CDS / OTA Current Affairs · International Relations · 22 Oct 2026

From the Good Maharaja to a Defence Industry Dialogue

By Aditya Tiwari · 22 Oct 2026 · 11 min read

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk paid an official visit to India from 21 to 23 October 2026, accompanied by about 100 chief executives and industry representatives. The joint statement and list of outcomes released on 22 October announced four things:

a target of doubling bilateral trade by 2030;
Poland joining the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI);
the establishment of a Defence Industry Dialogue;
agreement on a dialogue on counter-terrorism.

The joint statement runs much longer than the list. It covers trade, defence, technology, connectivity, the Ukraine war, terrorism, UN reform, the Indo-Pacific and an unusual chapter of Second World War history. Read as a whole, it shows how a relationship that was modest for decades has become one of India's more active partnerships inside the European Union.

Where the relationship stood before this visit

Diplomatic relations were established in 1954.
In August 2024, the Indian Prime Minister visited Warsaw, in the 70th anniversary year of relations, and the relationship was elevated to a Strategic Partnership. An Action Plan for 2024-2028 was adopted to implement it.
In September 2026, the External Affairs Minister and Poland's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Radosław Sikorski, carried out a mid-term review of that Action Plan in Warsaw. The two Prime Ministers endorsed the review this week.

So this visit is the reciprocal leg of the 2024 upgrade, about two years into the plan. That is why the statement's emphasis falls on "concrete, time-bound and mutually beneficial outcomes" rather than new frameworks.

The four outcomes, and what each one means

1. Doubling trade by 2030

The statement sets the target without stating a baseline figure, so the useful content is the reasoning around it. Poland presented itself as a gateway for Indian business into Central and Eastern Europe and the wider European market; India invited Polish investment in manufacturing and innovation. The sectors named were industrial machinery, defence, infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, mining and critical minerals, energy and ICT, and the two sides agreed on joint research in AI, semiconductors and quantum technologies.

The larger frame is European. The Prime Ministers referred to the India-EU Summit of 27 January 2026 in New Delhi, the joint strategic agenda Towards 2030, and the conclusion of the India-EU Free Trade Agreement, and called for its early signing, ratification and implementation. Poland is an EU member, so its trade with India will run largely on the terms of that agreement — the substance of which is set out in our explainer on what the India-EU FTA actually changes.

2. Poland joins CDRI

The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure is an India-led initiative, launched by India at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York in September 2019, with its secretariat in New Delhi. It is a partnership of national governments, UN agencies, multilateral development banks, the private sector and knowledge institutions, focused on making infrastructure — power, transport, telecom, water, health — resilient to climate and disaster risk.

Poland's membership matters because CDRI, like the International Solar Alliance, is one of the institutions through which India seeks a leadership role in global public goods. India also invited Poland to join the International Solar Alliance and the Global Biofuels Alliance, the latter launched at the G20 summit in New Delhi in September 2023.

3. A Defence Industry Dialogue

The statement welcomed the 8th meeting of the Joint Working Group on Defence, held in Warsaw in September 2026, and proposed a Defence Industry Dialogue for "co-development, co-production and other forms of industrial collaboration". Poland has expanded its armed forces and defence spending sharply since 2022, which makes it a large prospective market and partner.

One sentence deserves attention: both sides "expressed their expectation" that an Agreement on Mutual Protection and Exchange of Classified Information would be signed soon. Agreements of this kind are a practical precondition for serious defence-industrial cooperation, because co-development requires the sharing of classified technical data. Its absence so far is a measure of how early the defence relationship still is. The statement also placed this cooperation within the India-EU Security and Defence Partnership signed in January 2026.

4. A counter-terrorism dialogue

The two leaders condemned terrorism "in all its forms and manifestations", including cross-border terrorism, and condemned the terrorist attack at Pahalgam on 22 April 2025. They called for action against entities designated by the UN Security Council's 1267 sanctions committee and for the early adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT), which India first proposed at the UN in 1996. A European government signing up to the phrase "cross-border terrorism" is the kind of language India's diplomacy works to secure in every joint statement.

The global issues: what each side gave the other

Joint statements are negotiated documents, and the passages on global issues show a trade of positions.

On UN reform, Poland supported India's membership of a reformed and expanded Security Council and India's candidature for a non-permanent seat for 2028-29.
On Ukraine, the leaders expressed "deepest concern" over the war and called for a peace consistent with the UN Charter, "including respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity", and noted its harm to food and energy security for the Global South. That is language India can sign — principle without the naming of a party — and that Poland, Ukraine's neighbour, wanted on record.
On the Indo-Pacific, both reaffirmed UNCLOS 1982 and freedom of navigation, and India invited Poland to join the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI), which India announced at the East Asia Summit in Bangkok in November 2019.
On connectivity, they referred to the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), announced at the G20 in New Delhi in 2023.

The Visegrad Group

The statement welcomed the first Foreign Ministers' meeting of India and the Visegrad Group (V4) and committed both sides to the V4+India format.

Members: Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Origin: formed in 1991, named after the Hungarian town of Visegrád where the founding meeting was held, by the states that had emerged from the Soviet bloc and were seeking integration with Western Europe.
Status: all four joined the EU in 2004 and are NATO members.

The V4+India format is a way for India to deal with Central Europe as a region, alongside its bilateral ties and its relationship with the EU in Brussels — the same layered approach seen in the India-Belgium joint statement earlier this year.

The Good Maharaja

The most distinctive paragraph of the joint statement is historical. It describes the memorial in Warsaw to the Maharaja Jam Saheb, "popularly known as the Good Maharaja in Poland", and to the Principality of Kolhapur, as "a living bridge" between the two peoples.

In 1942, Jam Saheb Digvijaysinhji of Nawanagar (today's Jamnagar, Gujarat) took in Polish children who had been released from Soviet labour camps after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. They were housed at a camp at Balachadi, near Jamnagar, supported from his own resources.
From 1943, a much larger settlement was built at Valivade, near Kolhapur, on land provided by the princely state. It became the largest Polish refugee settlement in India, sheltering more than 5,000 people, mostly women and children, until 1948. Children from Balachadi were moved there in 1946.

Poland has honoured him in Warsaw, and the two governments now run a Jam Saheb Memorial Youth Exchange Programme, whose second edition took place in October 2026. The statement pairs this with a more recent debt in the other direction: Poland's help to more than 2,000 Indian students evacuated from Ukraine through its territory under Operation Ganga in 2022.

The cultural paragraph also notes Poland's long tradition of Indology and Sanskrit scholarship and the ICCR Chair of Indian Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków.

Poland in brief

Capital: Warsaw. EU since 2004; NATO since 1999.
Currency: the złoty — Poland is an EU member but not in the euro area.
The joint statement congratulated Poland on crossing a GDP of USD 1 trillion.

🔑 Revision block

The visit: Polish PM Donald Tusk, 21-23 October 2026, with about 100 CEOs; joint statement 22 October.
Four outcomes: trade doubling by 2030; Poland joins CDRI; Defence Industry Dialogue; counter-terrorism dialogue.
Background: relations since 1954; Strategic Partnership and Action Plan 2024-2028 from the Indian PM's August 2024 Warsaw visit; mid-term review September 2026.
Defence: 8th JWG on Defence (Warsaw, Sept 2026); classified-information agreement still to be signed; India-EU Security and Defence Partnership (January 2026).
Terrorism: Pahalgam attack (22 April 2025) condemned; 1267 committee; CCIT (India's 1996 proposal).
Multilateral: Poland backs India for a reformed UNSC and the 2028-29 non-permanent seat; India invites Poland to IPOI (2019), ISA and the Global Biofuels Alliance (2023); IMEC referenced.
CDRI: launched by India, UN Climate Action Summit, September 2019; secretariat New Delhi.
V4: Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia; formed 1991; first India-V4 Foreign Ministers' meeting welcomed.
History: Jam Saheb Digvijaysinhji of Nawanagar — Balachadi (1942); Valivade, Kolhapur (1943-48, 5,000+ Poles). Operation Ganga (2022) — Polish help to 2,000+ Indian students.
Poland: EU 2004, NATO 1999, currency złoty (not in the euro area).

🎯 Practice MCQs

→ (b) It was elevated during the Indian Prime Minister's visit to Warsaw in August 2024, with an Action Plan for 2024-2028.

Q2. The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, which Poland announced it would join, was launched by India at: (a) the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, 2019 (b) COP26 in Glasgow, 2021 (c) the G20 summit in New Delhi, 2023 (d) the Paris climate conference, 2015

→ (a) CDRI was launched in September 2019 and has its secretariat in New Delhi; the International Solar Alliance was launched at Paris in 2015.

Q3. Which of the following countries is NOT a member of the Visegrad Group? (a) Hungary (b) Slovakia (c) Czech Republic (d) Austria

→ (d) The Visegrad Group comprises Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Q4. The "Good Maharaja", honoured in Poland for sheltering Polish children during the Second World War, was the ruler of: (a) Kolhapur (b) Baroda (c) Nawanagar (d) Mysore

→ (c) Jam Saheb Digvijaysinhji of Nawanagar (Jamnagar) housed the children at Balachadi; Kolhapur state provided land for the larger Valivade settlement.

Q5. The currency of Poland is the: (a) złoty (b) euro (c) koruna (d) forint

→ (a) Poland is an EU member but not in the euro area; the koruna is Czech and the forint Hungarian.

Q6. The Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative, which India invited Poland to join, was announced by India at: (a) the Shangri-La Dialogue, 2018 (b) the East Asia Summit, Bangkok, 2019 (c) the Quad leaders' summit, 2021 (d) the G20 summit, New Delhi, 2023

→ (b) India announced IPOI at the East Asia Summit in Bangkok in November 2019.

Q7. The Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, whose early adoption the joint statement called for, was first proposed at the United Nations by: (a) the United States (b) France (c) India (d) Poland

→ (c) India proposed the CCIT in 1996; it has not been adopted, largely because of disagreement over the definition of terrorism.

Q8. Operation Ganga, for which India thanked Poland in the joint statement, was: (a) the evacuation of Indian nationals from Ukraine in 2022 (b) a joint naval exercise in the Baltic Sea (c) a river-cleaning partnership on the Vistula (d) the evacuation of Indian nationals from Sudan in 2023

→ (a) Poland's help to more than 2,000 Indian students crossing from Ukraine was acknowledged; the 2023 Sudan evacuation was Operation Kaveri.

Q9. Which of the following was NOT among the four announced outcomes of the Polish Prime Minister's October 2026 visit? (a) a target of doubling bilateral trade by 2030 (b) Poland joining the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (c) a dialogue on counter-terrorism (d) a bilateral free trade agreement between India and Poland

→ (d) Trade policy is an EU competence; the two sides instead called for early signing of the India-EU FTA.

→ (b) Poland joined the EU in 2004 with the other Visegrad states; it had joined NATO in 1999.

📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)

Bilateral visits are a regular source of CDS International Relations questions, but the questions rarely ask about the visit itself. They ask about the institutions, groupings and history a visit brings into the news.

The first form is the grouping-membership question. "Which of the following is NOT a member of the Visegrad Group?" with Austria, Romania or Slovenia as the odd one out. Groupings of four are especially popular because the options can list exactly four countries.

The second is the India-led-institution question: CDRI, ISA, the Global Biofuels Alliance and IPOI, matched to their launch years and venues. CDRI (New York, 2019) and ISA (Paris, 2015) are the pair most often confused.

The third is the history question, and this visit supplies an unusually good one. The Good Maharaja of Nawanagar, Balachadi and Valivade appear in Indian and Polish commemorations often enough to make a matching item or a "consider the following statements" question likely.

A fourth, the currency question, is a perennial: Poland's złoty, the Czech koruna and the Hungarian forint are the classic traps for candidates who assume that every EU member uses the euro.

For a written answer on India's European diplomacy, the proposition worth making is that India now works with Europe on three levels at once — with the EU on trade and security, with regional formats such as the Visegrad Group, and bilaterally with individual states. Poland is a strong illustration: a rapidly growing economy and defence spender on the EU's eastern edge, linked to India by a striking piece of wartime history and by a shared interest in the terms of the India-EU FTA.

Preparing for CDS/OTA? For every bilateral visit, list the groupings, institutions and history it touches — that list, not the itinerary, is what the paper asks about. Start with our CDS/OTA study material, follow the daily CDS current affairs, and prepare with our faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.

✍️ Written by Aditya Tiwari — Economy & current-affairs faculty at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk.

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