If Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Russia was to signal India’s equidistant position between Russia and the US, it did not work.
The optics were wrong. Perhaps, to emphasise India’s Russian connection, the timing was carefully chosen. Prime Minister Modi selected Russia for his first foreign bilateral visit after being sworn in for his third term; and the fact that NATO was holding a summit in Washington at the same time in support of Ukraine was not lost on all our hawk-eyed pundits of international diplomacy.
Even the bear hug Mr Putin got, now our PM’s standard greeting for all male foreign heads of state, may have just about been digested. But then things went horribly wrong. Even as Putin was feting and bestowing awards on Mr Modi in Moscow, a supersonic Russian missile blew up a children’s hospital in Kiev, killing 37.
The reaction was swift.
Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a tweet, called it a “devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day.”
Eric Garcetti, the United States’ Ambassador to India, speaking at a conclave in Kolkata, scolded India, saying: “There is no such thing as strategic autonomy during a conflict," referring to the war in Ukraine.
There was a warning too from Washington.
In his speech, Garcetti, while referring to improving India-US ties, added: “But as I also remind my Indian friends, while it is wide and it is deeper than it’s ever been, it is not yet deep enough.”
Finding a middle way
In the high-octane pushback by the United States and its allies, India’s ‘neutral’ noises were lost on the world. There was a message when Prime Minister Modi chose not to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Afsana on July 2-3. The SCO is a powerful regional bloc that includes both Russia and China, as well as Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Again, the India-Russia joint statement released after Prime Minister Modi’s Moscow visit emphasises bilateral economic ties over other issues.
Historically, India buys more than 45 percent of its defense needs from Russia, including the MiG and advanced Sukhoi jet fighters as well as the S-400 anti-missile systems. The joint statement spoke of improving these ties and said the two countries will go for joint manufacturing of spare parts in India. But these statements were lost in transmission.
What is swirling around instead are various interpretations of India’s complex balancing act between the super powers. Some analysts see India’s strong outreach to Vladimir Putin as betting on Donald Trump returning to power, which could translate to a ‘softer’ US stance towards Russia. In his commiseration note after Trump’s assassination attempt, PM Modi pointedly refers to the former US President as “my friend”.
A view from China sees Modi’s Russia visit as an attempt to boost India’s security amidst growing tensions with China.
“It [India] has to stand up to China at its borders and it does need Russian support for that,” Harsh Pant, an international relations professor at King’s College London, told South China Morning Post.
The United States and its allies are peeved at the wishy-washy position India has been taking on the Ukraine war. Eric Garcetti made no bones about stating that “deeds, not words” was important. He was referring to India’s repeated call for peace in Ukraine, while it continued to buy Russian oil thereby indirectly aiding Russia’s war effort.
The Non-alignment creed
These statements do not mean the United States Is going to pivot away from building relations with India. United States’ hostilities with China are at fever pitch because of the former’s support for Taiwan, and the US is keen to bolster India as a regional counterweight to China.
On the diplomatic front, though, there is considerable disquiet at India’s equidistant, ‘flexible’ foreign policy. The equidistant policy is not consistent, and must be distinguished from the earlier ‘Non-aligned Movement’ (NAM) that emerged as a Third World initiative decades ago, led by Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, Egypt’s Abdel Nasser, and Yugoslavia’s Josep Bronz Tito.
Non-alignment was the answer to the Cold War, where newly independent nations like India and South Africa were asked to take sides in a highly polarised world. Non-alignment was seen as active neutrality and opposition to new forms of colonialism and economic exploitation.
On the other hand, India’s current foreign policy of equidistance is opportunistic. It is built on abstaining from taking sides. Throughout the over-two-year-old Ukraine War, India has abstained on 6 or more occasions when the UN has voted to stop the war. This is not non-alignment; it is refusal to take a stand.
The flip-flop after the Gaza war broke out on October 7 last year, is now a legend too. Initially, India condemned Hamas’ ‘terrorism’; but when faced with a push-back by the Arab states, this was recalibrated to supporting a ‘two-state’ solution.
Thereafter, there’s been a U-turn again, with India quietly selling ammunition to Israel. The government has also opened its doors to Israel, recruiting labour for construction and other heavy work formerly done by Palestinians.
Keeping a distance from warring parties is one thing, but the constant flip-flops and refusal to take a stand will not win us credibility in the long run.
