A focus on four ways in which the Russia-Ukraine war has changed India’s global image
By Abhishek Kadiyala, Dr Karamala Areesh Kumar
Hyderabad: Since the beginning of the conflict in early 2022, India’s policy over the Russia-Ukraine war has evolved only in its scope and has not changed in its direction. Undeterred by western criticism or external pressures, India has taken a unique stance on this issue through which it has changed and strengthened its international image as a multipolar, sovereign, new-age global power.
By maintaining trade and diplomatic relations with Russian Federation, and refusing to recognise the conflict as a ‘war’ India has remained a loyal partner to Russia. However, India has also, time and again, raised its voice against violence and civilian deaths during this conflict, and has called for peace.
Just over a year ago, on 24 February 2022, Russia launched a special military operation against Ukraine, advancing across three fronts and threatening Kyiv in a matter of a week. The world was left in a state of shock at the scale of violence and destruction as the Russian troops advanced, forcing countries to take sides and declare their stance on the issue.
New Age Non-Alignment
The US, NATO and its East Asian allies openly supported and aided Ukraine against Russian aggression, opposing Russia’s actions in international organisations. They openly criticised the Putin regime
and imposed massive sanctions against Russia. On the contrary, states such as China, if not openly, is diplomatically supporting Russia through alternative modes of economic support, becoming its largest post-sanction trading partner, suspected military aid and most importantly via the support through international organisations.
However, one player which has remained tactically non-aligned in this conflict is India. By staying loyal to its Russian partners in trade and rhetoric, and simultaneously calling for peace and opposing violence, India has, after almost five decades, brought back the age-old idea of Non-Alignment into its foreign policy.
Non-Alignment is not in any measure lacking an opinion or maintaining a neutral stance, but acknowledging the pros and cons of each side, and actively seeking to resolve a conflict. Ever since the Indo-Soviet pact of friendship in 1971, this strategy was put out of practice and remained a theoretical element. But now it has become a strong tool aimed at enhancing India’s new national image while remaining undeterred from western demands and criticism.
Economic Sovereignty
Beginning with the Cold War era’s socialist-leaning mixed economic policy to IMF-guided reforms of the 1990s, India’s economic direction has often been directly influenced by the major world powers ever since its independence. This was also reflected in the larger energy and food policies with a heavy American influence for many decades.
India also constantly accepted the demands of western sanctions on countries such as Iran (2018, 2019, 2020) to Venezuela (2019), many times at the cost of rising inflation at home. This ran parallel to the times when the US openly provided aid to countries like Pakistan that often threatened India’s security. Over the years, this created an idea of where “India’s problems are not the West’s problems, but the West’s problems are the world’s problems”.
However, even as the West slapped sanctions on Russia, India continued to buy oil from Russia, thus sending a subtle message to the world signalling a change in its economic stance in the international market and bilateral trade. India, after years, has openly expressed its economic sovereignty by choosing to put its national interest first, aimed at addressing growing domestic inflation by buying cheap Russian oil.
Newfound Role
With the Russian military action over Ukraine, the three-decades-long myth of ‘no-war-era’ and ‘short & swift wars’ has effectively ended. Countries now once again recognise open, prolonged armed conflict as a real threat and are rushing to forecast future developments in this regard. These forecasts are not only restricted to identifying changing technologies or avenues of violence but more importantly, identifying the countries that intend to use their military power.
One of the most unpredictable and dangerous players in this regard is China which is engaged in territorial disputes with most of its land-based and maritime neighbours. The world now looks to India, the biggest military power in the vicinity of China, as an important country that can counterbalance this threat. With pacts such as Quad (strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan and the US) in the East and I2U2 (grouping of India, Israel, the UAE, and the US) in the Middle East, the West is now increasingly identifying India’s strength as a global power with the potential to act as a counter to Chinese ambitions in Asia, Middle East and Central Asia.
The theoretical concept of deterrence and counter-alliances is becoming a reality now and India finds itself at the centre of the West’s strategy to prevent another war.
Global Power
India, with its neo-NAM, unapologetic expression of sovereignty and newfound role as a counter to China, is moving away from its traditional role as a regional power and becoming a global power in a multipolar world order.
The most recent example of this reality was seen in February on three separate occasions. The first such instance was the comments made by US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu. He commented that he doesn’t think India is going to end its relations with Russia, and hoped for India to use its influence with Russia to bring an end to the conflict. This was in light of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to India in March.
Secondly, the visit of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz too made headlines. It was speculated that Scholz would attempt to persuade New Delhi to broker peace. The third development in this regard has been seen with China’s comments urging an immediate ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, putting out a 12-point proposal to end the conflict. However, US President Joe Biden countered this proposal as ‘unjust’ and ‘irrational’. He sighted Russian President Putin’s support for this plan as a reason for this plan being advantageous to Russia alone.
Analysts and the intelligence community have predicted that the Russia-Ukraine conflict would get worse in the months to come, and so there will likely be overwhelming calls to end this conflict. If India can successfully mediate, the Russia-Ukraine war would effectively bring a new era in India’s global power and foreign policy at large.