Truth and optics in Modi’s Kyiv story
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kyiv had become inevitable in India’s two-year-long balancing act on Russia’s war against Ukraine. Delhi has walked between backing the UN charter’s principle of respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states and staying silent on Moscow’s full-on invasion of its southern neighbour. But quite clearly, the tightrope act is proving to be increasingly difficult. Ukrainian president Vlodymyr Zelenskyy rejected Modi’s “India is not neutral, we are on the side of peace” remark, and challenged Delhi to walk the talk by stopping contributions to Russia’s “war economy” by discontinuing the purchase of Russian oil. Modi’s embrace of Zelenskyy may have corrected the optical balance with Modi’s warm embrace of Russian president Vladimir Putin in July. But Zelenskyy’s open disagreement with Modi (during a press conference) served to expose the limits of Indian policy on the Ukraine war. He also cast the attack by Russia on a children’s hospital in Kyiv during Modi’s July visit as an insult of the Indian prime minister by Putin. After rhetorically suggesting India as a possible venue for a Ukraine peace conference, Zelenskyy dismissed the idea, saying it would not be possible as Delhi had not signed the joint communiqué of the peace conference held in July in Switzerland.
Out of place as these remarks were in holding India somehow responsible for Moscow’s deeds-- several Western countries continue to buy Russian gas -- they are bound to cast the visit in a different light than the one Delhi was trying to project. Before Modi’s departure, strenuous efforts were made to depict his seven-hour sojourn in Kyiv as a breakthrough foreign policy move aimed at correcting earlier disinterest in the countries that broke away from a disintegrating Soviet Union and also freeing India’s central Europe policy from the Soviet legacy. But it is quite clear from the visit that India neither enjoys the trust nor has the heft required to make any contribution to resolving this conflict.
The timeline of Modi’s Kyiv visit, five weeks after his Moscow trip, suggests that going to Ukraine was less about strategic autonomy than about dire necessity. It was not just Zelenskyy who was angered by the Modi-Putin hug, but also the United States, burgeoning ties with which are held up as the high-point of the Modi government’s foreign policy. A State Department official said at the time that the US was “disappointed” by both the symbolism and timing of Modi’s Moscow outing. It took place at the same time as a NATO summit in Washington. Modi’s plan to visit Ukraine was made known by Delhi a day before the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting in Tokyo. No doubt it made the conversations between US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar that much easier. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit to Washington on the same day as Modi’s visit to Kyiv may just be a coincidence. But it would not be surprising if the US is secretly applauding Zelenskyy’s plain-speak to Delhi.