Druzhba-Dosti: Still a key piece in India’s foreign policy

A journalist asked External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in Canberra on October 10 last year if India would lessen its reliance on Russia for weapons in view of President Vladimir Putin’s military aggression against Ukraine. Jaishankar responded by acknowledging that India indeed had a long-standing relationship with Russia and a substantial inventory of weapons with origins in the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) or its successor state. “That inventory actually grew for a variety of reasons – you know, the merits of the weapon systems themselves, but also because, for multiple decades, western countries did not supply weapons to India and in fact saw a military dictatorship next to us as the preferred partner,” said the minister, apparently taking a dig at the Western nations for their Cold War-era hobnobbing with Pakistan.

Ever since Putin ordered his troops to launch the “special military operations” in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, New Delhi has been drawing flak from Western nations. India has called for dialogue and diplomacy to end the conflict, but has refrained from joining the chorus of condemnation against Moscow and has instead increased its crude oil import from Russia, taking advantage of the discounted price following sanctions from Western nations.

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What Jaishankar told journalists in Canberra was an argument that New Delhi repeatedly put forward in its response to criticism for its reluctance to condemn Russia for the war in Ukraine. The West finally started to get it.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to Washington D C and his meetings with President Joe Biden from June 21-23 added new momentum to a process which the landmark civil nuclear cooperation agreement of 2008 had set off — to end the Cold War-era US policy of denying India access to advanced technologies.

The Biden administration started delivering on its promise to lift regulatory restrictions and share advanced US defence technologies with India. General Atomics of the US agreed to not only assemble in India the armed drones New Delhi would procure from it, but also set up in the country a global maintenance, repair and overhaul facility. GE Aerospace, headquartered in Cincinnati, inked a deal with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited based out of Bengaluru for the transfer of technology and joint production of F414 fighter jet engines in India for the Indian Air Force.

The US and India agreed on a new Defence Industrial Security Roadmap to provide policy direction to defence industries and enable the co-production of advanced defence systems, as well as collaborative research, testing and prototyping of projects.

The US is obviously making a course correction to woo India away from Russia. But the Biden administration must be aware that it is not a zero-sum game.

Deep-rooted ties

New Delhi and Moscow share a deep-rooted relationship, which started in the 1950s with the USSR supporting newly independent India to build its industry and economy by helping it set up state-owned companies like Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.

Moscow also helped New Delhi build the country’s nuclear and space capabilities from scratch and continued its support even when the West had shut its doors to India. The landmark Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation was signed in August 1971 and the USSR firmly stood by India in the war against Pakistan, leading to the birth of Bangladesh.

The Soviet Union started transferring military technologies to India with MiG-21 fighter jets as early as the 1960s. The buyer-seller relationship, over the years, evolved into joint research, design development and manufacturing — be it for joint production of BrahMos cruise missiles or licensed production of T-90 tanks. India’s aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, nuclear submarine INS Arihant, several guided missile destroyers and frigates to the newly-acquired S-400 Triumf air defence systems also bear imprints of its defence cooperation with Russia.

When Modi and Putin met in New Delhi in December 2021, the two sides signed a contract for manufacturing 6,01,427 Russian AK-203 rifles in India. They renewed the agreement on military-technical cooperation for 10 more years.

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Nearly 85 per cent of weapons and platforms currently being used by the armed forces of India have origins in Russia or its predecessor state Soviet Union. The changes in the geopolitical landscape and New Delhi’s growing ties with Washington D C since the landmark India-US civil nuclear agreement of 2008, however, presented an opportunity for India to diversify the sources of its military hardware and technologies.

Besides, the war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed by the US and the European Union (EU) are likely to constrain Russia’s capacity to meet India’s defence requirements. Russia is still fulfilling its contractual obligations with India, although the delivery of S-400s was delayed. The negotiations on a few more defence deals were also stalled after the Russia-Ukraine war started.

‘A geopolitical logic’

New Delhi also took into account China’s belligerence against India — not only in the Himalayas but also in the Indian Ocean - as it moved to expand its defence cooperation with Washington D C and seek greater strategic synergy with the US in the Indo-Pacific region, notwithstanding subtle criticism from Moscow.

But India, now aspiring to be an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, would never want the US to replace Russia as the main source of its defence equipment or turn into its lead partner in the fields of military and civilian technologies. “Creating new dependence in place of old ones may not be wise,” said retired diplomat and foreign policy analyst Anil Trigunayat. Going forward, the pursuit of strategic autonomy would be the fulcrum of India’s global engagements as it would seek mutually beneficial relationships, including with Russia and the US, he told DH.

New Delhi is also likely to keep its ties with Moscow steady in order to ensure that Russia does not get too close to China or expand its newly-started defence relations with Pakistan. Beyond defence cooperation, India’s relation with Russia also has “a geopolitical logic”, Jaishankar said in New Delhi on Wednesday.

No wonder then, that Putin was the first world leader whom Modi called after his return from Washington D C. The prime minister briefed the Russian president about his state visit to the US. They, according to the Ministry of External Affairs, agreed to “further strengthen special and privileged strategic partnership between the two countries”.

For all its interests in US weapon systems and advanced technologies, New Delhi is unlikely to let its expanding ties with Washington D C take a toll on its “Druzhba-Dosti” with Moscow in the foreseeable future.