India’s Modi playing the field

 

At the recent meeting of the leaders from the BRICS “emerging economies” countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—there was much goodwill and little interest in the misadventures of Russia and China, at least not publicly:

 

It probably isn’t surprising to see Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro in the company of the likes of Putin and Xi, since like Donald Trump he has fascist inclinations. Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s current president, has been among those friendly with Putin in the past who have chosen to blame NATO for his actions, ignoring Putin's true motivations in invading Ukraine when he recently likened himself to Czar Peter the Great, with the mission of restoring the imperial and Soviet empire to its former “greatness.”  

But if India claims to be more aware of geopolitical realities and the threat to world peace that Russia and China pose, the former informs its foreign policy calculations more than any moral misgivings that seems to bother the West more than other countries. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi claims that he has spoken to Putin about ending the invasion of Ukraine, but whether this was a “serious” suggestion can only be surmised when countered by India’s apparent stepping in the fill the void of Western sanctions.

For example, India’s purchases of Russian oil (not including increased gas and coal imports) have increased from 382,000 tons a month last year, to 3.4 million tons a month since the Ukraine invasion began. This is “justified” by saying that India has a right to import oil from Russia if they can get it below market value; besides, if the West wants oil from a country other than Russia, they can get it from two countries currently still on its shit list, Iran and Venezuela. But Modi and his spokespersons have largely avoided the question of how India helped Putin prevent other OPEC (which Russia is a member of) nations from increasing their oil quotas to supply EU needs when it helped Russia re-fill its lost quota from EU sanctions.

But India’s glad-handing with China is even more mystifying. Since the time of the founding of the Chinese communist state, India has had border disputes with it, principally in mountainous regions like the Galwan Valley, where a recent clash between Chinese and Indian soldiers left two dozen dead. China has clearly been the aggressor in this, and its actions can be seen in the same light as its activities in the South China Sea that have ignored the territorial rights of other nations in the region. The Indian government has expressed anger at the construction of a bridge in a lake in the Himalayan region that apparently allows passage into a region that India claims. India and China are preparing for a 16^th round of talks to reach some kind of settlement on the matter, but it is clear that China either doesn’t want a settlement, or is simply buying time until it can build sufficient infrastructure (as it is doing on various disputed islands in the South China Sea), to make a military move.

We have been told India has to play the cards it’s been dealt, meaning it happens to be sandwiched between Russia and China and it must play “nice” so that they are not perceived as an “enemy” by those two countries. Of course playing “nice” means either ignoring the dangers to world peace (on Western terms) those countries present, or avoiding upsetting them too much with mentioning things like war crimes or human rights abuses. And after all, India has a defense “cooperation” agreement with the U.S., although this is little more than information sharing; for the U.S., this is a public relations stunt, and for India, it serves as a “warning” to China if it causes any more monkey business against India’s sovereign rights.

In a commentary in Foreign Policy a few weeks ago, Derek Grossman wrote that prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, “India and the United States, as the world's two largest democracies,” had “pledged to channel their shared values (and strategic interest in containing China) into upholding the rules-based liberal international order.” But since the invasion, “India decided to pursue an ultra-realist policy and protect Indian interests above all else—not least its deep dependence on Russia for military equipment.” So in fact India is actually closer to Russia than the U.S. in its defense posturing. India clearly sees China as the more dangerous to its interests—yet Russia and China have an “unbreakable” friendship. How does India square that with its alleged “shared interest” with the West?

India’s “neutral” stance in regard to Russia has curiously been accepted by other Western “partners,” including the U.S. for the moment. As long as India still views China as being unfriendly, half a pie is better than none at all. In being seen as “neutral,” Modi seems to believe that he can receive the support of both Russia and China for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and with it, India can see itself as a new “superpower.” Of course India has more people living in poverty than the entire continent of Africa—as well as one of the worst per-capita health care systems in the world—but it does have nuclear weapons, which “qualifies” it for “superpower” status as any.

In playing both sides India has, it least in Modi's view, reaped economic (in the form of cheap energy from Russia), defensive (in keeping China at "bay") and nationalistic benefits. But in having taken no real moral stance, this also indicates that Modi is really no different from the likes of Trump, Putin and Xi is seeing authoritarian use of power as a means to heighten their own personal “legacies.” For such personalities, trust is questionable commodity, and the reality is that India has provided little more than lip service to Western foreign policy and defensive priorities, which for the time being is “better” than being openly hostile to them.