War in Ukraine and India’s liberals

It is time we debunked this continuing perception of Western ‘liberal democracies’ as India’s ‘natural ally’

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s professional experience in the United Nations was almost entirely on the optics of media management — ‘publicity’ — where image is made to look more alluring than reality. The Western narrative on the Ukraine crisis appeals to him — drawn in Manichean terms of good and evil, democracy vs autocracy, and Westphalian concepts of national sovereignty.

However, former Congress chief and fellow MP Rahul Gandhi’s analogy of the Chinese incursions across the disputed boundary to criticise the Russian operations in Ukraine was incomprehensible. It lacked a sense of history, and smacked of tunnel vision, unworthy of his laudable cosmopolitan mindset rare among Indian politicians.

Gandhi’s predicament is comparable to the deer in the highway intersecting a wooded forest, transfixed by the automobile’s illuminated headlights, and staring with its sad watery eyes at something so sudden, which it is able to see clearly, even at night, with eyes that take time to adjust to heightened level of brightness.

Both Tharoor and Gandhi are smart learners, and have since identified with India’s Ukraine policy. Tharoor claims that the Narendra Modi government’s views have shifted towards his held position, while humility comes naturally to Gandhi, and he sees no reason to proffer explanation. To err is human, after all.

If these Congress stalwarts went horribly wrong in their initial assessment, that is attributable to their continuing perception of the Western ‘liberal democracies’ as India’s ‘natural ally’.

This is an inheritance from the time of unipolar moment when India pragmatically aligned with the ‘Washington consensus’, and held on to it, although the concept itself became archaic with the advent of emerging powers and incrementally got exposed as an intellectual construct to perpetuate Western hegemony in the global order beneath the veneer of a moralistic and recklessly grandiose vision of US power.

A world run on US terms, a dominance rooted in US’ exceptionalism and US' model of militarised global leadership is not sustainable today, as the relevance of that model has diminished and the resources available to pursue it have dwindled. The fact that the Global South refused to align with the Western sanctions against Russia speaks for itself.

Even in the American opinion, voices of discontent are becoming louder and insistent that if the US has nearly $50 billion to spare for Russia’s destruction, it should rather use that money to alleviate Climate Change, address the crisis of illegal immigration, or ameliorate the distress of working-class Americans — vital tasks that the Joe Biden administration treats with far less urgency than arming Ukraine. Equally, the Western narrative about ‘Russian invasion’ obfuscates the background to the current crisis — the US-backed coup and regime change in 2014 in Kiev; the creation of an anti-Russian State right on that country’s doorstep; NATO’s relentless eastward expansion, etc.

Where do India’s interests lie? The answer is simple if it is understood that the root cause of most of the current problems lies in Washington’s refusal to accept the transition towards a multipolar system of international relations. India cannot be oblivious that the ‘rules-based order’ that Washington espouses is a myth, as the dismemberment of Yugoslavia and the horrific destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria would testify. The US occupies one-third of Syrian territory, and prevents the post-war reconstruction.

The weaponisation of sanctions, the abuse of the status of US dollar as ‘world currency’, and plain brigandage of the colonial era to confiscate the assets and reserves of other countries — these aberrations surged dramatically in the wake of the Ukraine crisis and are calling attention to the urgency of reforming the inequities of the international economic and political order dominated by the West. Succinctly put, the ‘liberal international order’ turns out to be fantasyland, which never existed in real life. It was a fig-leaf for the three-century-old Western dominance.

Fundamentally, India’s future as an emerging power is inextricably linked to the creation of a democratised world order anchored on multipolarity where all countries, big and small, can have a voice, and at the very least will not be intimidated or threatened with extinction. If the US’ proxy war succeeds and leads to the dismemberment of Russia, the global strategic balance will be irretrievably damaged, and what follows will be an era of naked neo-mercantilism. The passed-up globalisation, the strangulation of free trade, and the retreat of multilateralism carry ominous foreboding. India cannot be myopic.

(MK Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.