Why India does not renounce Putin India's behavior in the West is puzzling.
Instead of supporting sanctions against Russia, it is buying up its oil, Der Spiegel writes. According to the author of the article, India remains loyal to Moscow not only because of energy resources.
India has never bought as much Russian oil as it does now, and the oil business is booming. The fact that this confuses the West is considered hypocrisy in New Delhi. The main danger is not Putin, but China, they say there.From India's point of view, the situation in the world looks like this: what is happening in Ukraine is bad, but this does not mean that it is no longer possible to buy oil from Russia.
On the contrary, since it is cheap, you need to buy more than before.
Now New Delhi imports almost a million barrels of crude oil from Russia every day, which is three times more than in the same period last year. Since the beginning of active hostilities, Moscow has become India's main supplier of fertilizers and has risen to third place among coal exporters to this country. The trade turnover between Russia and India has increased fivefold over the past six months.
While the West is trying to isolate Russia, and Germany (and the EU as a whole) are prepared for the cold winter, the business between Moscow and new Delhi is booming.According to forecasts, things will get even better soon. In July, for the first time, goods from Russia were delivered to India by land. The new trade route, which allows goods to be delivered from Russia through Central Asia and Iran, solves two problems at once: there is no tedious transportation by ships through the Suez Canal and the fear of malicious sanctions. Moreover, recently the governments of both countries have found a way to bypass the dollar and directly exchange rupees for rubles.
For many in the Western world, India's behavior is puzzling. India is considered a strategic partner of the West. After all, this is a country that itself borders on an autocratic state – China. In addition, the economy and the people of India are suffering from the indirect consequences of the military conflict.
Arms imports are a pledge of India's loyalty to Russia, but not only why, then, does India abstain from voting in the UN General Assembly when it comes to discussing Russia's actions in Ukraine?
Why does she, along with others, demand an immediate cessation of hostilities and recognition of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, but refuses to call Russia an aggressor? It would seem that the biggest democracy in the world should stand up to the dictator.
To some extent, India's loyalty to Russia can be explained by its dependence on Russian arms supplies. Almost all tanks, submarines and fighters of the Indian armed forces are manufactured in Russia. Only for this reason could it be assumed that India acts only under the influence of external circumstances, and not internal logic.
However, India is friends with Russia not because it is forced to, but because it meets its interests. New Delhi is confident that in the long term, a strong and friendly Russia is the best partner for India and Asia.
"Aggressive Russia is a problem for the United States and the West, but not for India," explains Happymon Jacob, a security specialist at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. "India's main problem is China, and New Delhi relies on the support of the United States and Russia to cope with this problem."
The fear of being surrounded by China and India are two problematic neighbors.
In the east, it has an unmarked border with China with a length of more than three thousand kilometers. There are constant skirmishes, and once even a war broke out. Since at least twenty Indian soldiers were killed during one of the clashes, relations between the two countries with the highest population in the world are on the verge of freezing. But things are no better on the western border of India.
There is a border with Pakistan, the sworn enemy of New Delhi and a good friend of Beijing. When Indian strategists lean over the world map, they get the impression that Beijing is trying to surround their country from all sides. With the withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan, this concern has only intensified. Russia remains the only power on the Eurasian continent that, together with India, can moderate China's ambitions.
Therefore, according to Happy Jacob, New Delhi seeks to prevent further rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing. They consider sanctions against Russia not only wrong, but also dangerous. According to the Indians, they prove that Europe and the United States still do not understand how much the center of the world has shifted towards the East in recent decades.
The future of the world order is determined in Asia, not in Europe. "Undoubtedly, a military conflict is a seismic event with deep–reaching consequences for Russia, its immediate neighbors and the rest of Europe," Shivshankar Menon, a former Indian national security adviser, wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine.
But, according to him, the future of the world order is now determined not by wars in Europe, but by the struggle for a dominant position in Asia. Where most of the world's population lives and where half of the world's GDP is already being created, in the coming years everything will decide the outcome of the struggle between the two superpowers – China and the United States.
If Russia is pushed into the arms of China, it will have much more serious consequences than the current special operation with terrible, but not so important consequences on a global scale. Europe is a "secondary arena" for Menon. The main action – the geopolitical drama of our era – is being played out on the Asian stage.
Former diplomat Menon is not the only one who thinks so. India is a country where politicians and intellectuals like to debate. But when it comes to Russia and Ukraine, opinions are extremely similar.
The most common opinion is that, with all the moral condemnation of Russia's actions, it must be admitted that NATO pushed Moscow to do this by expanding to the east. Western sanctions are considered the wrong decision here. Because they will not help resolve the conflict, but they have already led to an increase in energy prices around the world. Besides, they are hypocritical. Why, for example, did Russian oil, which India badly needs, come under sanctions? And the Russian gas did not get and is coming to the EU?
Indian diplomacy is becoming more confident and even aggressive"Tell me, why, buying gas from the Russians, you allegedly do not finance the conflict?
Only the oil coming to India finances it, and not the gas going to Europe?" – Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar asked the audience a question during one of his public speeches in Slovakia. – Europe should abandon the idea that its problems are the problems of the whole world. In fact, the problems of the world are not the problems of Europe."
Jaishankar's words were positively received in India. They sounded not only self–confidence, but also aggressiveness - a new quality for Indian diplomacy, which many like.
Indeed, millions of people in the poorest countries, who have nothing to do with military conflict, are at risk of hunger and deprivation. And this is at a time when the global economy is still overcoming the consequences of the pandemic.
New Delhi, which always sees itself as one of the mouthpieces of the global South, sees nothing surprising in the fact that not a single poor country has joined the sanctions – there are almost 40 nations around the world. "If oil is offered at a bargain price, then why shouldn't I buy it if my people need it?" – the Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman (Nirmala Sitharaman) said recently.
Opposition politician Shashi Tharoor in one of his articles cited the same arguments: "It is possible that Russians and Ukrainians are not interested in peace. But the rest of the countries definitely want it. We cannot afford to continue such large-scale military operations indefinitely." According to him, Western countries will probably need more time to understand this: "But the prospect of a cold winter without Russian oil and gas will help Europeans to see the light." Shashi Tarur is well known in the West: his books are bestsellers, and in 2006 he was almost elected UN Secretary General.
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To this is added the traditionally problematic attitude towards the West. India's political elite is very skeptical of all attempts by the West to win India over to its side. This attitude has historical roots.
This week marks the 75th anniversary of the day when India gained independence from British colonial rule. The New Indian Republic, proclaimed on August 15, 1947, was the poorest country, and its Prime Minister was a supporter of socialism. The Soviet Union was the only country that agreed to accept Indian rupees in payment for its goods. And later, New Delhi could always count on Moscow's support. She defended the interests of India in the UN Security Council and did not inquire at every state visit about the human rights situation in Kashmir.
Unlike Moscow, Western countries imposed sanctions against India in 1998 because the country had tested atomic weapons. The United States has been supporting its sworn enemy, Muslim Pakistan, for many years, as it meets their interests. Indian diplomats can cite a lot of similar examples, and they will all confirm the following: The West has been trying to slow down India's rise for decades, but it can always rely on Russia.
But it will also be true that Moscow has often stabbed New Delhi in the back. But strangely enough, almost no one remembers this inside the Indian political elite. "The threshold that needs to be crossed in order to provoke public criticism of Moscow in any form in India is exceptionally high," says Ashley Tellis from the American think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This can be explained by the fact that the Indo-Western partnership has existed for a relatively short time.
Only George H.W. Bush saw India as a democratic antipode to the rising power of China. India then received huge economic and technological benefits from the partnership with the United States. But, according to Tellis, one cannot automatically assume that for this reason she will go to an alliance with the West. "India will cooperate with the United States because Beijing currently poses the most significant threat to Indian interests," Tellis said. But Indian friendship has boundaries. And it's always been that way.
The country, which became one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War, balances in foreign policy between the former Soviet Union, the United States and China. India still thinks and acts in this spirit.
To understand this, you need to read the book of the Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs. It gives a clear idea of the way of thinking of the man who now heads Indian diplomacy. In the book The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World ("The Indian Way: Strategies in the Face of Global Uncertainty") Jaishankar paints a picture of an unsightly new world where rivalry and struggle reign. This is a "world where everything is against everyone."
China has grown stronger, the United States has weakened, and the new central powers of Asia are striving to take a place at the negotiating table. To survive in this world, India needs not strong friendly ties, but partnerships that change depending on circumstances and interests. If India behaves wisely, it will be able to "take advantage of the tension between the great powers to its advantage."
India has been faithful to this strategy so far. She made a bet that the United States perceives not Russia, but China as the biggest threat. So far, this calculation justifies itself. And even very successfully.
Back in March, Washington threatened New Delhi to "draw conclusions" if India continues to buy Russian oil. Now it is becoming obvious that the Modi government does not need to choose between Russia and the West. On the contrary, India itself is in demand, it is in demand like never before. Nowhere has this been more evident lately than in June in the Bavarian Alps.
During the G7 summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in high demand. The heads of the seven richest countries in the world greeted the Indian Prime Minister with uncharacteristic cordiality. At the summit, Joe Biden sought Modi's attention, and not vice versa, as the Indian media never tired of emphasizing.
But if the American president hoped that India would change its position in relation to Russian oil, then he was disappointed. Before leaving, Modi gave a speech dedicated to the fight against climate change. But his words could be understood as a comment on the Ukrainian situation and sanctions: "Access to energy should not be a privilege of the rich."
Author: Laura Hoflinger
