India’s diplomacy kept languishing between the East and West. The Russian invasion of Ukraine made the people believe India is a close crony to President Putin. Nevertheless, Jaishankar’s interview reveals India wished to gain an advantage from the Western alliance despite its symbiotic relationships with Russia. But both Indian PM Modi and truculent Putin have forgotten that the present world is different from past times.
Instead of calling the term “Russian invasion of Ukraine”, India says “Ukraine conflict”, as if Ukraine has created this conflict. Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar kept saying “Ukraine conflict”; on the other hand, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong kept saying “Russian invasion of Ukraine” in a press conference held on 10 Oct 2022.
What a gift of diplomacy, with a complete opposite and differing understanding on an issue, that allows talking in a pleasant atmosphere to express differing views from the same podium. Although India does not support conflict or killing of innocent Ukrainian, which Jaishankar has said, yet, India did not vote or, at best, abstained in the UN General Assembly against the Russian invasion of Ukraine – what can be more fallacy than this?
Jaishankar forcefully said no one was the winner of this conflict which was a despicable lie. Taking advantage of the oil crisis, India was buying oil and gas at reduced prices from Russia. In contrast, other countries like Bangladesh are importing oil and gas at a higher price as the oil price in the world market has shot up due to sanctions on Russia. When the world has been grappling with inflation, India was able to keep inflation managed.
If the US does not consider who Putin’s cohorts were, how can the US expect good allies during times of need?
Jaishankar said, “Western countries did not supply weapons to India, and, in fact, saw a military dictatorship next to us as the preferred partner”. It was very ridiculous that such a great diplomat failed to understand the difference between ‘Western partnership’ and ‘Western interest’.
The recent Joe Biden’s comment on Pakistan as “one of the most dangerous nations in the world” disregards Jaishankar’s statement. Given Jaishankar’s long experience, he should know why the West did not supply weapons to India instead of blaming the West. India, a proponent of nonalignment, remained strongly allied with the USSR and afterward Russia until now.
Jaishankar was quoted from his address at Lowy Institute that the commitment made to the Ukraine conflict is close to USD100 billion. Again, it implies that the West is responsible for escalating conflict in Ukraine. He does not want to blame Putin at all.
It is good that his comment opens an opportunity for the US to find out how much India and other cohorts of Russia have contributed to the Russian economy to help maintain its killing machine, taking the vantage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It should be a matter of noteworthy research to allow history to be written in the future.
He even failed to compliment the great leader of Ukraine’s President V Zelenskyy, who has become a role model for leadership. India has openly sided with Russia, decided to vote in the UN in favour of Russia, and evacuated 20,000 students from Ukraine. Yet, he said he was not much focused on individual leadership in that part of the world – a shocking reply from an expert diplomat.
It is a fact that the AUKUS (Australia, the UK & the US) was created amidst mistrust of the Quad partnership, mainly with India. Many western think tanks now consider that AUKUS has given tremendous trust among AUKUS leaders to work in defence technology cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region which was lacking in Quad.
The US has delineated primarily nontraditional security like climate actions activities to deal with by Quad. Jaishankar, in both the Q&A session at Lowy Institute and the press conference, emphasized that Indian partnerships with Quad got better than before.
Albeit among leaders, in formal meetings, India appears extolling Quad, while others agree with banal. It is mainly India that is propagating the importance of the Quad and India’s importance as a Quad partnership. As a Quad partner, India gets an opportunity to get close to the US because all other options got limited due to India’s support for Putin. Wherever Jaishankar goes, India’s successful partnership with Quad is being questioned (Munich Security Conference, MSC), and he kept challenging the anchor/moderator.
In fact, after the creation of AUKUS, India discovered itself as an outlier in the Indo-Pacific region. As the war drags on, Russia will surely face the downfall of its economy. Weaken Russia might throw India into a situation where India would find it difficult to maintain the present economic growth. The Quad remained the only hope for India to get close to the US and, subsequently, to the western countries.
In desperation, the foreign minister started to visit different western countries advocating India’s situation. Everyone understands this subtle diplomacy. India’s partnership is essential for the US to implement its Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) in the Indian Ocean. The West also needs business benefits by engaging 1.4 billion Indian people.
With time, the industrial revolution and the far-reaching globalization effect, the world has become a severe competitive place where diplomacy plays a vital role. However, despite having world-famous diplomats in India, its economic engagement with regional forums failed to succeed.
It is better to be late than never; Jaishankar, in his desperate move, is trying to revitalize India as a crucial partner of Quad. The question is will the US consider India a valued partner of Quad, given India’s history?
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