The most important reason for the visit of acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez Gómez to India—from her standpoint—was also the least talked about. Rodríguez came to India for solace and mental peace after the roller-coaster when her boss and her country’s elected President, Nicolás Maduro, was abducted and taken to the US.
Rodríguez became de facto President, but only in an ‘acting’ capacity since Maduro is still legally Venezuela’s head of State. Unless events as dramatic as the capture of Maduro by US forces continue to happen in Caracas, Rodríguez has to reconcile herself to being acting President until Maduro’s current term in office expires in 2031.
Hispanic-American US Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio, who is the most consequential adviser to US President Donald Trump on Venezuelan affairs, is widely speculated to be still testing Rodríguez in office. Trump and Rubio do not appear to be in any hurry to annul Maduro’s 2025 election or organise fresh presidential polls. They don’t have to as long as Rodríguez is taking orders from Houston, the energy capital of the US, and from Venezuelan exiles in Miami, who helped elect Rubio to the US Senate from Florida for three consecutive terms.
After her copybook meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ministers in New Delhi, Rodríguez travelled to Puttaparthi to pray at the shrine of Sathya Sai Baba and meditate at the facilities in the complex. This is the sixth time Rodríguez has offered prayers in Puttaparthi seeking peace and comfort.
At a specially-convened briefing by the ministry of external affairs, its new Secretary (East), Rudrendra Tandon, was asked directly and indirectly about the acting President’s visit to Sathya Sai Baba sanctuaries. Tandon first avoided an answer, saying: “Regarding the programme, we have already informed you about it.” MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal evasively chipped in. “You are already familiar with the programme.” When reporters persisted, Tandon added: “On the private part of the programme, I don’t think… because these are private. But as coming from a family, it is good that if she does go there, it is very good.” [Sic]
It is unfathomable why the MEA is coy about such spiritual excursions by foreign visitors who combine them with official business. Especially when the visitors themselves want to speak about them and be photographed or videographed in places like Prasanthi Nilayam in Puttaparthi, or for that matter, at the Taj Mahal in Agra. Rubio was upset on record that during his recent visit to Agra along with his wife Jeanette Dousdebes, the accompanying American media team was not allowed to travel with him.
It is true that according to convention, such diversions are outside the business of the State, but protocol is changing worldwide. The MEA must adapt to changes to include the country’s soft power appeal in promoting leadership chemistry in international engagement. It began promoting the Buddhist tourism circuit at the request of East Asia’s Buddhist nations. Why not do the same with places like Puttaparthi, Shirdi and Tirupati?
In 2023, Ukraine’s First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Emine Dzhaparova, revealed that she had visited Sathya Sai Baba institutions in Puttaparthi seven times as she made her way there for the eighth time. The MEA was coy about that part of her programme, too. When India indicated that it was not keen on her bilateral visit at all—she was the first minister from Ukraine to travel to New Delhi after the war with Russia began—she used her multiple spiritual connections in India to wangle that trip. That visit certainly helped enhance Dzhaparova’s stature back home because India was then seen as more supportive of Russia in its conflict with Ukraine.
India-Venezuela relations are unlikely to gain from the Rodríguez visit although it lasted five days from June 3. These relations are now in a similar rut as the India-Iraq relations were after a series of wars which Iraq got into intermittently from 1980 to 2003, culminating in regime change in Baghdad. Before these wars, Iraq was one of India’s closest partners, but the relationship was in tatters through these conflicts. Venezuela now is no different.
Hugo Chávez, founder of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela under its 1999 constitution, was extremely generous to India, like Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. He gave India’s ONGC Videsh a 40 percent stake in the lucrative San Cristóbal field owned by Venezuela’s national petroleum company known by its Spanish acronym, PDVSA. At that time, India had not achieved today’s sophistication in its energy sector and the San Cristóbal deal was a boon. Chávez invited Indian biotechnology companies, IT firms, low-cost house builders, pharmaceutical producers, Indian Railway Construction International—the sky was the limit.
His successor Maduro was a bus driver who did not have Chávez’s vision. Maduro drove his country to ruin and Venezuela’s relations with India couldn’t be protected. Both sides pretended that all was well during the 13 years of Maduro’s regime.
India now wants to pick up the pieces like it did in Iraq during brief interludes of peace, but never succeeded. Rodríguez is unlikely to deliver anything. India was acutely embarrassed that it was Rubio who announced that Venezuela’s acting President would visit India. The announcement was not made in Caracas. For that reason, the MEA went into a lengthy detail regarding Rodríguez’s travel on the eve of her arrival instead of the usual sharing of an itinerary brief.
Tandon said that in Venezuela, “we are working with a government that is friendly, that wants a partnership with India. We want to reciprocate that”. But friendship and goodwill alone can’t produce breakthroughs. Realistically, India’s priorities are: recover about $850 million owed to domestic pharmaceutical companies for supplies made to Venezuela; another $500 million owed to ONGC Videsh from its joint venture with PDVSA; increase spot market purchases of Venezuelan oil. There were tense moments during the meetings with Rodríguez when her Indian interlocutors insisted that Venezuela must urgently clear the dues.
If one line summed up the visit, it was Tandon’s answer to a question from a journalist. “No, there won’t be any big-ticket announcements for this visit.” That says it all.
K P Nayar | Strategic analyst
(Views are personal)
