• After India got independence in 1947, India enjoyed dynamic bilateral relations with Thailand,
• India's 'Act East Policy' and Thailand's 'Look West Policy' provided an outline for enhancing mutual relations.
• Both India and Thailand lie in each other's extended neighborhoods and share a maritime boundary in the Andaman Sea.
• Bilateral relations between the two countries are rooted in history, age-old social and cultural interactions, and extensive people-to-people contacts.
• The shared link of Buddhism is a tie binding the two countries. Thai people pay regular pilgrim visits to Buddhist sites in India.
• Hindu elements are visible in Thai architecture, arts, sculpture, dance, drama, and literature.
• Both countries are important regional partners linking South and Southeast Asia. India and Thailand cooperate closely in the ASEAN, East Asia Summit, and Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) groupings as also in Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC), Asia Cooperation Dialogue, and Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA)
• The India-ASEAN Agreement on Trade in Goods was implemented in January 2010.
• India on august 30, 2004 took the first step towards a free trade area (FTA) with Thailand by concluding a protocol to implement one of the facets of the framework agreement on FTA. The protocol is meant to implement the Early Harvest Scheme (EHS) which provides for fast track elimination of tariffs on common items of export interest for both countries.

Security and Defence

• India and Thailand signed an MoU on Defence Cooperation in 2012.
• Since 2015, India is participating in Ex-Cobra Gold, the largest Asia-Pacific Military Exercise in the 'Observer Plus' category. India fields its engineers, observers, and medical delegations in the exercises in Thailand. Bilateral exercises are held annually between the armed forces of both countries.
• The other ongoing defence cooperation initiatives comprise bi-annual joint maritime patrolling by the navies of both countries, annual staff talks, subject matter expert exchange visits, and training of officers at each other's institutions.
• 4th meeting of the Joint Task Force (JTF) on Maritime Cooperation between India and Thailand was held in February 2021 in virtual mode.
• With a nearly 1,000-kilometre common maritime border in the Andaman Sea, our navies cooperate closely through joint naval exercises to help curb piracy and other forms of seaborne transnational crimes. Both share common views that international sea lanes must be freely accessed and safety guaranteed. India also has pledged to improve the capacity of Thailand's coast guards.

Trade

• The last few years have seen rapid growth in bilateral trade, which has reached the $15 billion mark in the year 2021-22.
• The Framework Agreement on India-Thailand FTA was signed in Bangkok in October 2003 and the second protocol to amend it was signed during the visit of the Thai PM to New Delhi in January 2012.

Connectivity

• An ambitious project to develop a 3,200-km highway linking India, Myanmar, and Thailand is underway. An ambitious project to develop a 3,200-km highway linking India, Myanmar, and Thailand so as to maximize the use of the highway for strengthening regional growth and integration.
• Millions of Indian tourists visit Thailand every year. In 2019, around 1.9 million Indian tourists visited Thailand. The number of Thai tourists visited India was close to 160000 (mainly for Buddhist pilgrimage sites).

Indian Diaspora in Thailand

• There is an estimated 250000 people of Indian origin in Thailand, many of them having lived in the country for several generations.
• The community comprises mainly Punjabi Hindus, Namdhari, and other Sikh sects, Gorakhpuris, Malayalis, Tamils, Gujaratis, Marwaris, and Sindhis.

Cultural Cooperation

• An Indian Cultural Centre was opened in Bangkok in 2009. It has been now renamed the Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre.
• Cultural Exchange Programme for 2016-19 was signed during the visit of the Thai PM to India in June 2016.
• A number of Indian Studies Centres are operational in prestigious Thai Universities.
• Embassy in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and several local partners organized the Festival of India in Thailand.
• International Yoga Day was celebrated in Thailand.
• 550th birth anniversary of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji was celebrated in Thailand. 
• The Thai language translation of the Constitution of India was launched by the President of the National Assembly and Speaker of the House of Representatives of Thailand.

Thailand Crisis

Brief History

• Thailand's politics have been in turmoil for years, driven in large part by a schism between populists, many of them rural and poor, and a large urban middle class and elite in Bangkok partial to the nation's royal establishment.
• The current disruption has its roots in the 2006 military ouster of billionaire Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who built a strong political base with populist policies that appealed to rural villagers in Thailand's north.
• Thaksin's removal led to a broad-based opposition movement that came to a head with widespread demonstrations in parts of Bangkok in 2010. The military violently suppressed the protests, resulting in some 90 deaths.
• In 2011, Thaksin's sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, rode a wave of opposition votes into power.
• In 2013, Yingluck proposed legislation that would have granted amnesty to Thaksin and others. The move set off a new wave of protests and anger - this time among Bangkok's urban elites and middle class sometimes known as "Yellow Shirts" - who want an end to the involvement of Thaksin's family in Thai politics for good.
• In May, Thailand's Constitutional Court removed Yingluck and nine Cabinet ministers from office, saying she had violated the Thai Constitution by reassigning a senior security official in 2011.
• Populists known as "Red Shirts" saw her ouster as a "judicial coup" and have been protesting what they consider a bias by many of the country's institutions against their side.
• Things escalated in May 2014 when three Yellow Shirt protesters died and 23 were injured after gunmen opened fire on a protest camp. The violence prompted an ominous warning from the army chief that troops would have to step in if the situation didn't calm down.
• On 20 May, the Royal Thai Army declared martial law throughout the nation, followed two days later by a coup that removed the government and placed General Prayuth Chan-Ocha as acting prime minister. His leadership and the rule of the new “National Council for Peace and Order” (NCPO). According to Prayuth, the move was necessary to end escalating protests that were part of a decade-long feud between opposing social movements.
• Thailand is no stranger to military coups. The military has attempted 19 coups in 80 years; 12 have been successful.

Impact of the Thai Crisis

• Known as the 'Detroit of the East,' Thailand has risen to become a vital manufacturing and assembly hub of hard-disk drives and automobiles for Japanese and Western firms".
• The months of protests have already hurt Thailand's economy and run the risk of making the country less attractive to investors and governments looking to strike up deals, analysts said.
• A stable Thailand is strategically important as an anchor for mainland Southeast Asia
• This trend in Thai politics does not bode well for Thailand’s ambition to be the center of cooperation and connectivity in Indochina linking with different countries and regions. It carries the potential to disrupt or damage any project Thailand collaborates with other countries and seriously affects Thailand’s foreign relations at every level.
• Thailand is a key country in ASEAN which occupies a significant geostrategic location in Asia and Southeast Asia. For major powers like the US, China, India, and Japan, Thailand serves as a gateway for further economic and political engagement with Indochina. While engagement with the Thai government is necessary, it is equally important that the external actors avoid becoming a target of Thai public resentment. For now, there is no better way than to keep transparency and accountability in all projects and maintain goodwill.

Lessons for a democratic form of government

The upheaval in Thailand reveals a crisis in liberal democracy that is not particular to Thailand. Indeed, the crisis of democracy in Thailand may have implications for the future of democracies everywhere. Economic stagnation, political impasse, and ecological destruction create a sense of urgency that is driving political opinions away from the center. The further people’s political positions diverge and the more intolerant they become of one another’s, the less likely they are to passively accept their opponents in national office. At the same time, the more divergent political opinions get, the harder it becomes to win national elections.