The meeting between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week, on the margins of a meeting organized under the aegis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on Afghanistan, is significant beyond measure.
Not just because it comes on the eve of the first anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine war, on 24 February, but because it demonstrates the shifting winds of geopolitics since Putin decided to throw caution into the Moskva and surprise even his own people by invading Ukraine.
First, though, the context. Duval is the first Indian leader, besides the various prime ministers of course, to have met Putin in the last 20-odd years since Brajesh Mishra. As former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s NSA, Mishra was instrumental in shaping India’s foreign policy and keeping it on an even keel since Vajpayee took India nuclear in 1998. The meeting with Mishra and Putin, Russia’s president at the time as well, took place in 2001.
Since then, Putin has met no foreign minister from India from either the BJP or the Congress – not Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Pranab Mukherjee, Sushma Swaraj or the current incumbent, S Jaishankar. Nor has he met any NSA – neither JN Dixit nor MK Narayanan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s significant reliance on Doval and their shaping, especially, of India’s neighbourhood policy, seems to have tipped the balance in Russia’s mind. The fact that India has ably walked the tortuous middle path between America and Russia, since Moscow went to war with Kyiv one year ago, must go to Modi’s credit. Two of the PM’s key and trusted confidantes who have masterminded this policy are Doval and Jaishankar.
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Phase-wise shift in Russia policy
Note, though, how India’s Russia policy has shifted over the last year. While Jaishankar has been responsible for articulating this policy publicly, at press conferences across the world, Doval has largely played his role behind-the-scenes.
One way to examine India’s Russia policy is to define it across the four phases it has passed through since the 24 February Russian invasion of Ukraine – when the world changed and every nation had to cleave itself to either Russia or the US.
In the first phase, India resisted the US pressure not to buy Russian oil, arguing that it would do what it had to do in national interest, because as a developing economy coming off the back of Covid, it would not tolerate the hypocrisy of the oil-fuelled West.
This phase was best articulated by Jaishankar’s now-famous one-liner: India buys Russian oil in one month, equivalent to what Europe buys in one afternoon.
The second phase is a more toned down version of the first. In this time, UN Security Council resolutions against Russia’s invasion are pouring in thick and fast, forcing India – as a non-permanent member of the UNSC – to abstain, again and again, because it doesn’t want to antagonise either its old friend Russia or its new natural ally, the US.
Remember that in this period, the US is sweetening the pill by publicly applauding India’s participation in Quad initiatives. India responds to the evolving Ukraine war by saying that it will “explore all options” on the purchase of fuel from abroad.
The third phase may be characterised by a hard evaluation of all the options on the ground. Russian oil? Hit by US sanctions. Iran oil (on which India has depended for decades)? Hit by US sanctions over the last ten years. Venezuela oil? Sanctioned by America. That largely leaves India at the mercy of Saudi Arabia and OPEC’s oil-producing cartel.
India begins to play hardball. “We will see what the market has to offer,” goes the argument. After all, as a developing country dependent on imported energy for 85 per cent of its needs, India will veer in the direction of the cheapest energy.
At this time, Modi – and Doval — take a leaf out of Deng Xiaoping. Ask not what the colour of the cat is, as long as it catches the mice. “We will buy energy as it is dictated by the market, won’t say yes or no to any seller,” goes the Indian point of view. US pressure on Delhi continues to pile up.
By December 2022, ten months into the Ukraine war, as Europe begins to flag because it is being forced to look for costlier alternatives and more recently, rumours of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Europe being blown up by US naval special forces begin to take hold – since stoutly denied by the Americans – India digs deep into its old strategic relationship with Moscow.
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Clear strategy, with a new angle
By now, Doval has become the architect as well as the handler of the ties with Moscow. By now, India’s purchase of Russian crude is spiralling up. By now, America has moved the public criticism of India purchasing Russian crude oil to private conversations – they continue to point out that for a Quad member to break US-led sanctions doesn’t make the Americans look good, but India holds firm.
By now, the Russian energy pipeline is pumping as much as 1.3 million barrels a day to India. The Russians are also managing the complete transaction from start to finish – they are arranging the discount, producing the ships, getting the consignment insured and delivering it to India’s doorstep.
In this most interesting phase, India even stops explaining itself. It is buying such large quantities of Russian crude – of which a large part is refined and re-exported to Europe – as a result of which it simply stops listening to any implied or overt censure.
The confidence between Delhi and Moscow is touching unprecedented levels. But Delhi understands, equally acutely, that its relationship with the US is also increasingly important – which other companies are going to invest in India and help make it “atmanirbhar”? So when the US-India Business Council holds a summit in Delhi, as many as eight ministers of the Modi government find time to attend.
Significantly, as the Russia-Ukraine war goes into the tenth month, the second key arm of the India-Russia relationship begins to acquire an interesting new dimension. Delhi seems to be taking a second look at Moscow battle-testing several new weapons of war in the Ukrainian theatre.
Could India be interested or would even an intellectual consideration damage the India-US relationship ? With India succeeding in persuading the Americans to drop sanctions against Russia on the purchase of the S-400 missile system from Moscow, the question of what colour armaments to buy has always been a political decision.
So, as the Russia-Ukraine war nears its first anniversary, the question of how the world is turning out from what was predicted a year ago, is probably the most important one on the anvil.
That is why Doval met Putin in Moscow on the sidelines of a conference on Afghanistan. The answers that emerge from the overhaul sparked by middle Europe’s long war will be with us for a long time to come.
The author is a consulting editor. She tweets @jomalhotra. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)