Opinion For Putin, a political win; for India, a stable partner
Europe is the most unhappy about the red-carpet welcome given to Putin by India at a time when he is escalating the war in Ukraine. But Europe has more to fear from the US’s unreliability and its repeated bullying of Ukraine
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin during India - Russia Business Forum at Bharat Mandapam, in New Delhi on Friday. (DPR PMO/ANI Photo) Russian President Vladimir Putin has concluded his two-day state visit to India and has every reason to go back to Moscow a happy man. For a leader being subjected to Western sanctions and international isolation, a reception at the airport by the Prime Minister of India and riding back to the latter’s official residence, accompanied by his host, were unusual gestures of courtesy that may grate in Western capitals. For Putin, the positive visuals of the visit as much as its substantive outcomes would have been welcome. They project that he enjoys international legitimacy despite his blatant flouting of international law in invading and persisting with a violent war against Ukraine. This will play well in Russian domestic politics. This visit, therefore, has considerable political value for Putin.
For India, the visit comes at a time when underlying assumptions of its foreign policy, which had remained relatively stable and predictable over the past quarter-century, are being shaken.
The steady upward trajectory in the India-US strategic partnership has stalled under President Donald Trump in his second term. The US appears to have shifted its strategic focus away from the Indo-Pacific and from the containment of Chinese power. The importance of India as a key player in the erstwhile Indo-Pacific strategy, therefore, has diminished. It is in this context that there is a willingness to inflict significant economic damage on India through prohibitively high trade tariffs. India has also been singled out for the imposition of penal tariffs of an additional 25 per cent for continuing to purchase Russian oil, even while similar purchases by other countries have been exempt. India has limited capacity to hit back. Putin’s visit in the wake of this negative turn in India-US relations is, therefore, politically significant. True, Russia would not be able to provide an alternative market for Indian goods that had access to the US market, but there is a serious effort to ramp up the economic and commercial relationship through the Economic Vision for 2030 and the target of $100 billion trade by that year.
India-Russia relations are not of the same significance as Indo-Soviet relations before the end of the Cold War, in the early 1990s. It is important to understand the changed geopolitical context in which current political equations are playing out. The Indo-Soviet strategic partnership was driven by a common perception of threat from China, and this was further strengthened by the US adopting policies inimical towards India on critical issues such as Jammu and Kashmir. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a wholesale reordering of geopolitical alignments. While India continued to have cordial relations with Russia, the strategic glue of a Chinese security threat dissipated on the Russian side. It was the defence hardware relationship built over 30 years of the Indo-Soviet partnership that continued to provide a floor to the relationship. While India began diversifying its defence hardware relations away from Russia, this could only be achieved over an extended period of time. Russia also had an interest in retaining this significant market for its arms as long as it could.
This legacy relationship continues to bolster India-Russia relations. In addition, there are key platforms such as nuclear submarines and anti-missile systems where Russia is the only country ready to share technology with India. This has been of great value and was demonstrated most recently in the effective use of the S-400 system during Operation Sindoor. Russia is also an important partner in the development of nuclear power in India, and during the visit, Putin specifically referred to Russian willingness to collaborate with India on small modular reactors (SMR) and floating nuclear power plants.
The challenge for India is how to preserve its continuing reliance on the US for high-tech collaboration and advanced weaponry. This component of the partnership has not been impacted so far, and India and the US renewed their Defence Cooperation Framework for a third 10-year term. However, given the unpredictability of Trump’s decision-making, expanding the defence hardware relationship with Russia may make sense for India.
What about China’s reaction to Putin’s visit? Some Chinese commentaries warn that beyond a certain point, the India-Russia partnership may adversely impact China’s interests by providing military muscle to a country it considers an adversary. But it may also welcome a closer India-Russia relationship at a time when Indo-US ties are under strain, because it would have to worry less about American containment if India distances itself from the US. But Delhi should be clear that there are limits to the India-Russia partnership, which cannot compare to the declared “no-limits partnership” between Russia and China.
Europe is the most unhappy about the red-carpet welcome given to Putin by India at a time when he is escalating the war in Ukraine and holding out threats to Europe. But Europe has more to fear from the US’s unreliability and its repeated bullying of Ukraine to concede substantially to Russian demands. By contrast, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that India is “not neutral” on Ukraine and supports an early return to peace. It has continued to uphold the principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty even though it has avoided a public condemnation of Russia.
While Europe may not be happy about the welcome extended to Putin in New Delhi, it sees a greater convergence of interests with India in an overall strategic sense, and that is mainly due to the emergence of the US as an unreliable and sometimes hostile ally and secondarily due to a rising concern about a politically more assertive and economically predatory China. European leaders will come as honoured guests to India’s Republic Day on January 26 next year.
India has long experience in managing a complex geopolitical terrain of shifting alignments, with the safeguarding of its strategic autonomy as a guiding star. This has been on display during Putin’s visit.
The writer is a former foreign secretary
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