Putin’s India Visit: How Long Before Foreign Policy Commentators Break Out Of A Colonial Mindset?

Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to reach New Delhi on 6 December, for his annual summit meeting with Narendra Modi. It was preceded by the Russia-India-China Foreign Ministers’ meet on 26 November, and will include an inaugural 2+2 dialogue of the Foreign and Defense Ministers of Russia and India.

The Modi-Putin meet comes three weeks after the virtual summit between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping of 15 November, and shortly before a prospective virtual summit between Putin and Biden. And according to our Ministry of External Affairs, this meet will “provide further impetus to the India-Russia Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership”.

But a narrative, with an interesting provenance, has emerged even before Putin’s plane departs from Moscow for Delhi.

According to an opinion piece in an Indian daily, both America and China will be keenly following Putin’s visit, because he is our best bet for getting out of a ‘diplomatic and strategic logjam’ we’re trapped in at present. Apparently, Modi needs to desperately curry favor with Moscow, if he is to somehow tackle an aggressive China, a triumphant Pakistan, plus the Taliban.

In fact, according to that writer’s ‘authoritative’ sources, our situation is supposedly so dire, and so in need of Moscow’s assistance, that Modi scrapped the three farm laws to please Putin. It seems Russian security was apprehensive that agitating farmers might escalate protests (like the designer communal riots which rocked Delhi during Trump’s visit in February 2020).

That astounding revelation aside, the simplistic thrust of the piece is that Putin is trying to bring India and China together into a new Eurasian sphere – something which the Americans will not permit.

Elsewhere, an Indian-origin member of an American think tank noted that Putin’s last two visits had both lasted less than 24 hours, and wondered whether Putin would stay a whole day in Delhi for once.

That remark was waved away by a former media advisor to Dr. Manmohan Singh, who pronounced that an era, when India valued ceremony over substance, was long gone. He had a point, but the former advisor’s policy note for an NGO, on Putin’s visit to Delhi, took matters on to a strange, new tangent.

The essence of the note was that Indo-Russian relations would improve if America was included. Read that again: India, per such wisdom, would be better of holding trilaterals with Russia and America, rather than pursuing bilateral dealings with Russia.

This view was even more astounding than the revelation that Modi withdrew the three farm laws to gratify Putin! Its reasoning was equally oblique and went thus: India needs good relations with both Russia and America, to balance China-plus-Pakistan, and to meet our military, energy and economic needs. But since the relationship between America and Russia is poor, it would be beneficial for us to involve America in our dealings with Russia, to avoid falling into the gap between the superpowers’ tussle and antagonizing both.

Naturally, the thesis was framed within the ambit of a novel diplomatic framework, along with allusions to an equally-novel, presently-absent, pragmatism, which would somehow permit India to simultaneously increase hydrocarbon purchases from America, acquire advanced military platforms like the S-400 air defense system from Russia without the risk of American sanctions, and even finally profit from trade through Chabahar Port in Iran.

To wit: India would achieve more if she followed America’s lead. And for effect, social media commentary by a host of experts inferred vaguely that while Putin’s visit to Delhi might be good, it wouldn’t be great.

So, connecting these dots in conclusion, the picture which emerges is one of patent despondency – indeed, futility – around the forthcoming Indo-Russian summit. Modi is apparently so keen to ingratiate himself with Putin that he’s even repealed the farm laws. Putin’s visit is just a perfunctory exercise – as if going through the motions with no material outcome expected – since he is here for less than a day. And India will get some real work done with Russia only if it includes America in the process.

So be it; everyone is entitled to their opinions. But, while crafting and promoting narratives might be a democratic right, it also raises a simple question: why do so many quarters foretell a listless summit in Delhi, with an inconclusive outcome, even before it begins? This is the difference between analysis and expectation.

Because, to believe that India is incapable of standing on her own two feet, that she can’t pursue vital national interests without hand-holding, or, that her relation with one country can only come at the sufferance of another, is to reinforce that very obsequiousness which kept us pinned to the geopolitical mat for so long.

Perhaps Narendra Modi had precisely such opinions in mind, when he spoke recently on the drawbacks of perpetuating a colonial mindset.