WHY IS INDIA NEUTRAL IN THIS WAR?

 

 

The colonial hangover persists on either side of the Atlantic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent demonization of the Russian bear by the U.S. led world community is compelling countries unrelated to the war to take sides. While it would be wrong to use the word ‘unrelated’ in today’s interconnected and free market world, but one cannot deny that most of us in Asia are remotely related to this replay of cold war.

The American and European lobby would like us to believe that Russia is evil and the source of all the miseries in Ukraine. Why should Russia’s security interest be less important than American and NATO security interests? Why is it that putting up nuclear warheads 80 Km from the U.S coast in Cuba is an act of terror and taking NATO forces at the doorstep of Russia a noble act of providing security to Ukraine? The NATO could have avoided the war by declaring that they will never offer membership to Ukraine and threaten Russian security. Why did they not do so?

When the U.S and NATO created havoc in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan they went unpunished. If President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair were not labeled as war criminals when they inflicted a senseless war on the basis of fictitious WMDs in Iraq, how can they assign this label to Putin, who can see a real nuclear threat next door if Ukraine joins NATO?

Under these dubious circumstances why is India being asked to take sides - no, let me correct, why is India being asked to take the American side? The fact that the Ukrainians have been subjected to untold sufferings and their country has been bombed back to Stone Age is undoubtedly heartbreaking and unquestionably wrong, and India has criticized it in the U.N but who is to be blamed for this? Are those forces which were instigating Ukraine and still supplying it with arms any less responsible?

 

Double standards

Every country has a geography and a history which it cannot wish off. Strategic decisions have to be taken considering our place in world politics but without neglecting our geopolitical constrains. It is very easy for the western countries to point finger at us and give us lessons in ethics and humanity but when pointed out that they are themselves not exactly guilt free they find it hard to digest. So when Foreign Minister Mr. S. Jayshankar pointed out that India buys less oil from Russia annually than Europe does in one afternoon why is the reality not sinking in? And when Muslim appeasing senators in the U.S. Capitol and parliamentarians in the British Parliament talk about human right abuses on Muslims in India we too have similar concerns about how minorities suffer racial attacks in the U.S, U.K and Canada. Why is it that unruly farmers blocking roads of Delhi are innocent and deserve to be pampered and vaccine hesitant truckers paralyzing the Canadian capital Ottawa are criminals and deserve to be punished? Should we be discussing them in our parliament and embarrassing these governments or should we let the local governments deal with them the best they can?

 

Historically neutral

We have historically not taken sides in the cold war between the erstwhile superpowers, much to the displeasure of successive American Presidents. Our policy of non-alignment then has metamorphosed into multi-alignment now. We are friendly with all countries rich and poor, strong and weak if they do not export terror to our soil and try to forcefully encroach on our territory.

Since 1947, the US and Britain have followed a pro-Pakistan policy in South Asia. Islamabad remains a major non-NATO ally — which India is not. Throughout the 40-year-long Cold War, US foreign policy tilted in favour of Pakistan. Today Pakistan is an embarrassment for them – economically entangled in a Chinese debt trap, socially in turmoil as a safe haven for terrorists and politically a puppeteer’s dream for their all powerful Army, the same Army which lost half of its country in 1971! The Americans and the British threatened us with their maritime might during the 1971 war and it was the Soviet Navy’s presence in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea that dissuaded them from entering the theatre of action! Why should we be keen to abandon a trusted friend?

The difference in attitude of the American and the Russian side towards India even today is clear for all to see. Whereas the Russian foreign minister Sargay Lavrov said "We appreciate that India is taking this situation in the entirety of facts." and expressed his understanding of our deeply rooted public opinion that we are with neither Russia nor NATO but with the "side of peace" the American and NATO line remains "you are either with us, or against us". Such an attitude, accompanied by warnings that a more explicit alignment with Russia would have "significant and long-term consequences", shows not only a lack of understanding of India's role and contribution in the international arena but only prolongs the war in hand. The Americans and their NATO allies have historically botched up the end game in every war from Vietnam to Afghanistan, and it will take the efforts of neutral countries to bring this war to an end and face saving for both the parties.

 

Market forces

India is already the world’s third-largest economy by purchasing power parity ($8.9 trillion) and the fifth-largest at current exchange rates ($3.3 trillion). India’s consumer market is the world’s second-largest by volume and the third-largest by value. It is not a market US corporations can ignore. Our domestic investment in the equity market is so strong that recently when the foreign investors withdrew from the market following the US Federal Reserve’s accelerated taper programme that could see US treasury interest rates climbing six-fold to three per cent by year-end and because of the fear of inflation in India stoked by the spike at the price of crude oil due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the market celebrated it as a buying season and corrected itself in no time. India’s current total stock market capitalization is $3.21 trillion (Rs 245 lakh crore), the world’s fifth-largest behind the capitalization of stock markets in the US, China, Japan and Hong Kong and ahead of British and French equity markets. The withdrawal of foreign investment of Rs 1.14 lakh crore is a barely noticeable speck of 0.25 per cent, spread out over a year, from the total equity market capitalization of listed Indian stocks! So much for threat from FDIs!! India’s large economy, growing stock and consumer markets and vital new free trade agreements (FTAs) with leading global economies are too tempting to be ignored. 

 

Geopolitics and geo-strategic strength

When economies all around India – in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia are faltering, when political unrest is engulfing Pakistan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, when Corona is creating havoc in China, India has not only fed its 90 million people but is ready to help its neighbours and friends whose food-grain supply from Russia and Ukraine remain suspended because of the war. A flurry of world leaders and their envoys are visiting India and trying to influence her way of thinking. Russia values our neutrality and wishes to continue with the Rupee-Ruble trade. Washington needs India to counter China in the Indo-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region. Beijing in turn seeks to persuade India to maintain a position of strategic autonomy — at arm’s length from the US-led coalition of democracies. In Beijing too, there is a belated realization that it has under-estimated India’s military resolve as the standoff in eastern Ladakh extends into its third year. The Chinese foreign minister has been curtly told that border dispute and trade cannot go on together, an extension of the famous Modi doctrine practiced with Pakistan – talks and terror cannot go on together.

 

China has other problems too

The Russia-Ukraine war has set back its plans to expand the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to central and Western Europe. The European Union is furious at China’s support of Russia. The economic and infrastructure partnership painstakingly built by Beijing in Europe has suffered a blow. China’s struggles with COVID-19 continue. It’s ageing workforce, a slowing economy, the steady drift of global supply chains away from China, and financial defaults by the real estate sector, which accounts for over 25 % of China’s GDP all are weakening it domestically and rising social tensions in the ambitious Chinese society.

 

The post war scenario

Even after this war is over though the might of Russia will be a diminished but will remain a wounded bear, an unpredictable ex-super-power. China will be emboldened and with its expansionist dreams and a tried and tested debt trap called BRI to ensnare unsuspected poorer countries. It will continue to harass its neighbours and debt victims alike. The Americans and their NATO allies will remain unpredictable as they have always been. The U.N will remain notoriously impotent because it fails to represent the geo-political realities of today. So newer alliances – both economic and defense, are vital and India is fast emerging as the pivot on which the balance of global power will turn. India’s political and economic stability and rising military capability to police the Indo-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region in conjunction with the Quad’s US, Australia and Japan and others with strategic interest in the region like Britain and France make India a pivotal power in the arc from the Gulf of Aden to the Malacca Strait. This can be the only viable plan to check Chinese hegemony.

This is not India’s war. We are neither fighting it nor fueling it, but we and the rest of the developing world is suffering from it. The supply lines of food-grains, fertilizers and fuel which originate from Russia and Ukraine are disrupted leading to rising fuel prices and inflation in India and shortage of food-grains in many countries of Asia and Africa. India chooses to be a part of the solution by offering to rebuild Ukraine and supply wheat and medicines to countries from Vietnam to Nigeria, who are suffering the collateral damage of this war.