That the Left has undermined the prospect of an immediate Russian decision to sell four additional nuclear reactors to the Kudankulam power station in Tamil Nadu is only one part of a larger tragedy that is unfolding in Indo-Russian relations. Russian President Vladimir Putin had made it clear that his ability to move beyond words and actually sell new nuclear reactors to India is contingent on the implementation of India’s nuclear deal with the US and its approval by the NSG and IAEA. At the very precise moment of its implementation, the communists have blocked the deal with the spurious argument that the deal threatens India’s “independent foreign policy”.The trouble on the Indo-Russian front, however, is not limited to nuclear cooperation. A series of recent diplomatic signals from Russia — Putin’s reluctance to see senior Indian ministers during their recent visits to Moscow and the decision to downgrade the protocol for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Moscow — merely underline what has been visible for a long time: that sentimentalism can no longer mask the growing problems in bilateral relations. Annual bilateral trade is at a pitiful US $4 billion. Despite unprecedented high economic growth rates in both countries, there is little compatibility between a globalising Indian industry and a Russian boom based on high prices of just one commodity — oil. Even the traditionally robust defence cooperation has entered choppy waters. The increasing ambition of declared goals stands in contrast to poor Russian delivery on the ground. The inordinate delay in the transfer of the aircraft carrier, ‘Gorshkov’, is just one example.India’s relations with Russia face a bigger challenge from Putin’s new strategic overreach. Heady with new oil wealth, Putin is now bent on reinventing the Russian confrontation with the West. That would have been none of India’s business, but for the pressure on New Delhi to become a clapper boy for Moscow’s grandstanding. Whatever his spinmeisters might say for domestic political consumption, Singh needs to speak plainly to Putin. While it seeks a stronger relationship with Russia, India is now a rising power with a diversified set of global interests. Singh would do well to recall the foreign policy of Indira Gandhi, who refused to make India a junior partner of Russia even at the height of the Cold War.
