Old flame Russia

The recent re-election of Vladimir Putin as President of Russia went largely unremarked upon in our country — his inauguration actually received less coverage than that of François Hollande in France. Yet arguably the Indo-Russia relationship is undergoing a significant reinvention.
Beginning with the Indian nationalists’—and particularly Jawaharlal Nehru’s — fascination with an idealised Soviet state in the 1920s (though Nehru, in particular, had few illusions about the nastier excesses of Stalinism), Russia enjoyed a privileged place in the Indian imagination. A celebrated pair of visits in 1955 — Nehru’s to Moscow in June and Khrushchev’s return trip in November — inaugurated a particularly warm phase in the relationship, with steadily increasing Soviet technical assistance to India’s public sector, peaking with the decision in 1962 to transfer technology to manufacture the MiG-21 fighter jet in India. In 1965, the Soviets were still seen as neutral enough to broker a ceasefire in Tashkent at the end of the India-Pakistan war; but when tensions arose with Pakistan in 1971 over what would become the secession of Bangladesh from that country, Moscow clearly chose sides, signing a treaty of friendship and cooperation with New Delhi in August 1971. During the remaining two decades of the Soviet Union, successive Indian governments relied heavily on Russian military supplies (which accounted for over 70 per cent of Indian defence imports) and were broadly sympathetic with Russian objectives in Afghanistan and in Southeast Asia.
The collapse of the Soviet Union helped prompt a major reorientation of Indian foreign policy — with the advent of the “Look East” policy, a new opening to Israel and a much more serious engagement with the United States. Despite this, Russia and India remained important foreign policy partners for each other, as the continued frequency of high-level exchanges of visits demonstrated. The economic relationship underwent a downturn as India opened up its trade with China and the West, but the defence and security relationship continued, with Russia remaining India’s top military supplier well into the first decade of the 21st century (when, in some accountings, it was overtaken by Israel). India is still Russia’s second-largest customer for conventional weapons exports, after China. Russia continues to be seen by India as a faithful and reliable supplier of sophisticated, yet relatively inexpensive, weapons systems. Indians were conscious (and grateful) that Russian military cooperation did not merely constitute a buyer-seller relationship but included joint research and development, servicing contacts, and training, including joint exercises. But the abrupt cancellation of a pair of scheduled exercises in 2011 (in the wake of India’s rejection of the Mikoyan MiG-35 as a suitable combat aircraft), and continued delays and cost escalations in the refurbishing of the aircraft carrier Gorshkov for the Indian Navy, does not suggest that all has remained quite well in the military relationship.
Nonetheless, though bilateral trade (at just above $2 billion) remained insignificant, the fact that Russia (and the Soviet Union) had contributed to the creation of India’s capacity in the nuclear, defence, space and heavy industry sectors when no other country was willing to do so has not been forgotten. Partly as a result of this legacy, Russia’s current cooperation with India continues to occur in a number of vital strategic sectors (including nuclear development and space exploration, and the joint development of the highly sophisticated BrahMos missile).
New Delhi also has, over the last two decades, actively pursued Russian sources of energy, both oil and gas and nuclear. Russia is a useful partner for India in its quest for energy security in its extended neighbourhood, since India hopes to work with Russia to secure greater influence in Central Asia (which comprises several former Soviet republics). This region could well constitute the route for several major potential oil and natural gas pipelines which would, if built, terminate in India.
It remains true that in every fundamental particular Russian and Indian interests do not clash. The two countries meet in the context of the trilateral Russia-India-China meetings of foreign ministers, at the East Asia Summit, in the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation and as members of the newly emerged Brics grouping. The opportunities to share compatible views of the world also arose at the United Nations Security Council during India’s stint as a non-permanent member in 2011-12, even if the two countries did not always vote in sync (with New Delhi agreeing with Moscow on Libya but voting in favour of the Syria resolution that Russia vetoed). In New Delhi, Russia is served well by the charming and popular Alexander Kadakin, a knowledgeable Indophile who has over four decades of experience in this country and is on his second tour here as ambassador.
The changing global environment has had an inevitable impact on India-Russia relations. Russia’s startling opening to the Nato alliance, its warming relationship with China and its much-improved relations with Pakistan have all moved Moscow away significantly from the logic that had underlain its approach to New Delhi in the Cold War years. Indian policy-makers continue to see Russia as a friend whose sympathy and support for Indian objectives is time-tested, especially in India’s moments of need, such as in 1971 or in international discussions on Kashmir. Russia is the only country with which India maintains an institutionalised defence cooperation mechanism featuring annual meetings of defence ministers, and while Indo-US nuclear cooperation has been hamstrung over supplier liability issues, Russia is proceeding with the construction of two nuclear power reactors on Indian soil.
And yet the absence of widespread people-to-people contacts, the barriers of language and the fact that each country has greatly diversified its global relations mean that talk of a “special relationship” is sounding increasingly hollow. The two countries are much more equal than they ever were; India’s is the larger economy and Russia’s will not long remain the much more developed one. Finding a new logic for the “special relationship” remains a task in progress, and not one pursued with any great energy or enthusiasm, it would seem, on either side. In the trenchant words of Canadian diplomat David Malone, “Russia will remain a trusted interlocutor, if only out of habit. Economic relations can be conducted unsentimentally on the basis of mutual interest. But the parties are definitely out of love, if they were ever smitten.”

The writer is a member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram