanath has been the only monk to assume political office in India, and, interestingly, prior to Adityanath in India, Greek Orthodox Archbishop Makarios III likewise served in politics as President of Cyprus.
Perhaps then, it is not surprising that the erstwhile President of the Republic of India Pranab Mukherjee, who was the thirteenth president of India, was awarded the Grand Collar of the Order of Makarios III by the government of the Republic of Cyprus. The Order of Makarios III is the highest order of merit awarded by Cyprus. In 2017, the Republic of Cyprus supported India’s attainment of permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), and Prime Minister of India Narendra Damodardas Modi, who has been serving as prime minister of India since 2014, appreciated it.
Archbishop Makarios III, the Nehru Foundation, and the Non-Aligned Movement
Archbishop Makarios was the son of a rural goatherd, and he later became head of the Greek Orthodox Church and state of Cyprus. Archbishop Makarios was the only European leader who joined forces with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India in the anti-colonial Bandung Conference of April 1955, organized in Indonesia. This conference was that which eventually led to the establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement, an alternative to the US and USSR led camps. In 1961, Cyprus was one of twenty-five participants at the 1961 Non-aligned Conference in Belgrade, which formally established the Movement.
In 1957, in the United Nations General Assembly, Foreign Minister of India Krishna Menon was one of the first advocates of the independence of Cyprus. Menon advocated for the unconditional independence of Cyprus and nothing less. Today, Cyprus is a UN and EU member state.
Makarios was born Michael Christodoulou Mouskos on August 13, 1913 in Panayia near Paphos in Western Cyprus, a former British colony. Like many energetic children of poor Cypriots, he got his education from the Cypriot branch of the Greek Orthodox Church and ultimately spent seven years at Kikko Monastery, emerging with the heavy beard of a monk and his new name, Makarios, meaning “the blessed.” He not only became the official head of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus but also the de facto head of the Greek Cypriot community.
Economic Relations Between India and the Republic of Cyprus
Cyprus is the eighth largest foreign investor in India with a cumulative foreign direct investment of about nine billion dollars in areas such as financial leasing, stock exchange, auto manufacture, manufacturing industries, real estate, cargo handling, construction, shipping, and logistics. The Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) between the two countries was revised in 2016. Bilateral trade between the countries stood at EUR 76.5 million in 2015. The major commodities exported by India to Cyprus include organic chemicals, vehicles and accessories, and iron and steel. India’s main imports are aluminum and its products, wood pulp, machinery, boilers, engines, and plastic.
As per Kyprianos Santis PricewaterhouseCoopers Fund Services Limited, the most promising economic development of recent years was the classification of Cyprus Funds as Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) eligible for Category I license. The magnitude of this promotion is exemplified by the fact that Cyprus is only the third country outside FATF Financial Action Task Force (FATF) countries to obtain such an approval from the central government of India. The other two are the United Arab Emirates and Mauritius.
Approval was granted through an order dated June 14, 2021 under the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Regulation, 2019. The formerly mentioned classification offers great benefits to Cyprus Funds and naturally enhances their competitive advantage over other member states. This is because alongside the rest of the key features that make Cyprus the financial services hub it is today, the Republic can now also offer a smooth and flexible entry into the Indian market.
Indian Born First Lady of Cyprus
Lila-Irene Clerides was the Indian-born wife of former Cypriot President Glafkos Clerides. She was an Indian Jew from the Bene Israeli community, which is said to have arrived in India about seventeen to nineteen centuries ago.
Lila was born in Ahmedabad. She is the descendant of Dr. Abraham Erulkar, who was Indian leader M.K. Gandhi’s personal physician during many of his fasts. Dr. Erulkar was a founder of the Jewish Nationalist Party, affiliated with the Indian National Congress, and his brother, David Erulkar, defended Bal Gangadhar Tilak during the 1916 sedition trial.
Dr. Abraham Erulkar married Kate (Kitty) Eccles Scott in London, and, while in England, they had two children, Lila and Joseph, later known as Dr. Joseph Abraham Solomon Erulkar. Lila Erulkar married Glafkos Clerides a barrister, who later became the fourth president of Cyprus from 1993 to 2003.
From Lila to Irene
The late Turkish leader of the occupied part of Cyprus, Rauf Denktash, was Clerides’ long-time political adversary. When offering his condolences after Lila’s death, Denktash described the Clerideses as “the most devoted couple. Everybody who came in contact with [Lila] loved her as a lady and a good wife,” he said. Former President of Cyprus Demetris Christofias said, “Irene Clerides was the love of Glafkos Clerides’ life.” Irene is Lila’s Greek Orthodox baptismal name.
The former Royal Air Force wireless operator/gunner, Glafkos Clerides, presided over Parliament and stepped in as acting president after Archbishop Makarios escaped a coup prior to the Turkish invasion in July 1974. His marriage to Lila was considered amongst the most loving in Cyprus, as can be inferred from the aforementioned statements of Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot leaders.
The Indian Cypriot couple had met in London immediately after World War II. The young Lila had been working at the BBC World Service in London at the time, and Glafkos and Lila went on to marry and have a daughter, Katherine (Katie), born in 1949. Katie also became a well-known figure in politics, as formerly mentioned, and she served in the Cyprus House of Representatives for the Democratic Rally party (DISY), established by her father, Glafkos Clerides.
Greek Cypriot Proposes to Indian Jew
One may wonder how it is that a Greek Orthodox Cypriot fell in love with an Indian Jew and went on to marry and have a family. It is, after all, an uncommon union. While he was in London, Clerides had gone to the BBC on Oxford Street to see his sister Chrysanthe, who worked there. His sister was not in her office, but, shortly afterwards, Lila came in followed by Chrysanthe.
“I invited them both out to tea,” Clerides was quoted as saying in speaking to Niyazi Kizilyurek, author of Glafkos Clerides: The Path of a Country. “We went to the Vienna Café and they brought around the trolley with the cakes—I ate six cakes one after the other.”
Clerides courted Lila for a short while, and then he proposed. Hence, it was the Greek Cypriot who fell in love first. Lila once said she went on their first date after taking pity on the “scraggy youth who had just been released from a concentration camp.” (Glafkos Clerides was a pilot in Britain’s Royal Air Force in World War II, and was shot down and held in Nazi prison camps). Glafkos said he decided to propose so quickly because he liked her manners.
“Lila said to me, ‘You were a prisoner of war and have seen no women, let’s wait a little,'” Clerides revealed. He insisted, however, and she eventually agreed to marry him. Characteristic of his humor was the letter he wrote to Lila’s father, Dr. Abraham Erulkar.
The couple had a civil wedding in England in 1947. However, when he became president in 1993, the late Archbishop Chrysostomos I suggested that he finally have a church wedding. “I answered [that] I [dared] not ask her to marry me again,” Glafkos said, fearing that “this time she might say no.”
During his final year in office, Glafkos Clerides remarried Lila—this time in a Greek Orthodox church after she was baptized as Irene (meaning “peace”). Clerides lost his wife of sixty years, Indian-born Lila Irene Clerides in June 2007 at the age of eighty-six in a hospital in the eastern coastal town of Larnaca after a long battle with illness.
Friendship of Indians and Greek Cypriots continues
In looking back through Indian history, there was yet another diplomatically significant union, such as that of Glafkos Clerides and Lila-Irene Clerides, between Indians and Greeks. The marriage between the daughter of Seleucus Nikator, a Greek emperor, and the first emperor of united India, Chandragupta Maurya, known to Indo-Greeks as Sandracottus, was one such union. The marriage most definitely brought the Seleucid Greek Empire and the Indian Mauryan Empire closer together. The marriage of the Greek Cypriot Glafkos Clerides and the Indian Jew Lila-Irene Clerides further deepened relations between India and the Republic of Cyprus.
Indeed, the ties between Cyprus and India are indisputable and there are numerous examples of the deep connection between the two nations. For one, Cyprus has shown consistent support for India’s candidature as a permanent member of the expanded UN Security Council and the India – US Civil Nuclear Agreement. This is within the parameters of the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In this manner, India is able to both address its increasing energy needs and boost its economic development.
In return, Cyprus is one of the beneficiaries of India’s contribution to UN peacekeeping operations. Three Indian generals have served as commanders of the UN forces in Cyprus. General Kodendera Subayya Thimayya, appointed commander of the United Nations Peace Keeping Force in Cyprus from July 1964 to December 1965, was the most distinguished combat officer the Indian Army has produced. He passed away in Cyprus while on active duty on December 18, 1965.
Last but not least, quite significant was the support India received from Cyprus in helping to evacuate its citizens from the conflict zone during the 2006 Lebanon War when military conflict broke out between Israel and the Hezbollah in July to August 2006. In what is known as Operation Sukoon, Indian, Sri Lankan, and Nepalese nationals, as well as Lebanese nationals of Indian spouses were evacuated from the conflict zone. Indeed, for these reasons and many more, diplomatic relationships between India and Cyprus are stronger than ever.
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