New Delhi’s response to the Russian aggression against Ukraine appears to have been shaped by harsh geopolitical circumstances and primacy accorded to its national interest.

India abstained from voting on a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution opposing Russia’s military operation against Ukraine, along with China and the United Arab Emirates, even as it sought to strike a balance by calling for a return to diplomacy and for respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity of states.

The resolution received 11 votes in favour in the 15-member council while three members (India, China and UAE) abstained. It was not passed since Russia vetoed it. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin as the war broke out, called for an “immediate cessation of violence”, while refusing to pay heed to Ukrainian Ambassador to India Igor Polikha’s impassioned pleas urging him to mediate with Mr Putin to halt Russian military advances.

In his outreach to President Putin, Mr Modi appealed for an immediate cessation of violence, and called for concerted efforts from all sides to return to the path of diplomatic negotiations and dialogue. New Delhi’s primary concern is the safety and security of its citizens, particularly the large student community in Ukraine and the impact of the crisis on the global economy that is just about beginning to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. Diplomatically, India has to weigh the balance between its ties with the West and those with Russia. The latter is India’s primary defence partner; India is heavily dependent on Russia for supply of military hardware.

At a time when Indian soldiers are eyeball-to-eyeball with their Chinese counterparts at several points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), antagonising Russia is not really a good option. New Delhi, therefore, has to tread a cautious path and that is what it seems to be doing at the moment. The foreign policy mandarins of South Block are acutely aware of the weakening of the US-led global order and disturbed by the rise of China as a counter-pole, geographically located right next to India.

US withdrawal from the region and its decline as the principal system-shaper has complicated India’s place in regional geopolitics. Neighbouring China as the rising superpower and Russia as its strategic ally challenging the US-led global order at a time when China has time and again acted on its aggressive intentions vis-à-vis India, and when India is closer to the US than ever before in its history, throws up a unique and unprecedented challenge for India.

In the Asian continental space, India has to deal with a strategically challenging scenario marked by the growing dominance of a hostile China, persistent enmity of Pakistan and the rise of an unfriendly Taliban regime in Afghanistan. In such a bleak setting, New Delhi needs Moscow’s assistance and support to manage its continental difficulties be it through defence supplies, helping it ‘return’ to central Asia, working together at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) or exploring opportunities for collaboration in Afghanistan.

On the other hand, so far as the vast maritime sphere of the Indo-Pacific is concerned, Russia is not of great consequence to India and India needs to collaborate vigorously with America and other partners like UK, Australia and Japan, so as to checkmate the growing presence of China in this maritime sphere, through regional platforms like the Quad. Because of these conflicting pulls and pressures on India’s foreign policy goals, India is compelled to practice diplomatic calisthenics, trying hard to balance the two sides, while charting out a suitable response to the Ukraine crisis.

With a convincing majority of 141 of 193 countries, the UN General Assembly voted on 2 March for a resolution that deplored in the “strongest terms” Russia’s attack on Ukraine and demanded an immediate withdrawal of Russian troops. While the UNGA resolution carries little teeth, it does represent a common stand taken by the international public commons, with 96 countries signing up as co-sponsors of the resolution. Russia rejected the outcome as a political vote that came of severe “pressure” from the US and European countries that were the drivers of the resolution, but it seemed clear that it was isolated on the global stage.

Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea and Syria voted against the motion, and 35 nations, including India, abstained. While the resolution also decried the Russian decision to recognise Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states, representatives of member states made it clear that it was the relentless bombing of Ukrainian cities that they could not turn a blind eye to. India’s abstention, though not unexpected, disappointed many western countries that have been lobbying for a shift in the Indian position.

In the past week, India has abstained from three votes (including two procedural ones) at the UNSC where it is an elected member, one at the UN Human Rights Council, and another at the IAEA on resolutions critical of Russia. In an explanation of vote (EOV), India’s UN representative said that India is calling for dialogue, while officials say that India’s abstention has given it room to play a role in diplomacy with Russia and Ukraine. This crisis and the Western response will have a significant bearing on the strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific.

The China-Russia entente is blossoming into a full-fledged strategic partnership. Many in India may not like this, but it is happening and after the Ukraine invasion, Vladimir Putin’s need for Xi Jinping’s support is only going to grow manifold. Despite India’s historic ties with Russia, Moscow has been more vocal than even China in showcasing its opposition to the IndoPacific construct and the Quad platform.

Russia has even begun to flirt with Pakistan. So, India needs to recalibrate its approach towards Russia and take note of the fact that the sweeping sanctions imposed on Russia by the West, the renewed thrust given to the consolidation of Nato, and the tough stance by European Union are all going to have an adverse impact on Russia’s military and economic strength in the coming days.

New Delhi needs to ensure it does not bind itself to Russia’s coattails and get singed in the blowback from the West which is likely to intensify. What is more, the bitter reality of a rapidly evolving scenario is that in the coming days, India will find it increasingly strenuous to explain its non-condemnatory stance, a legacy of the past and its desire to remain an “abstentionist” power.

Russia’s violation of Ukrainian sovereignty should be an issue of principles for India, which has supported the norm of sovereignty globally. New Delhi will find it difficult to talk of a “rules-based” order in the Indo-Pacific or anywhere else if it is unwilling to stand up for the same principles elsewhere. The fact that the West was selective in the application of this principle universally cannot be an excuse for India for not being unequivocal in condemning Russian action which clearly violates the principles of UN Charter. Naked aggression against a sovereign, independent state, no matter how compelling the circumstances might be, and inflicting terrible miseries on the lives of the civilian population is unacceptable in a civilized world which has nurtured the principles of territorial sovereignty and independence of nation states, collectively upheld by members of a world community emerging from the devastation of World War II.

Even if one accepts the realistic perspective of international politics which postulates that morality has little place in the rough and tumble world of global power struggles, with every nation focusing on the pursuit of its national interests, one must not lose sight of the fact that politics is also a game of perception.

In this age of social media, the heroic action of ordinary civilians who have taken up arms to defend their homeland, the patriotic zeal and heroism with which President Zelensky has stood his ground, refusing to leave his land and people has won hearts across the world and the way Russia, far superior in its military strength is pounding civilian targets, inflicting horrible miseries on innocent citizens of a beleaguered nation has clearly put Putin in the position of the villain.

In such an emotionally charged scenario, for the world’s largest democracy aspiring to gain the stature of a great power, not taking a rightful stand will prove costly. Since pursuit of foreign policy objectives is considerably influenced by narrative building and proper posturing, India needs to tailor its stance accordingly. We should not be seen to be on the wrong side of history. The way out for India is to engage in active backchannel diplomacy so as to bring the adversaries back from the edge of the precipice and to the negotiating table.

One is tempted to recall the commendable mediatory role played by Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1956 Suez Canal crisis which was instrumental in averting a major threat to world peace. India’s repeated calls at the UN for the decolonization of Asia and Africa and her support of the Egyptian position did not impede her from mediating with both sides, contributing substantially to the closing of the crisis.

While the present political dispensation in New Delhi derides almost all moves made by the country’s first elected regime and granting that world politics today has become murkier, a lot depends on the proper calibration of India’s response to the Ukraine crisis in the coming days.

(The writer is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Women’s
Christian College, Kolkata )