Russia’s President Vladimir Putin comes to New Delhi on an official visit at a tantalising time for two reasons. Moscow is buttressing relations with the East to try to lessen the effects of Western sanctions. Second, the two countries have to redefine their old relationship in a changing world.
India and Russia are recognised partners in defence and atomic energy, in addition to oil and gas exploration. India is seeking to enhance its exploration of rich Russian oil fields. But its efforts to speed up the joint venture on stealth fighters seem to have stalled. And Moscow is as much affected as the West by Indian legislation’s impossible liability conditions on foreign atomic plant ventures.
But these are continuing problems in a long-term relationship. Beyond the agreements that will be signed will lie the new basis of a sturdy relationship that has stood the test of time. The new frigidity in East-West interchanges essentially flows from Washington’s refusal to recognise that Russia under
Mr Putin is asserting his country’s vital interests in its neighbourhood.
President Putin is signalling that Moscow has recovered sufficiently from the disaster of the breakup of the Soviet Union to safeguard its interests. In the days of Boris Yeltsin, Russia could do little to stem the march of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to its very borders, including the Baltic states that had been part of the Soviet Union.
Opinion in Western Europe, as opposed to the US, is divided on how far to confront Russia, with Poland, among others, being the hardliners for historical reasons. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has been taking a hard line, unlike many Germans keen to continue with a profitable trade relationship.
India, with its long association with Moscow, can play a quiet but significant role in seeking to ease East-West tensions. For one thing, it has made it clear prior to the Putin visit that it will not be party to sanctioning Russia. Second, an ideal opportunity presents itself for Prime Minister Modi, who hosts President Obama next month, to clarify Moscow’s worldview in relation to Ukraine and the wider world to the US President.
For the United States to argue that the days of spheres of influence are over is disingenuous. The ways of major powers safeguarding their interests might have changed, but one has only to think of an inimical power setting up shop in Latin America to have Washington making short work of such intrusion.
Obviously, one of the pitches President Putin will make is to seek Indian investment in Russia and it will be for him to spell out how Russians can buy into the “Make in India” project in defence industries in particular.
Facing Western anger, President Putin went to China to sign a mega oil and gas export deal at prices somewhat advantageous to China. There are also deals between the two countries to let Beijing have the latest in defence equipment, with wrinkles yet to be ironed out. It is in the interest of both India and Russia that the latter’s relationship does not entirely swing in Beijing’s favour. Despite the present East-West chill, Russia is no longer what it was in the Soviet days. A new middle class has sprung up familiar with Western ways and products, apart from the oligarchs and their profligate ways.
Inevitably, the days of India providing cheap exports to Russia are gone. The Russian market is highly sophisticated now, and although the people have by and large rallied behind Mr Putin’s brand of nationalism to try to go native, it is only a short-time answer. The Modi government has, of course, its own agenda in tilting towards the US in search of investment and technology, essentially following the Deng Xiaoping example that led to the phenomenal economic growth of China. For its own reasons, Washington is interested because of the large market India provides and in balancing China with the only country in Asia that can provide a foil to Beijing’s growing might.
In view of the long Indo-Russian relationship, President Putin can present his problems with the US and Western Europe without inhibitions. It seems some countries in the West are eager to end the stalemate. France’s President Francois Hollande broke the ice by meeting President Putin in Moscow during a stopover although Russia has been shut out of the Group of Eight.
Washington is beginning to realise that Russian cooperation is needed to resolve the major problems of the world such as Iran’s nuclear programme, the mess in the Middle East (West Asia to us) and the fight against such phenomena as the Islamic State. However, judging by the results of the recent legislative elections, the Senate and the House are leaning to the right and are eager to do battle with President Obama on his domestic and foreign policies.
At one level, the Indo-Russian relationship is still dominated by old timers on the Russian side and old died-in-the-wool Communists on the Indian side. The Russian administration must realise that India too has moved since “the good old days” and the emerging middle class is more aspirational and less sentimental than the preceding generation.
One advantage is that both President Putin and Mr Modi are realists uninfluenced by sentimentality. As an aside, it must be said that both Indians and Russians at the popular level are sentimental and romantic people. But since the two leaders will deal with each other at the summit to try to chart a course for the future, they will spell out their vital interests in realistic terms.
Russia has prepared for the summit at the popular level with a burst of cultural activity. The famous Borodin Quartet was for the discerning, but the famed Russian puppet theatre bowled over audiences in New Delhi and other cities. In the cultural field, some of the arts and craft nurtured in the Soviet days tell their own tales of excellence. Russian ballet is, of course, in a class of its own.
The writer can be contacted at snihalsingh@gmail.com
