India subtly changes stand, but not to go against Russia

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar was conspicuously silent, when American Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, sharing the podium with his Indian, Australian and Japanese counterparts in Melbourne on February 11, warned about the consequences if the international community remained a mute spectator to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

Jaishankar broke his silence at the Munich Security Conference about a week later. Even as the US has been trying to draw a parallel between China's belligerence against India and other nations in the Indo-Pacific region and Russia's military build-up around Ukraine, the External Affairs Minister rejected the argument, saying the situations in the two regions have not been “analogous”.

Also Read | Ukraine Crisis: How India’s abstention from UNSC vote is different from China's

Two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the launch of military operations in Ukraine, New Delhi, however, did send out a subtle but firm message to Moscow, underlining that the contemporary global order had been built on the United Nations Charter, international law and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of states. When the Security Council met in New York early on Saturday and voted on a resolution the US-sponsored to condemn Russia’s invasion into Ukraine, India abstained and its envoy to the UN, T S Tirumurti, told the council: “It is a matter of regret that the path of diplomacy was given up. We must return to it”.

No, India did not echo the US and other nations in condemning Russia. But the subtle change in its stand on the issue was not lost on anyone around the Horse-Shoe Table at the UN headquarters in New York.

The strategic balance New Delhi maintains in its ties with Moscow and Washington DC has been under stress ever since US-Russia tension escalated over Ukraine. India has been avoiding siding with the US and the other western nations in condemning Russia, even as it has been calling for resolving the crisis through diplomacy and dialogue. Though New Delhi has been speaking out against China’s aggression along its disputed boundary with India, it abstained from voting against Russia for its military build-up around Ukraine at the UNSC on January 31.

“If we allow those principles (one country can't simply change the borders of another by force) to be challenged with impunity, even if it's half the world away in Europe, that will have an impact here as well. Others are watching. Others are looking to all of us to see how we respond,” Blinken said at the news conference in Melbourne on February 11 after the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Quad – a coalition forged by India, Japan, Australia and the US to counter China’s belligerence in the Indo-Pacific region. Jaishankar remained silent, even as Japanese and Australian Foreign Ministers, Yoshimasa Hayashi and Marise Payne, joined the US Secretary of State in slamming Russia.

Blinken raised the issue of Russia's military build-up around Ukraine, not only in the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Quad but also discussed it separately in the bilateral meeting with Jaishankar, apparently in view of India's friendly relations with Russia and the decades-old defence cooperation between the two nations.

Also Read | India abstains from UNSC resolution that condemns Russia's 'aggression' against Ukraine

New Delhi, however, still refrained from calling out Putin even after he signed decrees in Moscow on February 22 to dispatch troops to Donetsk and Luhansk after declaring the two enclaves in Ukraine as independent republics. It, however, expressed “deep concern” over the escalation of tension along the Ukraine-Russia border.

But as the Kremlin went ahead and launched the military operations in Ukraine early on February 24, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was left with no other option, but to review its stand and bring about subtle changes in its approach. It started with the Prime Minister’s call to the Russian President late on Thursday. Modi tacitly conveyed New Delhi’s disapproval of Russia’s invasion into Ukraine and reiterated to Putin his long-standing conviction that the differences between Moscow and NATO could only be resolved through “honest and sincere dialogue”. He also appealed for an immediate cessation of violence, thus gently nudging the Russian President to stop bombing Ukraine. He of course also sought Moscow’s support to evacuate India’s 16000 citizens spread across the war-torn cities of the East European nation.

Putin had the phone call with Modi just a few hours after he had a meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was on a rare tour to Moscow, coincidentally on the same day Russia launched the military offensive against Ukraine. Russia has since long been the largest supplier of military hardware to India and has been maintaining low-key defence cooperation with Pakistan. But with the changes in the geopolitical landscape and New Delhi’s growing ties with Washington DC after the landmark India-US civil nuclear agreement of 2008, Moscow, too, responded to Islamabad’s overtures to improve bilateral relations.

Also Read | Air India's second flight carrying 250 Indian evacuees from Ukraine lands in Delhi

Jaishankar too had a series of phone calls with his counterparts in Washington DC and other western capitals on Thursday and Friday. Blinken nudged him to join the US and other nations in delivering “a strong collective response” to Russia’s “premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified” attack on Ukraine. “We're in consultation with India today. We haven't resolved that completely,” President Joe Biden told journalists in White House late on Thursday. He was replying to a question if India was in sync with the US stand that any nation that would countenance Russia's aggression against Ukraine would be stained by association.

The External Affairs Minister also received calls from British Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, and European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell Fontelles, who too apparently prodded New Delhi to shed its cautious approach and condemn Russia’s invasion into Ukraine. He also had a phone call with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who urged him to use all influence in India’s relations with Russia to force it to cease military operations into the East European nation. Earlier, Kyiv’s envoy to New Delhi, Igor Polikha, said that Ukraine was “deeply dissatisfied” by India's continued cautious approach over Russia's build-up around the East European nation.

All these contributed to a subtle change in New Delhi’s approach.

Not only did India tacitly remind Russia at the UNSC that no solution could ever be targeted at the cost of human lives, but the Prime Minister, himself, also spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the phone and expressed his deep anguish about the loss of life and property due to the ongoing conflict.

Also Read | Needed to stand up, not stand aside: Oppn leaders flay govt over stand on UNSC resolution on Ukraine

After Russia sent its soldiers into Ukraine and started aerial attacks on the country, the Modi Government could not have continued to make wishy-washy statements and avoid even tacitly criticizing Kremlin. India itself is facing territorial aggression by China and its soldiers are engaged in a stand-off with the personnel of the communist country’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) along the disputed boundary between the two nations in the icy heights of the Himalayas. It could not have condoned Russia’s military aggression into Ukraine. But India’s national interest and its strategic autonomy do not allow it to align with the US and the rest of the West against Russia.

After the US withdrawal set the stage for the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Biden has now failed to thwart Putin’s onslaught against Ukraine. So, the lesson India can learn is that the US is not a credible partner that it can rely upon while dealing with the belligerence of China.

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