Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s discourse on the war in Ukraine while on a visit to Bishkek last week probably had its desired effect of drawing international attention to India’s self-projection as an independent power centre in an increasingly multipolar world. There was a deliberateness in Modi’s attempt as he front-loaded his remarks that were caught on camera during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.
The relevant extracts of what Modi stated are: “Every day that the [Ukraine] war continues, humanity takes a step backwards; yet every step towards peace gives humanity real hope. We must move from endless war to the end of war, to the cessation of hostilities. And we must move in precisely this direction. This is crucial for all of humanity. We must resolve all problems through peaceful means; the entire world demands this. And this is India’s message, among others: India is the country of Gandhi, the country of Buddha—that is our message.”
The contrast couldn’t have been sharper, insofar as Putin made no references whatsoever in his opening remarks to Ukraine and almost entirely focused on a positive resumption of the Russian-Indian bilateral relations, as is customary for such occasions; whereas Modi devoted almost half of his remarks to the war in Ukraine. Unless this was a pre-arranged pantomime between the two leaders, which is of course a preposterous thought, Putin would have been taken aback by the tone and substance of what Modi said.
Po-Russian western analysts have rushed to interpret that Modi administered a sharp rebuke to Putin. A popular western podcaster characterised Modi’s performance as a “ganging up on Putin” along with Turkish President Recep Erdoğan and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, two other ‘dissidents’ at the SCO event.
Now, that is an uncharitable interpretation and rather ingenuous, to say the least, if only because Modi is a quintessential loner in politics. Besides, Erdoğan is incensed over Russia’s tightening control over the Black Sea, which Turkey, the inheritor of the Ottoman legacy, cannot accept, apart from other geopolitical considerations as a Nato country.
As for Tokayev, he views uneasily the Russian intervention in Ukraine, which creates a dangerous precedent for the substantial ethnic Russian population which accounted for nearly 40 percent of the population of Kazakhstan per the 1999 census, but has now dwindled to somewhere around 20 percent, per a UN estimate. A new Kazakh constitution that Tokayev mooted in February downgraded the status of the Russian language by specifying that it exists “alongside” Kazakh rather than sharing legal equality with it, a move upsetting Moscow.
Fortunately, Modi would have no such disquiet. On the contrary, India has been a major beneficiary of the Western sanctions against Russia since 2022, which compelled Moscow to sell oil in the world market at a huge discount. This was so much to Delhi’s advantage that top American officials in President Trump’s inner circle began openly deriding that the ‘Brahmins of India’ made a huge fortune out of reselling Russian oil to European buyers.
In a recent TV interview, I characterised the present as a golden moment in India-Russia relations since the Modi government swears by the country’s national interests as the lodestar of its foreign policy. I was alluding to Putin’s open offer made at a recent Kremlin meeting with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar that Russia would meet India’s dire needs for fertiliser for its agriculture sector to provide livelihood for the ‘real India’.
Therefore, it came as a rude shock when Modi rebuked the Kremlin leader so very publicly. It is implausible that Modi has been swayed by the false Western narrative that Russia is losing the war in Ukraine and decided to position Delhi on the right side of history in the best traditions of Kautilya's statecraft. India has a well-honed foreign policy apparatus which would have surely taken note by now that the Russian forces are not only within sight of a breakthrough in the Ukraine war, as the liberation of Donbass inhabited by ethnic Russian population is looming large, but are also knocking at the gates of Odessa and Kharkiv.
There are some serious contradictions in Modi’s understanding of the Ukraine war. Peace is desirable in Ukraine but it needs two to tango. The US-led Nato no longer bothered to hide that the proxy war it is waging in Ukraine ever since the 2014 Kyiv coup masterminded by Western intelligence is aiming at a strategic defeat of Russia. The US and its European allies are already looking beyond the looming defeat in the Ukrainian turf to carry the fight into Russian territory proper.
Make no mistake, this is also an epochal struggle that carries backlogs of history, especially because the endgame of the Cold War ended as a negotiated process, but was not enshrined in a treaty form outlining the peace terms, unlike the case with all wars of European history.
What Modi could do as an apostle of peace from the land of Buddha and Gandhi is to canvass support for the Russian proposal for a neutral Ukraine and be done with this power-play to perpetuate Western global hegemony. That campaign is best waged in the Western capitals where he and Jaishankar are frequent visitors.
Understandably, India’s moral standing as a civilisational state is being severely questioned in the West lately, but that should not deter Modi from speaking up. Indeed, it needs political courage and moral clarity to stand up on the world stage and be counted. But a beginning needs to be made and what better moment than today when the carnage in Ukraine is assuming horrific dimensions?
Casting Russia as an obstacle to peace in Ukraine may be music to Western ears, especially when it comes from India’s Prime Minister. But that wouldn’t have been Modi’s intention. After all, India-Russia differences are nothing new. But the danger lies elsewhere. The American philosopher Eric Hoffer once wrote, “People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.” That shouldn’t happen in this context.
M K Bhadrakumar | Former diplomat
(Views are personal)