Putin-Modi meet and strategic autonomy in a fractious world
When Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled in the same vehicle after the latter received him at the Palam airport in Delhi on a cold winter evening on 4 December, it was viewed by many as a reciprocal gesture by the visiting leader during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin, China, just three months ago.
The much bigger messaging from the two separate car rides is that the two leaders are in the same vehicle as they navigate intense pulls and pressures of complex international diplomacy and seek an equitable world order free from coercion. The messaging was amplified by the public remarks by Modi and Putin after their talks today and the slew of bilateral agreements signed.
Putin's 27-hour visit to New Delhi, his first in four years, could not have come at a perhaps more opportune time for the increasingly fractious international political and economic order.
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At the root of the rapidly-evolving fragmented order lies the Russia-Ukraine conflict which has seen Moscow and New Delhi coming under intense pressure from the United States and its European allies over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
It is in this backdrop that both India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russia led by Putin have chosen to unveil strategic geopolitical autonomy in their foreign policies. No wonder the Ukraine issue figured prominently at the annual summit talks between Modi and Putin in Delhi today.
For Modi, the biggest challenge is to cement India's place in the geopolitical order where he has held the time-tested close ties with Moscow on one hand and maintaining and deepening his relationship with the US, European Union and Japan. But New Delhi treats its relations with Moscow as the bedrock of its strategic autonomy, as Delhi-based think-tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) points out. Modi will have to ensure that the strengthening of India-Russia ties does not jeopardize the ongoing trade deal talks with the US and his partnership with Europe.
It is the Ukraine war that has prompted the Western governments to turn up the heat on India and Russia. The Donald Trump administration punished India by imposing a hefty 25 per cent tariff on Indian exports in August because Washington believes New Delhi's purchase of discounted crude oil from Moscow is helping fund Russia's conflict with Ukraine.
In a qualitatively higher form of disagreement with India's stand on the Ukraine conflict, Delhi-based top diplomats of the UK, Germany and France, in a well-thought out and coordinated move, wrote a joint bylined article in The Times of India newspaper almost on the eve of Putin's arrival in India. India refrained from officially reacting to the unusual by the three envoys. India, apparently, was mindful of the fact that it has invited the top European Union leadership to be the Chief Guests at the prestigious Republic Day parade in Delhi on 26 January.
India disagrees with the West and contends it is very much within its right to buy oil from Russia at a price it finds competitive in a free market to power the world's fifth largest economy growing at one of the fastest rates. Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has on a number of occasions argued that European governments should introspect over their criticism of India buying Russian oil when they themselves are procuring more energy from that country.India-US ties have hit an all-time low in recent months as the two countries have failed to resolve the tariff deadlock.
Modi would like to show Indians at home and in the wider world that he still counts Putin as his ally and has not given in to pressure from Trump whom he has earlier called his "true friend." In this context, clearly, Putin's visit assumes more significance for Modi than ever before because it will test India's geopolitical autonomy.
At the joint presser in New Delhi today, Modi hailed Putin also as a "true friend" and recalled the Russian President's personal commitment to nurture and advance India-Russia ties in the last 15 years. This clearly reflects India's delicate balancing act in the turmoil-hit international politics.
Putin made his first diplomatic visit to India since the conflict in Ukraine began in February,2022. If discounted Russian crude in the last three years has reshaped the energy security for India's 1.43 billion people, it also invited more sanctions on Moscow and geopolitical risks. By engaging with India as also China, Putin wants to show Russia is not facing international isolation on the issue of the Ukraine conflict as the US and Europe would like to believe.
India, which is under continuous US pressure to scale down its Russian oil purchases while being urged to increase access for American products and defence equipment in its markets, has so far refrained to criticize Russian invasion of Ukraine.The closest india went to address the West's concerns is to repeatedly stress that this is not the era of war. On his part, Putin assured India of "uninterrupted oil supply" and the entire basket of energy components for the development of the South Asian country.
History since the Cold War decades is testimony to the resilience of India-Russia relationship. Who can forget that the United States had backed Pakistan during the Bangladesh liberation war and deployed the USS Enterprise warship at that time while the then Soviet Union responded with weapons support and diplomatic shield at the United Nations.
The Soviet Union also provided repeated diplomatic backing over Kashmir and remained a defence partner after India's 1998 nuclear tests had triggered Western sanctions. Over the decades, Russia transferred strategic technologies at a time when the West denied the same to India. Even today, an estimated 60-70% of India's military platforms remain of Russian origin. India-Russia ties have endured irrespective of the changing geopolitical landscape.
India's engagement with Russia rests on three pillars-energy, defence and diplomacy. Energy now dominates the relationship. Russia has become India's largest crude oil supplier, accounting for as much as 30-35% of total oil imports, turning discounted crude into the foundation of the partnership.
Defence forms the second pillar. Russia continues to supply and service a majority of India's frontline platforms-fighter jets, submarines, tanks and air defence systems-and talks continue on maintenance support and future acquisitions.
The third pillar is diplomatic coordination through multilateral forums including BRICS, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Eastern Economic Forum, alongside cooperation in nuclear power, space exploration, fertilisers and connectivity.
Modi summed up the main theme emerging from his summit meeting with Putin by terming India-Russia relations as a "pole star" in a changing world order through any ups and downs in the last eight decades.
