Crucial test for Indian foreign policy as US threatens 'consequences'

There is little doubt that the pressure on India to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine is going to mount. A whole host of foreign visitors have made a beeline to Delhi to this end

With few signs of an end to the war in Ukraine, India will find it tough to keep its ties with Russia intact and also protect its alliance with the United States. Had India been neutral or non-aligned then its present position on Ukraine would have had some moral basis. However, having played military footsie with the US in the Quad, provoked China with the belief that US was watching its back and then escalating tensions further by the reorganisation of J&K which led to Chinese incursions in Ladakh, India now is seen by Washington to be standing with one foot firmly in the Russian camp.

Washington deployed an Indian-origin Deputy National Security Advisor, Daleep Singh, to deliver the threat that there would be “consequences” for circumventing US embargoes on Russia. His great grand uncle, Dalip Singh Saund, born in Amritsar, was the first Asian American to be elected to the US Congress. Perhaps his Indian origins are only co-incidental--after all, Singh is believed to be the architect of US economic sanctions against Russia. He may have a fair idea of what the full range of “consequences” are likely to be, even though the US economic sanctions exempt energy payments and do not prohibit energy purchase from Russia.

The US warning is not so much about oil imports as it is about India not being on the “right side of history”. India imports 85 per cent of its oil but Russia accounts for less than 2 percent of this. In contrast, India’s hydrocarbon imports from the US stand at 7 percent and are likely to go up to 11 per cent this year. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimundo said a discounted oil deal with Russia would be “deeply disappointing” and would suggest that India was unwilling to escape the orbit of Russian influence.

There is little doubt that the pressure on India to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine is going to mount. Already a whole host of foreign visitors have made a beeline to Delhi to this end. India misread the Quad as an alliance limited to the Indo-Pacific. Two of its leaders made it quite clear--Prime Minister Fumio Kashida of Japan and Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia, that being in the Quad clearly goes beyond countering China’s regional influence. It requires members to side with the Atlanticist strategic goals of the US.

As far as the US is concerned, it is payback time. The US stood by India when it undertook surgical strikes against Pakistan Occupied Kashmir in 2016 after the terrorist attack on a military camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and also the air-strikes on Balakot in 2019, supporting India’s “right to self-defence”.  After the revocation of the special status of J&K state and its bifurcation, the US offered tacit support and reiterated that Kashmir was a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan.

On the Chinese aggression in Ladakh, according to a former US Ambassador to India Ken Justor, it was Indian cautiousness that prevented the US from standing openly by its side. Moreover, the ruling dispensation’s dependence on US based social media platforms for image and brand building is total. So, for the Modi regime to now poke the US in the eye is galling for Washington DC.

No doubt justifications for India’s stand can be found. Russia has never done India any harm unlike US complicity with Pakistan and its military policy of “bleeding India with a thousand cuts”. Russia has been a reliable supplier of defence equipment and of critical technologies -- from steel manufacturing technology after Independence to nuclear submarines and nuclear power plants, later. It denied high-end technology to India only once -- banning export of cryogenic engines under US influence after the breakup of the Soviet Union. This is quite unlike the US which is only interested in commercial deals – defence or civilian -- and refuses to part with sophisticated technology.

Russia has always used its veto power in India’s favour in the UN Security Council. It never voluntarily provided strategic depth to Pakistan as the US did by evacuating from Afghanistan suddenly and handing the country to Afghan and Pakistan-based Taliban groups. Most importantly, Russia has never imposed sanctions on India, which the US did in the wake of Indian nuclear tests of May 1998. Without necessarily harking back to the Cold War, these facts should have been weighed against the cost-benefit of becoming an instrument of a broader global power play in the Asia-Pacific region.

It was the Manmohan Singh government which began the process of shifting India towards the American camp with the Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Cooperation Agreement. The deal led to a capping of India’s military nuclear programme without adding a single megawatt of power through the transfer of civilian nuclear technology. It merely created an illusion of nuclear partnership with the US, projected as a step closer to acquiring Great Power status that successive Indian governments have sold as a desirable dream. Joining the Quad and conducting the Malabar Naval Exercises with US Japan and Australia was another step in that direction.

However, after the invasion of Ukraine, India finds itself bracketed not only with Russia but also China, which sits on substantial territory claimed by India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh. China would want India to rethink its position on global realignment and indicate this by Prime Minister Modi attending the double BRICS and RIC summits in November. There may be a possibility of some de-escalation on the LAC (quite likely in Hot Springs but not Depsang) in Ladakh before the BRICS summit.

The optics of Prime Minister Modi physically standing with the leaders of Russia and China is an opportunity for India to keep the dialogue with China open and to acquire a foothold in an emerging alternative global system. The US, however, will not look at India’s moving towards Russia and China kindly. Hence the threat of “consequences”.