Takeaways from Modi-Zelenskyy meeting: PM demonstrated why India’s global stature has seen a meteoric rise

India isn’t a member of the G7 grouping of the world’s richest nations that met in Hiroshima on Saturday but Narendra Modi, who was invited by Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida to attend the meeting, was the man of the hour. The global influence and relevance of a homogenous G7 is increasingly a subject of debate. It remains a high-profile platform, however, and this edition’s attendees included Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy who made an unannounced, show-stopping visit to the venue and requested a meeting with Modi. The gesture was significant in more ways than one and it drove home the effectiveness of India’s strategy. In the span of a day, Modi, one of the most sought-after leaders at the summit, demonstrated why New Delhi’s global stature has seen a meteoric rise, why the country is being courted by both sides of the geopolitical divide (Russian foreign minister has visited India twice this year) and why the developing world, the Global South, pins its hopes on India and relies on Modi to be its voice. It was also a discernible vindication of Modi government’s ‘multi-engagement’ and ‘multi-directional’ foreign policy that is unabashedly realist in pursuing India’s self-interests and creating space for own rise while carefully evaluating India’s domestic necessities with the pulls and pressures of an increasingly multipolar world torn apart by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and America’s competition with China for global supremacy. Modi also demonstrated that while India’s foreign policy posture shuns the West’s liberal hegemonic agenda and follows the realist tradition in single-minded pursuit of self-interest, the quest is by no means amoral. It was notably evident during his meetings on the sidelines with several world leaders, and especially during his talks with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion in February last year, Modi has clarified India’s stand as “firmly on the side of peace”. New Delhi has neither endorsed nor defended Russian aggression and has been careful in distancing itself from Beijing. Modi, in fact, went to Samarkand and told Putin in a one-on-one setting that this isn’t an “era of war”. The phrase subsequently found resonance in last year’s G20 communique and the Quad joint statement released from Hiroshima this Saturday. That said, India hasn’t bought the narrative that the conflict between Russia and the West is simultaneously a moral and existential battle for the rest of the world. It hasn’t been seduced by the apocalyptic framing that divides the world into two warring tribes that are either ‘with us’ or ‘against us’. The West has also been riled up by India’s refusal to accept a more performative role, such as explicitly condemning Russian president Vladimir Putin, enthusiastically joining the sanction regime, or voting against Russia at the UN. The Euro-Atlantic response has been to throw a multitude of labels at India, accusing it of immorality, profit-taking, ‘enabling’ Putin’s war-machine’, etc. This Eurocentric view misses several nuances in its affinity to stage a morality burlesque. To better understand Indian statecraft, we need to turn to the book written by India’s external affairs minister S Jaishankar, the foremost strategic thinker of our times. In The India Way, Strategies For An Uncertain World (page 48), Jaishankar writes, “…what perhaps distinguishes us from other traditions of statecraft is our approach to governance and diplomacy. India’s history shows that it does not follow a ‘winner takes all’ approach to contestation. Nor is there a confident belief that the end justifies the means. On the contrary, the Indian narrative is interlaced with moderation and nuance that highlight the fairness of outcomes.” In the book that was published two years before Russia invaded Ukraine, Jaishankar goes on to write, “There is continuous reflection on both the goals and the processes, sometimes to the point of self-doubt. But what it boils down to is the importance of making the right choice in difficult situations.” This is neither the Eastern view, nor the Western view. It is the Indian view that pivots on the acknowledgement that the world is ambiguous, and our actions cannot be based on monochromatic interpretations. The Euro-Atlanticist foreign policy establishment has so far been strangely unable to wrap its head around this reality. The West has also been unable to, much less care for the struggles of the Global South. The war has made scarce and pushed up commodity prices, triggering a severe crises in energy, food and fertilizer sectors across the globe, hitting developing nations the hardest and dictating their geopolitical choices. The crisis has also affected India, increasing inflationary pressure on Indian economy just as it was tiptoeing out of the Covid-induced calamity. New Delhi’s case is even more complicated due to its overwhelming and traditional reliance on Russian equipment, defence industry, weapons systems and supply chain. Despite these realities, the Indian view of the war has steadily shifted towards a critical view of Putin’s actions. As Brookings Institution scholar Tanvi Madan observes in The Economist, “India has dropped references to ‘legitimate security interests of all sides’ and stopped framing the war as a Russia-NATO problem. Statements at the UN and in the Indian Parliament have taken on a more critical tone, with the foreign minister stating that India is ‘strongly against the conflict’. It has reiterated its interest in respect for international law, territorial integrity and sovereignty and the UN charter on which the global order is built. It has expressed its disapproval of the use of force to resolve disputes and of unilateral changes of the status quo.” Threading the strands make it obvious that India is squarely against Russian invasion of Ukraine, but in line with India’s strategic culture, the expression of that displeasure considers the circumstances that are unique to India, and on its own terms and pace, not driven by Western pressure. As Jaishankar writes, “Introducing our own diplomatic terms into the discourse is intrinsic to the process of international emergence.” India, after all, sees itself as an independent pole in a multipolar world. It is well aware, as the external affairs minister writes, that “there is a broad correlation between occupying the high moral; ground and shaping the narrative” (page 63). These impulses came to the fore when Modi sat across Zelenskyy — the first time both leaders have met in person though there have been multiple telephone conversations in the past — in Hiroshima in an impromptu meeting that lasted around half an hour. Modi framed the war in terms of humanitarian crisis. “The war in Ukraine is a very big issue for the whole world. It has had many different impacts on the whole world. But I don’t see this as a political or economic issue. For me, this is an issue of humanity, an issue of human values,” Modi in his opening statement. This immediately sets the tone away from chest-thumping tribalism to the nub of the issue, paving the way for India to leave its mark on global consciousness through humanitarian assistance. When the leader of a Pacific Islands nation, Papua New Guinea president James Marape, breaks protocol to receive Modi at the airport and bows down to touch his feet, it is a gesture that speaks volumes about India’s place and stature in the world. PNG was one of the countries where India had sent a major consignment of 132,000 vaccine doses when the developed world was busy hoarding vaccines and leaving the rest of the world to its fate. This was also the promise that Modi held out to Zelenskyy, vowing to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Ukraine that includes pharmaceuticals, as foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra said later at a press briefing. During the meeting that has caught global attention, flanked by Jaishankar and national security adviser Ajit Doval, Modi said, “You know much more than any of us the pain of war but I could very well understand your pain and the pain of the Ukrainian people when our children narrated the circumstances in your country after they were brought back last year. I want to assure you that India — and I personally— will certainly do everything that is necessary to resolve this crisis.” The candid pledge is worth noting. Not only does it convey a sense of sincerity (coming from the prime minister of a country that has been called a ‘fence-sitter’ by the West) but it also raises the possibility of Indian mediation, in whatever mode or manner, direct or indirect, from the standpoint that India is possibly the only bridge between the two camps. Zelenskyy, for whom the meeting with Modi was perhaps an outreach and assessment exercise, showed a better sense of understanding than the Atlanticists who view the war as a morality play. Zelenskyy invited Modi to Kyiv, thanked India for providing humanitarian aid, and spoke about Ukraine’s needs in humanitarian demining and mobile hospitals. As the readout released by the Ukrainian president’s office states, Zelenskyy “briefed Modi in detail on the Ukrainian Peace Formula and invited India to join the implementation of this initiative.” War produces unintended consequences, one of which has been the prominence India has gained through its diplomatic endeavours. The last few chapters on this episode are yet to be written. Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.