India: The Ukraine Question

India’s cautious decision to remain a largely silent bystander in the ongoing Ukraine crisis seems to have surprised many, including the experts and proponents of international relations.

Some commentators are arguing that this may cost India its growing strategic convergence and partnership with the United States, and, perhaps more relevant in this part of the world, poses a question of credibility within the new emerging security architecture dubbed the "QUAD".

Largely, such commentaries are emanating from the global west, which has seen an unprecedented surge of emotion and revulsion at what is happening in Ukraine , rarely seen since the end of the Cold War.

Western commentators have seen India’s reluctance to join the US-led bandwagon in criticizing and punishing Russia entirely through the prism of India’s reliance on the latter’s weaponry and military support.

Surprisingly, that commentary largely ignores the gargantuan challenge facing the Indian government of ensuring the safe evacuation of some 18,000 Indian students caught up in the conflict.

When the lives and safety of such a vast number of citizens are at stake, a country’s polity indeed comes under intense pressure to not act in an adventurous and irresponsible manner that could potentially aggravate the risk.

I believe any nation faced with such an evacuation emergency would do everything possible to maintain absolute discretion and ambiguity in their foreign policy.

Sadly, that leverage and freedom to act based on core national interests seem to be not granted to India by commentators and practitioners of international politics, who suggest there is an overwhelming expectation upon India to enlist in the US-led sanctions on Russia regardless of its immediate concern.

The S-400 Air Defence system was recently supplied to India by Russia

What explains India’s foreign policy dilemma in Ukraine crisis?

India watchers will know that for many years, particularly after the end of the Cold War, the Indian political establishment has often been tasked with reconciling the two competing strands within the Indian foreign policy thinking – an unapologetic ambition of becoming a great power with the overt support from the US-led global west – and the long-held traditional world view of rooting for a multipolar world order.

Both these strands in Indian foreign policy thinking have their genesis in the complexities and challenges posed during the Cold War era, and subsequently, the opportunities presented after the end of the Cold War.

During the Cold War era, India’s ruling political elites saw the US and the countries of the global West through the prism of “Western imperialism” which was understandable, having  experienced the brunt of imperialism for many centuries.

India had remained a prominent member of the "non-aligned movement", deeply committed to a multipolar world order.

While Joseph Stalin was distrustful of many Indian leaders, the relationship warmed after his death in 1955, and India  developed an "all-weather" friendship with the erstwhile Soviet Union (later replaced by Russia).

However, after the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the then Indian political establishment decided to shed all ideological baggage and pursue India’s core national interests  - procuring access to technology, capital, markets, and defence capabilities.

This move progressively resulted in warming of relations with the US-led global west.

In recent years, India’s foreign policy thinking has largely been dominated by those relationships with western nations, tempered with episodes of more traditional thinking, seeking to avoid being subsumed by the global west and instead continuing to maintain “strategic autonomy” – considered by many in New Delhi as the holy grail of Indian foreign policy.

It is this holy grail of “strategic autonomy” in Indian foreign policy behaviour that again attracted attention in the current ongoing Ukraine Crisis.

Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin meet before a G-20 meeting in 2015

Like any other aspiring power, which requires ambiguity and non-commitment on issues beyond its capabilities and immediate strategic interests, India is also keen to see through this crisis without having to be forced to come out in the open prematurely and put at stake its own national interests for no tangible gain.

By unequivocally supporting the US-led global West’s call to criticise Russia, India faces the risk of losing a time-tested and reliable supply of advanced military weaponry and high-end defence technologies.

That I consider a difficult position for a country besieged with its own security issues relating to nuclear-capable  adversaries and highly militarised unsettled borders.

As the war continues to escalate the unfortunate plight of Ukraine will rather accentuate the reticence within Indian foreign policy thinking, than loosening up its ambiguity, in taking open positions on this issue.

Ukraine’s plight is a stark reminder of a grim reality of international politics that at the end of the day, nation-states have to fight their own wars themselves and cannot rely on others to fight for them – hence requiring caution in picking up their battles.

India is a country with two highly nuclearized adversaries on its borders, both have a strong determination to keep India tied down locally in unsettled border disputes 

Despite the level of humanitarian crisis from the ongoing Russian attack on Ukraine, India has few options other than maintaining ambiguity but do what it can to protect its own citizens in the conflict zone.

For now, India, like all previous great power aspirants within the international order, needs to operate under a measured level of ambiguity for the foreseeable future.

The opinions expressed are those of the author.

- Asia Media Centre