Given the Ukraine war, US foreign policy has been in the lime light and there has been some questions asked here about the Indian position. India has abstained from all of the votes condemning Russia at the UN and has not named Russia in any of its statements about Ukraine. It is also exploring ways to circumvent US sanctions to continue trade with Russia. Why might this be?
Quite a few Indian Foreign Policy experts consider my country’s position a continuation of Nehruvian non-alignment: of not aligning with any side in the cold war. They also mention the need for India to balance strategic needs such as that for Russian arms, goods, market, and industrial know how. As I show below, may be Modi’s vindictiveness towards Democrats and a preference for fascists could have played an equally important part.
Not something new, you might say. Or quite obvious given his autocratic tendencies. But I thought I might explain it (based on articles/books from experts) in any case. It might help if and when the questions about foreign policy and global challenges arise in US.
First, a Short History Lesson: NAM and India’s Relationship with Russia
What Is Non-Alignment Movement?
The Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) was an idea that took shape in the 1950s in meetings and conclaves of newly independent nations. It went on to take a concrete form in 1961 in what is known as the Belgrade conference. Its purpose was to bring together developing nations to chart a path independent of the Western and Communist blocs and for a brief period, it succeeded.
India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who shaped Indian foreign policy to somewhat lasting effect had a key hand in the development of NAM. Solidarity with our fellow formerly colonized and colonized nations was a key part of Nehru’s foreign policy; and the non-alignment movement was one of his most important projects in that regard. The following excerpt from his speech at Bandung, 1955, might give you some idea of his thinking on the subject.
. . . So far as I am concerned, it does not matter what war takes place; we will not take part in it unless we have to defend ourselves. If I join any of these big groups I lose my identity. . . . If all the world were to be divided up between these two big blocs what would be the result? The inevitable result would be war. Therefore every step that takes place in reducing that area in the world which may be called the unaligned area is a dangerous step and leads to war. It reduces that objective, that balance, that outlook which other countries without military might can perhaps exercise.
Honorable Members laid great stress on moral force. It is with military force that we are dealing now, but I submit that moral force counts and the moral force of Asia and Africa must, in spite of the atomic and hydrogen bombs of Russia, the U.S.A. or another country, count. . . .
. . . Many members present here do not obviously accept the communist ideology, while some of them do. For my part I do not. I am a positive person, not an 'anti' person. I want positive good for my country and the world. Therefore, are we, the countries of Asia and Africa, devoid of any positive position except being pro-communist or anti-communist?
It may not seem so to US/British or European observers but it was a brave and worthwhile position to take at the time. It helped the member countries to remain truly independent instead of becoming satellites of either bloc (at least until the 1970s when it all fell apart for various reasons).
Note: As far as I know, not condemning any country was also a part of Nehruvian foreign policy.
Aside: The condemnations from the US and its arguments that it is fighting the war of democracy then were remarkably similar to what it is today (Nanda, 1998).
India’s Relationship with Russia
As Nehru’s speech shows, India was not interested in moving closer to the Soviet Union during his time as PM. However, that changed in late 1960s and early 1970s under Indira Gandhi when India had to contend with the volatile situation in the erstwhile East Pakistan (now, Bangladesh). Refugees were flowing into India from our neighbour and the Indira Gandhi government understood that there might be a war and India needed to give armed support to the Bangladeshi revolutionaries fighting the autocratic (and racist) policies of West Pakistan. Gandhi tried to solicit support from countries including US and was met with racism and sexism (and disinterest) from Nixon and Kissinger (to be fair, it looks like Gandhi also didn’t like Nixon much). The US was interested in making a partnership with China, brokered by Islamabad, and thus rebuffed India and took the side of West Pakistan in the Bangladeshi revolutionary war (Guha, 2008). The Soviet Union was willing to provide support and offered a treaty, and Gandhi, with some encouragement from domestic communists (the Communist Party of India that was supporting her faction of the Indian National Congress at the time), signed an agreement with the Soviet Union, bringing the two closer together.
India has, in the decades since, seen the Soviet Union and later, Russia, as a reliable ally. We buy arms from Russia of course. But Russia has also helped India with space research (as per my cousins employed in affiliated agencies—some have had to study Russian to read technical info) and other non-military technological knowledge such as nuclear power plants and oil and gas exploration (see, Suhasini Haider’s article linked below). Despite increasing openness towards the US in the twenty-first century, Russia remains a key technological partner to India. You can find some of that information in the tweet thread below as well.
Not just the political establishment but many ordinary Indians who are not ideologically leftist or rightist also think of Russia as an ally and a friend in need; they consider US opportunist, equally imperialist, and an ally of Pakistan (whose military establishment has not been very friendly with India).
So, what is different in the case of Hindu Supremacists and Modi? What are their takes on foreign policy and how do they see Russia? I will give a brief explainer below and then will talk about the current situation.
The Sangh (Hindu Supremacist Groups) and India’s Foreign Policy
The Sangh philosophy has traditionally been inward looking rather than imperialist. Inspired by German nationalism and Italian fascism and finding commonalities and admiration for the blood and soil type ideology of Nazism, yes. But without the need to go out and conquer the world beyond South Asia. They were wary of communism (because it is not of India) and American style free market capitalism (for the same reason) and considered that each and every Indian should learn to live self-sufficiently and within their means and perform their duties, with the state helping them. In general, self-sufficiency and duty has been their motto. To them, rights is too much; as is democracy.
However, running throughout their speeches and actions is also a thread of admiration for the White Man and a barely concealed desire to be of equal standing with them in riches and power (See Lal, 2005). You could see this in how they delight in Western appropriation of indigenous religion or philosophy and need Westerners to support their distorted vision of history (and grievances). Or how they keep looking for Western certificates of authenticity. The Hindu Supremacists want India to be respected and admired worldwide, but especially by the West. Thus, they were more ideologically primed towards a better relationship with the West than the secular parties in India. Cinching the deal is their dislike of Nehru whom they blame for every ill that faces the nation.
The current Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, seems to have imbibed the Sangh view on the most part. As per Rana Ayyub, The Washington Post Columnist, Modi once told her that he admired President Barack Obama. For the first few years of his government, pictures of him hugging/greeting various world leaders (including Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan) was a regular feature in Indian social media. Ideologically, he leans towards Donald Trump, Putin, Xi and other authoritarian leaders. However, aspirationally, his lean is towards the West (which is probably why he talks about India’s non-violent and democratic tradition whenever outside while placing all of India's ills at Nehru’s feet and worshiping Gandhi’s killer at home). India’s Foreign Minister and diplomats have so far been toeing the line, denying marginalization of Muslims, and speaking about India’s great democracy.
Modi also hates Nehru and has hated him since childhood thanks in part due to Sangh influence (see Narayanan, 2020).
So, given the Nehru hatred and lean towards West, despite the ideological preference for Putin, how did the Indian government come to its current position? This at least had been my question whenever experts talked about non-alignment and self-interest. The answer is both ideological alignment and vindictiveness.
Modi’s Vindictiveness
Modi is a vindictive individual as you can see from the following three instances.
- In his work on RSS, journalist Dinesh Narayanan talks about how, after the Gujarat 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom when the association of Indian business leaders criticized Modi for his part in the killing, the then Chief Minister sought to create a separate association of business folks that excluded the people who criticized him. He managed to do it (clearly because there were business folks who didn’t care) and the leaders had to meet with him for rapprochement. Some of the business men that stood by him are the richest people in India (and the globe) now.
- Sushant Singh, an expert on Indian foreign policy and national security affairs, points out in his article a few days back how, when US denied Modi visa in the 2000s, Modi spent his time visiting China. It is impossible to say with absolute certainty but Singh implies that one of the reasons for India’s stance on China—silence despite the latter’s troop and infrastructure build up on the border areas, the brutal loss of twenty Indian soldiers in a border standoff in June 2020, and the encroachment of disputed areas that earlier used to be accessible to Indian soldiers—might be his personal relationship with Xi and the Chinese political establishment. Whereas PM Modi did not personally meet the emissaries from US or Europe, he did meet Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister. (Singh also says that US should not count on Modi government’s support with respect to China despite the Quad).
- Suhasini Haider (I know, I know, you folks don’t know any of these names, I am sorry), a journalist who covers Indian foreign policy remarks how during Trump years, after a visit from Nikki Haley, India had cut down purchase of oil from Iran. However, facing far higher pressure from US’s Biden administration regarding Russia, the Indian response has been to hold fast to its position. One of the reasons, Haider says, is that Russia never criticizes India or the Modi administration on its human rights record. (She also says that he doesn’t expect Biden to sanction India, unlike Trump.)
Modi is also a person who doesn’t brook dissent and promotes people close to him into positions of power both at state and union level (unlike even the previous BJP government). A common complaint about his working style has been that he meddles in the affairs of every ministry and most of the decisions that the government takes come from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Thus, you can see how diplomats or the parliament may not have had the space to carve out a truly independent or informed position to, as Haider says, condemn Russia like the parliament condemned US after Iraq invasion in 2003.
Conclusion
Thus, between NAM, the Hindu Nationalist aspiration of being a global power that acts independently, India’s own material needs—technology, other goods, Indian interest in Russian oil and gas, arms—and Prime Minister Modi’s ideological leaning and vindictiveness, you can see how India came to its current position.
My Notes on US Policy Towards India
Those last two reasons mentioned above are why I believe Biden administration and the Democrats in general are making a mistake regarding its stance on India. The US believes that India is a needed ally for it against China, and thus hesitates to condemn it and accommodates its stances on religious violence. However, as far as I can see, there is no reason to count on help regarding China from India’s side (do read the Sushant Singh piece). Instead, what US is doing is giving legitimacy to the administration within and without.
Even if that weren’t the case, how can US claim to fight for democracy in the Ukraine war and yet, support autocrats and fascist forces when convenient? It is not just about QUAD or calling India an ally. It is also about letting India meddle with State Department’s reports on religious violence (resisting marking India ‘a country of particular concern’ in the matter of religious freedom) and hiring people associated with Hindu Nationalism in the US into government positions. It is also ‘liberal’ US universities inviting the government ministers to speak or refusing invites to critics of government. It is also letting Indian Americans in the US continue to fund BJP and the Sangh in India. It is not just Indians who note the hypocrisy. It is other countries of Asia and countries in Africa and Latin America too (with respect to matters that concern them).
If US does consider global autocracy a threat to its democracy and well-being, and it is (authoritarianism anywhere is a national security issue for every democracy and coups won’t change that), and that is its stance on the Russia-Ukraine war, then it should walk the talk. Not for others but for its own sake. We might still follow an independent path but that will not be based on the whims or vindictiveness of a leader, or against your democratic values, and might not involve supporting fascists in your own country.
We are an interconnected mass: not just environmentally; not just economically; but sociopolitically too.
Also, stop seeing India as a working democracy (we vote yes, but most of our institutions, especially at the Union level, are captured, circumscribing our vote).
References
Only the ones most relevant that I think you might want to check out. Others are directly linked above.
- Gatade, Sunil and Vankatesh Kesari. “Modi and His Yes Men.” Deccan Herald, 12 April 2022.
- Guha, Ramachandra. India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy. London: Picador, 2008.
- Haider, Suhasini. “India can criticise Russia’s Ukraine invasion.” The Hindu, 19 April 2022.
- Lal, Vinay. The History of History: Politics and Scholarship in Modern India. Delhi: OxfordUniversity Press, 2005. Oxford Scholarship Online, 2012. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195672442.001.0001. (He has a chapter on how Hindu Nationalists in the US led an agitation against California textbooks. They are rich and have influence in the US as well as in India. Please do not ignore them.)
- Nanda, B.R. Jawaharlal Nehru: Rebel and Statesman. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.
- Narayanan, Dinesh. The RSS: and the Making of the Deep Nation. Kindle: Penguin Random House India, 2020.
- Patel, Aakar. Our Hindu Rashtra: What It Is. How We Got Here. New Delhi: Westland, 2020.
- Singh, Sushant. Beijing’s Move, India’s Turn. The Hindu, 14 April 2022.
I apologise for the tweet links. I know there are people who cannot read them. However, I have also, wherever possible, linked to articles that give the same evidence or positions (at least in brief). I hope that helps.
Thanks for reading.
And apologies for that one comment to someone who asked about India’s past relationship with Russia in APR where I may have been a bit harsh.
Have a good Sunday ahead.
This is the fourth story on India that I have published here. You can find the first one here and the most recent one here. (I tried to change the tag to include notesfromindia; not sure if it worked or if it republished my stories. I hope not.)