It is an irony of history ~ but one that India did not perhaps fully recognise for the first couple of decades after its Independence ~ that the national interest has more often than not been at odds with an empathetic approach towards global conflicts. This is not to argue for an amoral position but a realistic one regarding New Delhi’s approach to the unfolding crisis in Ukraine.

A Russian military defeat/stalemate or even a serious dent in its power-projection capability is not in the Indian interest even though one can, and should, do the best one can to mitigate the suffering of the hapless citizens of Ukraine by using the leverage India still has with Russia.

Sympathising with the kids and non-combatants who have become collateral damage in the Russian advance into its neighbouring country and doing what one can to help them at a humanitarian level must not, however, replace the hard-headed approach South Block has adopted to negotiate the ever-shifting sands of the contemporary geostrategic calculus.

The European Union, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and the United States of America are urging New Delhi to adopt a tougher, more condemnatory line on what they characterise as Moscow’s misadventure. Despite the pressure brought to bear on India, its representative has sensibly chosen the abstention route in the global cesspit of naked powerplay which unfortunately the United Nations is today.

India’s security and defence relations with Russia are paramount, especially as the gainers from a Russian defeat in Ukraine can only be China and the Nato-premised Western bloc. Neither is sympathetic to New Delhi’s concerns and regional ambitions.

The hectoring tone adopted especially by Democratic administrations in the USA and the left-leaning democracies of EU member states towards India when it comes to the threat posed by China to its territorial integrity, the use of terrorism as state policy by Pakistan, and fighting the Islamist insurgency in Kashmir, for example, emanates from the primacy accorded by the West to its strategic interests and has very little to do with anything else.

Equally, just in case Russian President Vladimir Putin has miscalculated badly and his invasion of Ukraine does not meet his political-military ends, New Delhi needs to ensure it does not bind itself to Russia’s coattails and get singed in the blowback from the West which will surely follow. There is a reality outside the rarefied environs of the lavishly-funded international seminar circuit where well-meaning women and men spout novel approaches to make the world a safer, more civilised place which India has belatedly recognised.

It must now learn to stay the course and perform the diplomatic callisthenics required to do so. Equally, it must make it clear to its allies ~ new and old ~ that in the ultimate analysis, enlightened self-interest is the only path New Delhi will follow. After all, everyone else does so.