Inviting an indicted war criminal like Vladimir Putin to New Delhi whilst much of the free world shuns his murderous regime goes to show that the South Asian giant is a sorry excuse for a democracy – let alone the world’s largest.
Addressing a joint Russo-Indian forum hosted by the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) via video link last week, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that preparations were underway for Putin’s first official visit to India since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. The Russian dictator’s decision to head there imminently is, above all else, a reciprocal gesture of goodwill given that Narendra Modi’s maiden overseas trip after being re-elected last June was to Moscow. Needless to say, the Indian Prime Minister also attended the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan later that year alongside 24 other ‘Global South’ heads of state. Meanwhile, post-war bilateral trade more than quadrupled to $66 billion by the end of 2024 as both sides aim to reach the $100 billion mark in five years’ time. Hydrocarbon, steel and arms imports account for the lion’s share of this turnover, leaving New Delhi with a ballooning $57 billion trade deficit.
The ruling far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is nonetheless bent on preserving India’s “time-tested” camaraderie with Russia despite the risk of secondary sanctions and reputational damage. In stark contrast to the inward-looking legacy of his predecessors, Modi’s assertive yet reactionary foreign policy manoeuvring has been shaped, to a great extent, by an inferiority complex vis-à-vis China with whom his nation is constantly playing catch-up on the world stage. It is worth recalling that an ideologically-aligned Beijing and Moscow inked a no-limits agreement mere weeks before Putin launched the “special military operation”.
The Indians, on the other hand, settled for a far less consequential “privileged strategic partnership” with the Kremlin that is almost entirely transactional in nature. Beyond guzzling 1.54 million barrels per day (bpd) worth of embargoed Russian crude on the cheap and at the expense of several thousand innocent Ukrainian lives, India still procures 36% of its weaponry from Russia according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) whereas 65% of its existing hardware – including helicopters, tanks and fighter jets – happen to be Soviet-made. Moreover, Russian State Atomic Energy Cooperation Rosatom continues to oversee the upkeep and expansion of India’s biggest nuclear power plant Kudankulam which provides about a third of nuclear-generated electricity throughout the nation.
In a bid to enhance people-to-people ties and cross-cultural awareness, Russia has already rendered citizens of India eligible for its streamlined e-visa facility and even proposed abolishing entry requirements altogether for accredited Indian tour groups this year. As things stand, Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot operates twelve regular flights per week between both countries – with direct routes available on a daily basis from Moscow to the Indian capital New Delhi as well as twice weekly to the popular holiday resort Goa. That said, the ease of back-and-forth travel has resulted in India becoming a de facto transit hub for Russian holidaymakers and émigrés alike flocking to the ASEAN region.
Following the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian conflict, state-sponsored propaganda outlets like RT and Sputnik bet big on and cemented their presence in India not least since it boasts the largest English-speaking population outside the legacy Anglosphere. Apart from hijacking the local media landscape with Kremlin-friendly messaging, RT, in particular, has sought to whip up anti-colonial sentiment via a thought-provoking billboard campaign across India’s main metropolises that asks questions such as “Why does the West still see India as a third world country?”, “Should Europe’s problems be India’s problems?” and “Why won’t Britain return the Koh-i-Noor Diamond?”.
Mindful of India’s press freedom crisis under its current, thin-skinned government that has seen the country plummet to 159th place out of 180 countries and on par with tinpot Persian Gulf theocracies as per the latest Reporters Without Borders (RSF) index, the aforementioned Russian broadcasters shy away from any criticism of the BJP. More broadly, PM Modi has modelled his leadership style so closely on Putin’s one-man rule such that India is, for all intents and purposes, “Russia without snow or gas” when it comes to crony capitalism, malfeasance and lawlessness.
Wealth inequality has worsened markedly during his tenure such that the richest 1% or ‘Billionaire Raj’ – many of whom are Modi’s close confidantes – now controls 22.6% of India’s overall income. The most affluent of these oligarchs, Mukesh Ambani, has profited handsomely from the ongoing Ukraine war thanks to a 10-year deal his refinery recently stuck with Roseneft to import 500,000 bpd of crude oil valued at around $12-13 billion annually – not to mention his firm Reliance Industries pocketing over $700 million the previous year from laundering Russian fossil fuels to the United States. At the same time, his brother, Anil, has been at the forefront of bolstering India’s indigenous artillery production capabilities and establishing multiple joint ventures with Russian contractors to manufacture frigates, submarines and air defence systems domestically. Though India might be considered an indispensable counterweight as the Group of Seven (G7) economies seek to not only scale back their excessive exposure to the Chinese market but contain an increasingly belligerent People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the Indo-Pacific perimeter, Modi’s chequered past and abysmal human rights record as commander-in-chief help explain his soft spot for malign yet non-judgemental actors like Russia.
Owing to his silent endorsement of the 2002 Gujarat pogrom that left more than 1000 Muslim inhabitants dead while serving as Chief Minister, he was declared persona non grata and denied entry to the U.S for nearly a decade. As a staunch adherent of the Hindutva ideology – a puritanical and supremacist strand of Hinduism – Modi continues to trample on the rights of India’s religious minorities and stoke acute sectarian tensions in a society that once took immense pride in its multi-confessional tapestry. Externally, he has been linked to the 2023 killing of a prominent Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada as well as foiled assassination plots on members of the Indian diaspora in the U.S. which eventually led to then President Joe Biden declining Modi’s Republic Day invitation.
In addition to its “all-weather” friendship with Russia, India enjoys equally cosy ties with Iran and even lobbied hard for its admission to BRICS a year ago. Prior to Donald Trump’s 2018 withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and subsequent ‘maximum pressure campaign’, India was among the top buyers of Iranian crude oil. In terms of logistics, the 7200km long International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) linking St. Petersburg to Mumbai via Iran is the crown jewel of trilateral cooperation between India, Russia and the Islamic Republic. By earmarking $120 million for the development of Iran’s Chabahar port as an integral node of this connectivity project, India is helping rehabilitate the deeply unpopular clerical regime in Tehran which is a hair’s breath away from being relegated to the dustbin of history. Its questionable dealings with arguably two of the most destabilising forces on the planet should be reason enough for the West to reexamine how much of a ‘like-minded’ ally India is and bring the Janus-faced Modi administration to task for indirectly fuelling and prolonging the war in Ukraine.
[Photo by the White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]
Saahil Menon is an investment analyst based in Dubai. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect TGP’s editorial stance.
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