The state visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to India drew heightened international attention, which gave it the colouring of a geopolitical event. Three European ambassadors assigned to Delhi from France, Germany and the UK even resorted to pamphleteering to smear Russia, compelling a rare rebuke by the government. In the event, though, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Putin kept the focus on the bilateral content, with a long-term perspective.
Although the presence of the ghost at the banquet would have been on their minds, neither Modi nor Putin showed any signs of it. In fact, Putin embarked on the journey to Delhi right after his momentous 5-hour negotiations in the Kremlin with US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, which have held out hopes that guns may soon fall silent in the battlefields of Ukraine and promises a historic breakthrough in the adversarial Russian-American relationship that has posed formidable challenges lately to Indian diplomacy.
To be sure, the Delhi summit was held in the backdrop of a tumultuous shift of tectonic plates in the alignment of major powers, especially Russia and India. In his first public remarks with Putin, Modi went straight to the point, saying India was anything but ‘neutral’ in the Ukraine situation and stood for peace. It was a bold articulation of support for the coordinated efforts by Putin and Trump to bring the war to an end, the diabolical moves by the European Union and the Kiev regime to smother the nascent peace process notwithstanding.
By coincidence, perhaps, Trump chose Friday, even as Putin’s visit was under way, to unveil the new National Security Strategy (NSS) of his presidency, which painted European powers as weak and raised doubts about their long-term reliability as partners; reinforced the ‘America First’ philosophy espousing non-intervention overseas; and called for shifting US military assets to the Western Hemisphere, “away from theatres whose relative import to American national security has declined in recent decades”.
The NSS stressed improved ties with both Russia and India. On the one hand, it messaged that ending the Ukraine war is a core US interest to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia”, while on the other hand, it stated the Trump administration’s determination to “improve commercial (and other) relations with India to encourage New Delhi to contribute to Indo-Pacific security”.
Conceivably, Moscow and Delhi could anticipate the drift of the forthcoming NSS document presaging an imminent shift in the Trump administration’s strategic calculus. It must have been a daunting challenge to choreograph a summit with a superpower in such a fluid setting, and it probably accounted for the anti-climactic look of the Modi-Putin summit. The joint statement, titled ‘INDIA-RUSSIA: A Time-Tested Progressive Partnership, Anchored in Trust & Mutual Respect’, prudently steered clear of the geopolitical convulsions in the international environment. The entire turf of defence ties lies submerged. There was no trace of ‘anti-Americanism’ in the summit’s proceedings.
Nonetheless, the joint statement firmly reaffirmed the further strengthening of the special and privileged strategic partnership and “emphasised the special nature of this long-standing and time-tested relationship, which is characterised by mutual trust, respect for each other’s core national interests and strategic convergence”. It asserted that “as major powers with shared responsibilities, this important relationship continues to be an anchor of global peace and stability that should be ensured upon the basis of equal and indivisible security”.
Suffice to say, the joint statement unequivocally rejects the Western pressure on India to sever its relationship with Russia. The relevant paragraphs defiantly state, “The leaders positively assessed the multi-faceted mutually beneficial India-Russia relations that span all areas of cooperation, including political and strategic, military and security, trade and investment, energy, science and technology, nuclear, space, cultural, education and humanitarian cooperation. It was noted with satisfaction that both sides are actively exploring new avenues for cooperation while further strengthening cooperation in the traditional areas.”
“The leaders underlined that India-Russia ties have remained resilient in the backdrop of the prevailing complex, challenging and uncertain geopolitical situation… Development of India-Russia relations across the entire spectrum is a shared foreign policy priority. The leaders agreed to make all efforts to unlock the full potential of the strategic partnership.”
There is no question that the forceful formulation carries Modi’s imprimatur, signalling India’s defiance to the Trump administration, which has punished and publicly humiliated Delhi for its purchases of Russian oil.
All the same, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, the co-chairman of the Russian-Indian joint economic commission, was the senior-most member of Putin’s entourage, which highlighted that the locomotive of the relationship will be an ambitious economic partnership with an emphasis on technology.
Several new vistas of cooperation are opening up—a deal to allow more Indian nationals to work in Russia; advancement of India’s Arctic ambitions with Russian help; a joint venture to manufacture fertiliser for the Indian farmer who plays a vital role in the economy; a new era of media cooperation with the launch of RT India. At a public function, Putin poignantly recalled the legacy of Russian-Indian friendship at the peoples’ level, and pledged to reboot it.
The signing of the reciprocal exchange of logistics agreement, a bilateral military logistics pact that allows armed forces to access each other’s military facilities, gives Russia strategic access to the Indian Ocean, a region dominated by the US, China, the UK and France. It is a game-changer for India too, insofar as Russian presence in the Indian Ocean is both a force multiplier and a balancer.
Overall, the normalisation of Russian-American relations can work to India’s advantage, although Trump’s agenda to create a wedge in the Russia-China alliance may remain a pipe dream. The lifting of US sanctions against Russia could remove the chokepoints in the Indian-Russian payments system.
Putin is an iconic figure in the Indian public consciousness. Modi’s rapport with the Russian leader is undoubtedly one of his finest achievements. The Ganga aarti, a 40-minute Hindu hallelujah as the night descended on the Ganges in Varanasi, Modi’s constituency, to mark Putin’s arrival on Thursday evening, was an extraordinary display of public affection.
M K Bhadrakumar | Former diplomat
(Views are personal)