Journalism of Courage
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin underlined that Delhi will for now stick to a path of strategic ambivalence on the Ukraine crisis. This is a pragmatic choice, one that reflects the complexities of a realist world and Delhi’s own positions on territorial integrity and sovereignty, its own concerns about its unresolved borders, its difficult relationship with its two northern neighbours.
Russia remains India’s biggest and time-tested supplier of military hardware. At the height of the crisis with China in Ladakh, it was to Moscow that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh travelled to ensure that there would be no cut-back in military supplies. And since then, Russia has boosted India’s defence capability against China with the S-400 air defence system. Moscow is also a reliable ally in the UN Security Council. India-Russia ties have ensured that Delhi has not been entirely left out of the conversation on Afghanistan, and in Central Asia, while also providing some leverage with the US. At the same time, the US, the European Union, and UK are all vital partners, and India’s relations with each of them, and the Western world in general, go far beyond the sum of their parts. Moreover, in the UNSC, India has counted on France’s unstinted backing on many issues. It has relied on western support as it deals with an aggressive China on the Line of Actual Control. Prime Minister Modi’s appeal to President Putin on Wednesday night for a “cessation of violence” and for all sides to return to the dialogue table was certainly a notch up from India’s earlier explicitly neutral stance, and carried a hint of the compulsions to get off the fence, though still largely maintaining a balance.
As the situation develops, it cannot be ruled out that Delhi’s position may change or get calibrated further, especially if confronted by large-scale civilian casualties. A vote is scheduled soon on a UNSC resolution on Russia’s “special military operations” in Ukraine, and India’s line will be tested. Delhi must talk continually to all sides, and engage with all of its partners, keeping in mind that there is no justification for the violation of any country’s territorial sovereignty, and that distance from the theatre of conflict no longer insulates any country from its effects — India’s economy has already felt the shock of this “regional” conflict in a corner of Europe, and other consequences are apparent, as in the ongoing evacuation of thousands of students. For the same reasons, India must also make it clear to coercing countries that their “with us or against us” formulations are hardly constructive. There are no innocents in this conflict. The best course is for all parties to step back and focus on preventing an all-out war, rather than divide the world and return it to the days of the Cold War.
This editorial first appeared in the print edition on February 26, 2022 under the title ‘Stay the course’.
