Why India can neither shun Russia nor ignore West

The meltdown in Western media, official circles, and think tanks over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Moscow, and even more over his trademark bear-hug with Russian President Vladimir Putin, bordered on the bizarre. It almost smacked of the heartbreak of a jealous lover who, despite being in an open relationship, behaves as if jilted because another suitor is getting some attention. For some strange reason, the Western cohort cannot digest the fact that India has agency to maintain other relationships or partnerships without seeking the West’s approval or authorisation.

More galling was the sanctimony, the sneering superciliousness, and the self-righteous indignation over the bonhomie between the prime minister of the world’s largest democracy meeting and the president of Russia, whom the West calls a ‘murderous autocrat’.

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This is the same West that embraced genocidal maniacs like Mao Zedong, surreptitiously aided Pol Pot, allied with Gen Ziaul Haq, supported Gen Augusto Pinochet, and backed Gen Suharto, among others. The hypocrisy of the West aside, it is the failure of Western analysts and policymakers to understand diplomatic hedging and strategic imperatives that is both worrying and perplexing. But equally concerning is the unnecessary and unreal show of defiance among some sections in India under the false impression that the West needs us more than we need the West or that we are indispensable for the West.

The fact that there has been a lot of pressure on India to condemn Russia for the Ukraine war is undeniable. And yet, despite all the silly noises from Western media about India buying Russian oil or maintaining neutrality in the conflict, Western governments have ostensibly been somewhat more understanding of India’s compulsions. But over the last few months, there have been some strains in the relationship between Western and Indian establishments.

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India has been seething over the license, patronage, protection, and support being given to Khalistani extremists who have openly intimidated Indian diplomats, attacked Indian missions, threatened to blow up Indian airlines and assassinate the Indian prime minister. There is also anger over the relentless campaign against Indian democracy. There are dark insinuations about Western efforts to meddle in and influence Indian elections, politics, and public discourse. Some analysts believe that PM Modi’s Russia visit was in part a message to the West to back off.

Even if the growing sense of coldness creeping into India’s relations with the West is exaggerated and overblown, there is a strategic disconnect between how India looks at the Russia-Ukraine war and how the West looks at it. The fact that India doesn’t endorse the war is obvious. In fact, India believes that the war is neither in Russia’s interest nor in the interest of the West, and certainly not in Ukraine’s interest.

While the Western media can stand on their creaking pulpit and pontificate about the immorality behind Modi meeting Putin, there aren’t many leaders in the world who can tell Putin to his face that “no solution is possible on the battlefield…solutions and peace talks are not successful in the midst of bombs, guns, and bullets, and we have to find the path to peace through dialogue". He also expressed his anguish over the missile strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv.

The way India looks at it, by ostracising, isolating, and sanctioning Russia, the West is no closer to winning the war. Instead of pushing back the Russian advance, Western policy is pushing Russia deeper into China’s vice-like embrace.

This is clearly a problem for India, which is trying to somehow balance things by remaining engaged with Russia and advocating dialogue and diplomacy to get some kind of breakthrough to stop the war. There is no gainsaying that India’s engagement with Russia doesn’t make a significant dent in the ‘no limits partnership’ between Russia and China.

The Russia sceptics aren’t off the mark when they insist that if India and China come to blows, Russia will in all likelihood not side with, if not dump, India. At the same time, the Russia enthusiasts in India also have the point that it is not just India trying to balance China by engaging Russia, but also the latter doing the same by engaging India. Clearly, this is something that the West should welcome, even encourage, rather than stand on their fake moral high horse and excoriate India.

Beyond the claptrap of ‘values-based partnership’ with the West and sentimentalism and nostalgia of ‘old, tried, trusted, and tested’ friendship with Russia, all international relations are inherently transactional and based on interests. India was a plural, liberal democracy when the military-ruled Pakistan was the most allied ally of the US, and people like Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger used the most abusive and vile language against Indian leaders and democracy. But when the US’ interests converged with India’s, the Americans suddenly discovered the ‘shared values’ they had with India.

This is precisely why India feels the need to hedge her bets to the extent possible and feasible in order to protect and further her interests. If this means buying cheap oil from Russia or maintaining a close defence relationship with Russia, then so be it. Equally importantly, from India’s perspective, maintaining a good relationship with Russia is necessary given the neighbourhood it is in. While Russia might no longer be a superpower, it remains a Great Power with a global footprint. The Russian potential to disrupt, damage, and destabilise the region cannot be underestimated. It therefore makes a lot more sense for India to have Russia in her corner than in the corner of her enemies.

Even so, Indian policymakers are well aware that there are inherent limits to diplomatic hedging and strategic balancing. In other words, just as Russia’s importance shouldn’t be underestimated, it is equally important that it shouldn’t be overstated. True, bilateral trade with Russia has zoomed since the Ukraine war. But unlike India’s trade with the West, the economic relationship with Russia doesn’t have much depth.

Remove weapons and oil from the trade equation, and the trade volume becomes negligible. Even in the weapons trade, there are serious supply constraints on systems and spares, which have only become worse because of the Ukraine war. Add to this the problems in devising a payment mechanism that skirts Western sanctions. The old rupee-rouble arrangement that is sought to be revived has its limitations simply because of the imbalance in trade. Many Indian private companies with markets in the West are chary of supplying to Russia lest they fall foul of the Western sanctions.

Also, from a medium- to long-term strategic viewpoint, Russia is not on an upswing. It is more or less static, economically, demographically, and technologically. Russian technology, while still cutting-edge in some fields, is starting to gasp for breath and finding it difficult to keep up with the competition. As India continues to grow, Russia’s importance will reduce in her strategic calculus.

Therefore, it is imperative that, while giving great importance to maintaining relations with Russia, India doesn’t in any way downgrade the enormous importance that the West holds for India. Just as it would be a mistake to underestimate Russia’s capability to create trouble, it would be an even bigger blunder to underestimate the huge economic, political, and security leverages that the West has against India.

A small sample of this has already been seen in the way the West has systematically sullied India’s image and reputation through its media and NGOs, even as at the official level it continues to maintain a facade of normalcy, even closeness. While pushing back against Western meddling, interference, and influence operations, India needs to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. To turn the old adage on its head and paraphrase it, while it is painful to be America’s friend (and suffer its hectoring, lecturing, meddling, and moralising), it is even more painful to be America’s enemy. For the foreseeable future, India will therefore need to walk the diplomatic and strategic tightrope to balance both Russia and the US.

This won’t be easy because the West continues to suffer from its own colonial and imperial hangover, which makes it want other countries to follow its lead and put its interests before their own. Resisting such demands from the West comes at a cost. More importantly, it requires deft diplomacy, which in turn is a function of a degree of self-assurance and confidence rooted in realism and not self-delusions. Highly premature declarations of becoming a superpower—India is at best a middle power—are counterproductive, if not mind-numbingly foolish. India might be the fifth-largest economy in the world, but it is still a very poor country. Even if we harness our potential and become a $10 trillion economy in the next 10 years, we will still remain, at best, a middle-income economy in per capita terms. For the next quarter century, instead of trying to strut on the world stage as if it had arrived, India needs to keep its cool and try and get whatever it can to build her economy, improve her technological prowess and educational standards, empower and educate her citizens, and develop her capabilities and capacities while securing herself from the emerging threats within and without.

The writer is Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.