As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—the senseless devastation, the mounting human toll and the dangerously unpredictable consequences for Europe and the world—has driven Covid-19 off the front pages, the response of Narendra Modi’s government has attracted special attention in various capitals and the international media. Through a string of significant abstentions in the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN Human Rights Council on resolutions condemning Russia’s aggressive actions, India has sought to maintain a position of “non-aligned” equidistance, without pointing fingers or naming names—no easy task in this crisis. This it has done through reaffirmations of general principles enshrined in the UN Charter and international law, and through calls for a cessation of violence and a return to dialogue as “the only answer to settling differences and disputes, however daunting that may appear at this moment.” In effect, India has narrowed its direct involvement to pressing the governments of Ukraine and Russia to ensure the “welfare and security” of more than 20,000 Indian nationals, mostly students, in Ukraine and to arrange “safe passage” out of the country for the traumatised students desperate to escape.
Although India’s explanation of its vote in the Security Council does not say anything specific about this (aside from a reference to “differences and disputes”), it is clear that its leading politicians, foreign policy professionals and most of its newspaper commentators recognise Russia’s visceral opposition to Nato’s eastward expansion. That opposition was registered in this charged passage in Putin’s extraordinary address of 21st February: “Today, one glance at the map is enough to see to what extent western countries have kept their promise to refrain from Nato’s eastward expansion. They just cheated. We have seen five waves of Nato expansion, one after another—Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were admitted in 1999; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004; Albania and Croatia in 2009; Montenegro in 2017; and North Macedonia in 2020.”
Interestingly, across India’s political spectrum, only the two Communist parties have come out openly against Russia’s invasion—though they emphasised the culpability of the US and Nato in creating a dangerous situation. By contrast, both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, the main opposition party, have refrained from criticising Russia.
In discussions around the Russian invasion that I have watched on Indian television, the professional expert, usually a retired ambassador or a retired military officer, never fails to bring the legitimacy of Russia’s security concerns over Nato’s relentless expansion to centre-stage. The failure of the UN resolutions even to mention these concerns—Nato’s aggrandisement at Russia’s expense—has been a talking point, reflecting in many Indian eyes the one-sidedness of the US-orchestrated efforts to punish and indeed demonise Russia. The one-sidedness becomes all the more glaring and cynical when viewed in light of the times the United States and its western coalitions have invaded other nations, violated national sovereignty and rained destruction and death on the peoples of those countries—Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya… It has been a novel experience listening to right-wing Indian television anchors and commentators reprise US culpability in this long list of cases.
Unsurprisingly, Russia has been quick to commend India’s “independent and balanced position” and commit itself to maintaining “close dialogue with India on the situation around Ukraine… in the spirit of the special and privileged strategic partnership.” Equally unsurprisingly, the Ukrainian ambassador to India has announced that his government is “deeply dissatisfied” with the Indian position on the conflict, while appealing to Modi to use India’s good offices with Putin to end the hostilities.
The Modi government’s position on what Putin has termed, with chilling, open-ended euphemism, Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine may seem surprising to external observers, who have seen a marked rightward shift in India’s politics and foreign policy post-2014 and, going further back, a strategic tilt towards the US and the west, shaped incrementally by successive Indian governments over the past three decades. But it should not surprise anyone.
For tens of millions of ordinary Indians, as well as for a large section of political decision-makers, virtually regardless of their ideological orientation, the Soviet Union—and, after its break-up, the Russian Federation—has been the all-weather friend and strategic ally whose unconditional loyalty and trustworthiness have stood the test of time. It is not much of an exaggeration to say this perception has become entrenched in India’s political psyche, if there is any such thing.
India’s deep military, diplomatic, and political ties with the Soviet Union and Russia are well-known. Despite pursuing a policy in recent years of diversifying its arms portfolio, at least half of the country’s military equipment—covering every wing of its armed services—comes from Russia, and mostly on terms advantageous to India. There are tanks, heavy artillery, anti-tank and anti-ship missiles, naval guns, radar and airborne early-warning systems, fighter and transport aircraft, helicopters, a nuclear submarine. Russia supplies crucial components of the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile system, which is the product of an Indo-Russian joint venture. The latest undertaking is the advanced S-400 missile defence system, seen to be vital to strategic deterrence against China and Pakistan, that Russia has begun delivering to India as part of a $5.5bn deal signed in 2018 (in the face of strong US disapproval and threatened sanctions).
As for diplomatic and political support, Indian media commentators have reminded us of the number of occasions—six, to be precise, between 1957 and 1971—on which the Soviet Union came to India’s “rescue” in the UN Security Council by exercising its veto against resolutions, invariably supported if not sponsored by the United States, targeting India on vital questions, especially Kashmir and conflicts with Pakistan.
To India’s right-wing authoritarian government, it helps that Russia’s aggressive actions are not part of any new ideological “Cold War,” since Putin is no friend of the Bolsheviks and the left. It has hardly gone unnoticed that Putin, in his 21st February address and earlier, in his July 2021 essay on “The historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” has essentially blamed Lenin and the Bolsheviks for bringing into existence the “Ukrainian Question” and has virtually disputed Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign nation and state. In the process, Putin has found himself championing a 21st-century version of “Great Russian chauvinism” that Lenin fought against.
All this points to one reality: that this is the Age of Realpolitik, as naked and as in-your-face as it can get. As Siddharth Varadarajan, the upstanding editor of the independent and gutsy online publication the Wire, points out in an essay titled “Ten Theses on the War in Ukraine and the Challenge for India,” values and principles stand no chance when they are pitted against today’s great power rivalry. The temporary ceasefire announced by Russia to allow civilians safe passage out of two besieged Ukrainian cities provides a sliver of hope, but it is no more than that.
As I write this from a Lahore hotel room, I cannot but reflect on the fact that when it comes to Russia and Ukraine, Pakistan and India find themselves on the same page, for similar but also somewhat different reasons. But that is another story.
