Thank you for being part of India Rising. It’s great to have you here.

It’s time for our next special issue: a guest article by Dr. Manoj Nimbalkar on the historical foundation of bilateral relations between India and Germany including a contemporary outlook.

Learned something? Help someone else and share India Rising with your friends, family and co-workers. Let’s grow our community together and thank you for supporting the Indo-European partnership.

Got feedback? Just hit reply, I’d love to hear from you!

The author of today’s guest article is our fellow Riser Dr. Manoj Nimbalkar, who is based out of Karlsruhe, Germany.

With over 21 years of combined experience in academic research and industry in Germany, Dr. Manoj Nimbalkar has built a distinguished career at the intersection of science, technology, and business development. His technical expertise spans quantum technologies, spectroscopy, Chemistry, Pharma, medical and healthcare sciences, food and beverages, and the process industry, and his focus also includes the resilience and defence sector.

As an experienced business and application development manager, he is known for outstanding customer and relationship management, and has established worldwide collaborations with leading universities, research institutes, and industry partners. He has a strong track record of writing successful industrial business proposals and projects valued in the millions of euros.

As Business and Startup Coach as well as Managing Director of an Indian-European Business Development company, Dr. Manoj Nimbalkar has also successfully introduced lean and agile management practices within his organisations.

He actively contributes to the broader innovation ecosystem, serving on several selection committees including ESA-BIC (Business Incubation Center) and Spacefounder.

Enjoy the guest article!

Manoj is recommending a book by Amitabh Kant, former chief executive officer of NITI Aayog (a public policy think tank of the Government of India):

By Dr. Manoj Nimbalkar

This paper presents a comprehensive, historically grounded account of the evolution of relations between India and Germany from the early modern period to the establishment of formal diplomatic ties and their consolidation thereafter. The analysis emphasizes five pillars of engagement—business and trade; science and technology; education and Indology; cultural and intellectual exchange; and political and diplomatic relations—within a hybrid chronological and thematic framework. The study demonstrates that Indo–German relations evolved largely outside a colonial framework, resulting in a relationship characterized by knowledge exchange, commercial pragmatism, and political engagement based on mutual interests rather than imperial hierarchy.¹

Relations between India and Germany possess a depth and continuity that predates the
emergence of the modern German nation-state and the independence of India. Unlike many bilateral relationships shaped primarily by colonial rule or post-war realignment, Indo–German engagement developed incrementally through commercial networks, scholarly exchange, scientific collaboration, and political interaction. These connections emerged in a European context in which German-speaking states lacked overseas colonies in South Asia but were deeply embedded in global economic, intellectual, and scientific systems.²

This paper argues that the distinctive character of Indo–German relations—frequently described in contemporary diplomacy as trust-based and forward-looking—has its origins in these early, non-colonial interactions. The analysis situates Germany broadly, encompassing German-speaking principalities, kingdoms, and intellectual traditions prior to national unification in 1871, and traces the gradual consolidation of relations into formal diplomatic partnership in the mid-20th century.¹³

The earliest identifiable links between India and German-speaking Europe were commercial rather than diplomatic. During the sixteenth century, prominent German merchant-banking families such as the Fuggers and Welsers played a significant role in financing maritime expansion undertaken by Iberian and later Dutch trading powers. While German states did not sponsor independent voyages to India, German capital, commercial expertise, and personnel were embedded in European trading enterprises that connected Indian markets with Europe.⁴

German merchants and craftsmen served aboard Portuguese and Dutch ships operating in the Indian Ocean, and German trading agents were active in European ports that handled Indian goods such as spices, textiles, indigo, and precious stones. These early economic links positioned German actors as indirect participants in Indo-European commerce, fostering familiarity with Indian commodities, markets, and production systems.⁴

A defining feature of German commercial engagement with India was its absence of territorial ambition. Unlike British or Dutch trade, which evolved into colonial rule, German involvement remained confined to finance, logistics, and later industrial supply. As the Auswärtiges Amt notes, “Germany’s early commercial activities in India were primarily non-colonial, emphasizing trade and technical expertise rather than political domination.”⁵ This relative neutrality would later influence Indian perceptions of Germany as a commercial and technological partner unburdened by colonial legacies.⁶

From the seventeenth century onward, German missionaries in India emerged as key intermediaries in scientific and intellectual exchange. German Jesuits and Protestant
missionaries combined religious objectives with systematic observation of Indian languages, astronomy, mathematics, and social customs.⁷

Heinrich Roth, a German Jesuit resident in Mughal India during the mid-seventeenth century, produced one of the earliest European grammatical studies of Sanskrit. As Roth himself stated in correspondence to the Jesuit archives, “The language of the Hindus, in its richness and precision, exceeds anything I have studied in Europe.”⁸ Although unpublished during his lifetime, his work circulated among scholarly circles and informed later European linguistic research.⁹

Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, who arrived in Tranquebar in 1706 under the Danish-Halle Mission, further institutionalized this approach. In his journal, Ziegenbalg wrote, “I endeavor not only to translate scripture but to understand the hearts and minds of the Tamil people.”¹⁰ Ziegenbalg mastered Tamil, translated Christian texts, and compiled extensive documentation on local religious practices, ethics, and social organization.¹¹

Through missionary correspondence and scholarly networks, German observers contributed to European understanding of Indian astronomy, calendrical systems, and mathematical traditions. As noted in the Tranquebar Mission archives, “The Indian computations of time, the precise movements of the planets, are recorded with accuracy surpassing that of European astronomers in many instances.”¹² These exchanges fed into broader Enlightenment-era debates on comparative science and the antiquity of non-European knowledge systems.³

By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Germany had become a leading center for the academic study of India. German scholars played a foundational role in the development of comparative linguistics, philology, and religious studies, disciplines that relied heavily on Sanskrit and other Indian classical languages.⁴

Friedrich Schlegel’s seminal work on the language and wisdom of India marked a turning point in European intellectual history by positioning Sanskrit as central to the study of Indo-European languages.⁵ German universities subsequently established chairs in Sanskrit and Indology, notably at Bonn, Berlin, Leipzig, and Tübingen.⁶

German Indology was characterized by methodological rigor, textual criticism, and historical contextualization. Scholars such as Franz Bopp and Max Müller advanced comparative approaches that reshaped European understanding of language families and religious traditions. Müller noted in Sacred Books of the East, “By understanding the Vedas and Upanishads in their original tongue, we gain insight into the mind of an entire civilization.”⁷ Although Max Müller spent much of his career in Britain, his intellectual formation was firmly rooted in German academic traditions.⁸

This scholarly engagement had lasting consequences for India, as German-produced editions and translations of Indian texts became authoritative references globally. German universities thus emerged as important nodes in the global circulation of Indian intellectual heritage.⁹

From the late nineteenth century, Indian students increasingly sought higher education in Germany, particularly in medicine, engineering, chemistry, and philosophy. Germany’s advanced scientific infrastructure and perceived political neutrality made it an attractive destination.¹⁰

Siemens & Halske AG, a German electrical engineering company, entered India in 1867 to develop telegraph and electricity infrastructure.¹¹ Siemens Corporate Archives (Berlin, India Operations Records, 1867–1950) document contracts with the Bengal-Nagpur Railway (1887) and the Bombay Electric Supply & Tramway Company (1905). Engineers like Carl Heinrich Zimmermann supervised installations, blending German technical expertise with Indian logistical requirements.¹¹

Founded in 1956 with German technical assistance, IIT Madras benefitted from faculty
exchange, laboratory design, and curriculum development. National Archives of India, IIT
Madras Founding Documents, 1956–1960, show German collaboration in curriculum planning and lab construction.¹² Faculty such as Prof. Heinrich M. Schneider helped implement structured engineering pedagogy and project-based learning.¹²

Indian revolutionaries coordinated with German agents to undermine British rule during WWI. British Library, India Office Records (IOR/L/PO/10/50) document correspondence between German military attaché von Waldersee and Indian nationalist Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, including arms shipment plans and intelligence operations.¹³ Although the conspiracy did not succeed militarily, it established the first organized political engagement between Indian nationalists and Germany.¹³

University of Bonn established chairs in Sanskrit and Indology in 1818 (UB Bonn, Fonds 72, Professorship Sanskrit).²⁴ Correspondence between Prof. August Wilhelm Schlegel, Franz Bopp, and Indian manuscript collectors facilitated access to Vedic texts. Professors such as Franz Bopp published critical editions, laying the foundation for comparative linguistics and cross-cultural academic exchange.¹⁴

From a long historical perspective, the evolution of Indo-German relations now appears to be approaching a structural turning point rather than simply experiencing another phase of incremental deepening. The accumulated trajectory — from early intellectual exchange and nineteenth-century scholarly engagement to post-war industrial cooperation and late twentieth- century technological partnership — has created the institutional density necessary for a qualitatively different form of engagement to emerge.

Recent political developments illustrate this transition with unusual clarity. The high-level visit of Friedrich Merz to India, in consultation with Narendra Modi, reflects more than routine diplomatic continuity. It signals a convergence of long-term strategic planning — particularly in supply-chain resilience, industrial transformation, clean-energy transition, and technology governance. Such agenda-setting dialogue indicates that bilateral cooperation is increasingly being framed within systemic and forward-looking policy architectures rather than sector-specific agreements.

Parallel to this political alignment is the advancing economic integration between India and the European Union, within which Germany plays a central coordinating role. The momentum toward conclusion and implementation of the EU–India free trade agreement represents a structural deepening of economic relations, embedding bilateral engagement within a rules-based regulatory framework that will shape investment flows, industrial standards, and technological collaboration over the long term. Historically, Indo-German economic cooperation operated largely through project-based or sector-specific arrangements; the emerging framework instead institutionalizes interdependence at a systemic level.

Equally indicative of this new phase is the growing prominence of sub-national and regional diplomacy. Delegation exchanges involving industrial and innovation centres such as Karlsruhe and Stuttgart, alongside reciprocal Indian governmental, academic, and business missions to German federal states, demonstrate how cooperation is increasingly implemented through regional innovation ecosystems rather than exclusively through national ministries. These exchanges reflect the operational core of contemporary partnership: applied research collaboration, advanced manufacturing integration, vocational training alignment, urban sustainability policy, and technology transfer networks. In functional terms, the relationship is becoming multi-level — linking national strategy, regional capability, and institutional execution.

The historical significance of these developments lies in their cumulative effect. Earlier phases of Indo-German engagement were defined by knowledge transmission, industrial modernization support, and trade complementarities. The emerging phase is defined instead by co- development — joint participation in shaping technological standards, industrial transformation pathways, and regulatory frameworks within a changing global order.

From an analytical standpoint, this suggests that Indo-German relations are transitioning from a durable strategic partnership into a structured system of interdependence sustained simultaneously by political alignment, economic integration, technological collaboration, and regional institutional linkages. The present moment may therefore be understood not merely as an intensification of cooperation, but as the consolidation of a new strategic architecture — one in which historical ties have matured into embedded, multi-layered, and forward-projecting collaboration.

In this sense, contemporary leadership engagement, expanding trade frameworks, and
increasingly active regional exchanges collectively mark the opening of a new chapter in Indo-German relations — one defined less by episodic cooperation and more by sustained, system-shaping partnership.

From a diplomatic-historical perspective, this phase represents not a rupture with the past but the logical culmination of centuries of interaction. What began as indirect commercial contact and scholarly curiosity has matured into a multidimensional partnership with global significance.

The historical trajectory therefore suggests that the coming decade may witness the most structurally consequential phase in the evolution of Indo–German relations to date — one defined not only by cooperation, but by systemic integration.

¹ Federal Foreign Office. “70 Years of Diplomatic Relations with India.” Auswärtiges
Amt. https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/aussenpolitik/laenderinformationen/indien-node/70-years-diplomatic-relations-with-india-2445620
² Federal Foreign Office. “Germany – India Bilateral Relations.” https://india.diplo.de/in-en/deu-und-ind/bilaterale-beziehungen
³ Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. “60 Years of Indo-German
Relations.” https://www.kas.de/en/static-content-details/-/content/60-jahre-deutsch-indische-beziehungen
⁴ Ministry of External Affairs (India). “India–Germany Relations.”
PDF. https://www.mea.gov.in/Portal/ForeignRelation/India-Germany-2024.pdf
⁵ Auswärtiges Amt. “Historical Overview of German-Indian Trade
Relations.” https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/aussenpolitik/laenderinformationen/indien-node/70-years-diplomatic-relations-with-india-2445620
⁶ IIT Madras. “IIT Madras Overview.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IIT_Madras.
⁷ MIDA Archival Reflexicon. “India-related holdings in German archives.” https://www.projekt-mida.de/en/research-portal/reflexicon/
⁸ Cultural Cooperation – Federal Foreign Office. https://india.diplo.de/in-en/deu-und-ind/2347470-2347470
⁹ National Library of Australia. India and the Germans: 500 years of Indo-German
contacts. https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/2602575
¹⁰ Research Article on Indo-German Collaboration. https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.17171.
¹¹ Siemens Corporate Archives, Berlin, India Operations Records, 1867–1950.
¹² National Archives of India, IIT Madras Founding Documents, 1956–1960.
¹³ British Library, India Office Records (IOR/L/PO/10/50).
¹⁴ University of Bonn Archives, Fonds 72, Professorship Sanskrit.

For further information, please contact the author via LinkedIn.

Enjoyed this issue? Share India Rising with your network.

You can’t get enough or want to catch up on past editions? Follow the link!