12/16/2020 India’s unofficial response to Russia might exacerbate growing distrust | The Express Tribune

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  The Big Picture  India’s Unofficial Response To Russia Might Exacerbate Growing Distrust

Vladimir Putin listens to Narendra Modi at the Eastern Economic Forum. PHOTO: AFP

India’s uno cial response to Russia MORE BY THIS

might exacerbate growing distrust

Russia and China want to avoid a split over India in the New Cold War
WRITER

Andrew Korybko December 15, 2020 

Relations between decades-long strategic partners India and

Russia, which up until the publication last month of influential Why is Russia
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ideologue Subramanian Swamy’s participating
hateful anti-Russian article had been undergoing a renaissance, are in the AMAN-
2021 naval
at risk of worsening after India’s unofficial response to Russian drills?
Foreign Minister Lavrov’s criticisms late last week of America’s Read More

pernicious influence over New Delhi. The top diplomat warned

that,

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12/16/2020 India’s unofficial response to Russia might exacerbate growing distrust | The Express Tribune

“India is currently an object of the Western countries’

persistent, aggressive and devious policy as they are
trying to engage it in anti-China games by promoting
Indo-Pacific strategies, the so-called ‘Quad’ while at the How e ective
same time the West is attempting to undermine our close will America’s
human rights
partnership and privileged relations with India. This is pressure on
the goal of the US’ very tough pressure on New Delhi in India be?
the MTC area.” Read More

Unlike his past comments in this respect, he notably didn’t end on an

optimistic note hinting like he usually does that India will successfully
resist the United Sates (US). Instead, he very flatly called out the US’
anti-Chinese and Russian intentions with India, which didn’t go
unanswered by its Ministry of External Affairs. Spokesman Anurag
Srivastava said in response to a journalist’s request for comment about
the Russian Foreign Minister’s words that,

“India has always pursued an independent foreign policy

based on its national interest. India’s relationship with each
country is independent of its relations with third countries.
We hope that this is well understood and appreciated by all
our partners.”

This was a mature and measured reaction to what happened, but it’s
the country’s unofficial response that came a few days later which
raises worries about the future of their relations.
Harsh V. Pant, the Director, Studies and Head of the Strategic Studies
Programme at Observer Research Foundation – one of India’s top think
tanks that’s closely connected to the government – and one of the
country’s foremost experts on the Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership
published an article at the Hindustan Times on Sunday about how
“Moscow must come to terms with India’s security imperatives”.
Although the views expressed are personal, an analyst of his statue
with so many connections might very well be saying what the Indian
state can’t officially express. His deep insight and the extremely high
regard with which his work is held testifies to his accuracy in
reflecting India’s true strategic sentiments on a wide array of issues,
especially relations with Russia. For this reason, his work can be
interpreted as India’s unofficial response to Russia.

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12/16/2020 India’s unofficial response to Russia might exacerbate growing distrust | The Express Tribune

The problem, however, is that Pant’s article might unwittingly

exacerbate growing distrust between the two countries. He’s an
analyst, after all, and not a diplomat even if he’s informally
functioning as one to send a harsh message to Russia. For instance, he
attempted to gaslight the public by wrongly making it seem like it’s
Russia, not India, that’s practicing a hypocritical policy. He wrote,

“As long as India joins Russia and China in railing against the
West, New Delhi can be hailed for its strategic autonomy but
if India builds ties with the US and other Western nations, it
is merely because there is a devious game at play to ensnare
India into relationships that make it an object of other
nations’ priorities.”

This is the inverse of reality as will now be explained.

Russia was remarkably silent about, and therefore even tacitly
understanding of, India’s de-facto pro-American alliance up until the
past year despite India never tiring of voicing its concern about
Russia’s growing closeness with China and Pakistan. As proof of this,
former Indian Ambassador to Russia Kanwal Sibal, writing in the
foreword to the October 2017 report titled “70th Anniversary Of
Russia-India Relations: New Horizons Of Privileged Partnership”
which was jointly produced by the Russian International Affairs
Council and Vivekananda International Foundation, said,

“Russia’s overtures to Pakistan, especially in the military

field, are construed in India as linked to our growing
connection with the US. The evolution of Russia’s approach
to Afghanistan and Pakistan/Taliban’s role in the search for a
solution, and, in particular, statements made by mandated
Russian officials dealing with our region that make light of
India’s concerns about Afghanistan-related issues have
caused confusion. The fact that Pakistan has begun to tout a
Pakistan–China–Russia axis against an India–US axis in the
region speaks of the diplomatic impact of Russia’s revised
perspectives.”

The diplomat also stated,

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“The belief in some Russian quarters that Pakistan can be a

participant in major SCO or BRICS infrastructure and other
projects within the framework of the India–Russia strategic
relationship is unlikely to find a positive echo in Indian
thinking, given India’s seven decades of experience with
Pakistan’s endemic hostility. Russia’s evolving optic on
Pakistan is creating a gap in the hitherto strong geopolitical
understandings between India and Russia in our region.”

Without a doubt, this is evidence of India first holding Russia to the

same hypocritical standards that Pant wrongly claims that Moscow’s
doing in his latest article. In fact, it’ll now be seen that he himself
expressed very similar views a few years ago despite suddenly seeming
to have forgotten all about that in his piece.
Writing almost half a year after his country’s former Ambassador to
Russia set the tone by publicly criticising Moscow’s desire to pursue
balanced relations in South Asia, Pant published a piece in March 2018
titled “Russia and India: Difficult times ahead” where he wrote,

“For India, what should be concerning is Russia’s increasing

tilt towards Pakistan as it seeks to curry favour with China.
Moscow had historically supported New Delhi at the United
Nations Security Council by repeatedly vetoing resolutions
on the Kashmir issue. Today, however, there is a change in
how Moscow views its regional priorities in South Asia. In a
significant development, the joint declaration issued at the
end of the first-ever six-nation Speaker’s Conference in
Islamabad held in December end supported Pakistani line
on Kashmir. This declaration signed by Afghanistan, China,
Iran, Pakistan, Russia and Turkey underscored that for
ensuring global and regional peace and stability, the issue of
Jammu and Kashmir needs peaceful resolution by Pakistan
and India in accordance with UN Security Council
resolutions.”

He scandalously concluded by warning that,

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“Russia’s growing collusion with China and Pakistan will

continue to test the Indo-Russian partnership in the coming
years.”

Almost exactly a year after Sibal’s scathing comments, Pant published

another article titled “Russia and India have to ride out some choppy
waters”, in which he repeated his earlier concerns stemming from the
six-nation Speaker’s Conference almost word-for-word and then also
shared his view that,

“New Delhi has long maintained that it needs a close

relationship with Moscow so that the Beijing-Moscow
relationship could be dented. But India’s Russia outreach
seems to have had a rather insignificant impact so far on the
Russia-China dynamic. Russia is also reaching out to
Pakistan despite Indian reservations and is changing its tune
on the Afghanistan issue. It is now a strong votary of
negotiating with the Taliban and has given short shrift to
Indian reservations in this regard.”

This makes it incredibly ironic that he’s now changing his tune by
making a false comparison between Russia’s cordial relations with
China and Pakistan and India’s much more consequential de-facto
alliance with America and then daring to imply that Russia’s the one
that’s behaving hypocritically after all he wrote.
Having exposed the hypocrisy behind one of Pant’s main points in his
latest article, attention should also be drawn to the fact that he
unquestionably parrots Western information warfare narratives
against Russia. The expert wrote,

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“Moscow’s relationship with Beijing is critical to give Russia

a sense of being some kind of a global power even as it is
finding that it can’t even manage its own backyard. The
recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh saw Turkey gaining a
foothold in South Caucasus when an Armenian army, trained
and armed by Russia, faced defeat by an Azerbaijani army,
trained and armed by the Turks. China is gaining a profile in
areas such as Central Asia where Russian dominance is
eroding. But such is the need for Chinese support that
Russian President Vladimir Putin has argued that a military
alliance between Moscow and Beijing cannot be ruled out.
And what better way to show Russian commitment than to
challenge the idea of the Indo-Pacific even more loudly than
the Chinese themselves.”

Over the summer I published a piece about “Constructive Criticisms

Of Russian Grand Strategy, And In Particular Towards Belarus”
which highlighted some of Russia’s struggles in its “Near Abroad”. They
veritably exist, but it’s a gross exaggeration to say that Russia “can’t
even manage its own backyard”. What’s more, I enumerated the 36
articles that I published during the -day Nagorno-Karabakh War by
name and date in my review of that conflict titled “The End Of The
Nagorno-Karabakh War: Retrospection, Clarification, And
Forecast”, which includes my prescient piece predicting Russia’s
ultimate support for Azerbaijan titled “Five Ways That An Azerbaijani
Military Victory Over Armenia Would Advance Russian Interests”.
My much more accurate observations debunk Pant’s provocative
innuendo of that conflict being a Russian-Turkish proxy war.
On the topic of Russian-Chinese relations, he’s jumping on the Western
Mainstream Media bandwagon by fantasising about an intense rivalry
between them in Central Asia. If anything, I argued at length in my
September analysis asking “Is Russia ‘Abandoning’ Or ‘Recalibrating’
Its ‘Balancing’ Act Between China & India?” that Moscow was moving
much closer to New Delhi at Beijing’s perceived strategic expense up
until Swamy’s hateful anti-Russian article last month ended up being a
game-changer in their relations by serving as a rude but nevertheless
long-overdue wake-up call about the devious game that India’s playing
to divide the two. A declassified 1963 Chinese Foreign Ministry report
published by the Wilson Centre’s Digital Archives about “The Soviet
Union’s Stance on the Sino-Indian Boundary Question and Soviet-
Indian Relations” compellingly proves in hindsight that Moscow’s
support of New Delhi against Beijing was a key reason behind the
infamous Sino-Soviet split. Keenly cognisant of this fact, Russia and
China want to avoid a similar split over India in the New Cold War,
hence Moscow’s sensitive “balancing” act between Beijing/Islamabad
and New Delhi.
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This unfortunately isn’t appreciated by India, however, which seems to

aspire to turn Russia into its “junior partner” by trading its
fearmongered dependence on Beijing with actual strategic dependence
on New Delhi, one which dangerously risks provoking another
Russian-Chinese split like was just explained if Moscow continues to
side too closely with New Delhi in ways that are perceived by Beijing as
being against its core interests. Nothing that Russia does with China
and Pakistan has the same consequence for India as that country’s de-
facto alliance with America does for its two neighbours and Russia’s
broader interests in Eurasian stability. The false equivalence that Pant
has consistently presented, likely taking cues from Sibal, is intended to
mislead everyone by wrongly making it seem like Russia is responsible
for provoking growing distrust with India when it’s really the latter
that’s been entirely to blame this whole time as was explained. By
falsely claiming that Russia is “challenging the idea of the Indo-Pacific
even more loudly than the Chinese themselves”, Pant disrespectfully
implied that President Putin is sacrificing Russia’s interests to become
a Chinese puppet.
It must have already been extremely unpleasant for Russian strategists
to read Swamy’s hateful anti-Russian article last month, yet now they
see that the essence of his arguments are shared by none other than
one of the leading Indian experts on their country, Harsh V. Pant. Not
only that, but Pant attempts to gaslight everyone by making it seem
like Russia’s to blame for the recent crisis of trust between these two
decades-long strategic partners even though he himself actively
participated in India’s efforts to pressure Russia into making a false
zero-sum choice between New Delhi on one hand and Beijing and
Islamabad on the other. This hypocritical stance is bad enough, but he
added insult to injury by ridiculously claiming that Russia “can’t even
manage its own backyard”, yet is supposedly so desperate for Chinese
support that it’s “challenging the idea of the Indo-Pacific even more
loudly than the Chinese themselves.” India’s unofficial response to
Russia through Pant might therefore exacerbate growing distrust,
though Moscow will likely do all it can to mitigate the consequences.


WRITTEN BY:
Andrew Korybko

The writer is an American Moscow-based political analyst specialising in the relationship between the
US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity,
and Hybrid Warfare. He tweets at @AKorybko.

The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necassarily reflect the views and policies of
the Express Tribune.

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12/16/2020 India’s unofficial response to Russia might exacerbate growing distrust | The Express Tribune

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