Indo - (Soviet) Russian Relations

Professor Muchkund Dubey, the former Foreign Secretary who taught as a Professor in the School of International Studies at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University for close to eight years, has written a book India’s Foreign Policy: Coping with the Changing World, which was released by eminent writer, administrator-cum-diplomat Gopal Gandhi in the Capital on September 8, 2012. The following chapter from the book (published by Pearson) is being reproduced here with the author’s permission for the benefit of our readers.

The Soviet Era

India’s fascination with the Soviet Union as a spearhead of the socialist movement in the world, started even before India gained indepen-dence. The leaders of India’s independence movement, particularly Jawaharlal Nehru, who received their education in England, were exposed to and highly impressed by the then prevailing ideology of Fabian socialism there. They came to believe that the socialist model was better suited than the capitalist one to the socio-economic conditions prevailing in countries like India. However, there was no significant movement in India’s relations with the Soviet Union while Joseph Stalin was alive. After the Stalin period, particularly with Nikita Khrushchev at the helm towards the end of the 1950s, ideological prejudices against India started melting away. The new Soviet leadership recognised the importance of India as a great civilisation, as one of the largest countries of Asia with great economic potential, as the leader of the Non-Aligned Movement and as a country with which the Soviet Union shared common views on global issue like nuclear disarmament, multilateralism under the UN, anti-colonialism, anti-apartheid, anti-racism and the right of Palestinians to their homeland. The Soviet Union found it in its interest to forge economic ties with India which, like the former, was pursuing a policy of the state controlling the commanding heights of the economy. The severing of relations with China during the Khrushchev era proved to be another reason of bringing the Soviet Union closer to India.

India, on its part, was obliged to turn to the Soviet Union partly because of the refusal of the Western countries to extend economic assistance to it for building a self-reliant economy, and also in order to meet its security requirements arising out of the Western military assistance to Pakistan under the post-War military alliances formed against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union readily stepped in to meet these requirements. As a result, there was a quantum jump in the level of military and economic cooperation between the two countries. The infrastructure of the heavy and basic industries that India was able to build during its successive Five Year Plans owed a great deal to the assistance extended by the Soviet Union. During the 1980s, the Soviet Union emerged as the biggest trading partner of India in the world. During this period, India’s dependence on the Soviet Union for military supplies reached a level as high as 70 to 80 per cent. Despite the partial success achieved by India recently in its attempt to diversify the sources of its military supplies, it is still dependent on Russia for a very large proportion of the total supply of spares and equipment for its armed forces. On an average, 75 per cent of the Indian armed forces are equipped with military hardware of Soviet/Russian origin.1

Apart from the major steel plants in Bhilai and Bokaro, India was able to build a large part of its energy infrastructure and most of the heavy and basic industries, crucial for its development, with the assistance of the Soviet Union. These included a number of thermal power stations, the Heavy Machine Building Plant in Ranchi, the Coal Mining Machinery Plant in Durgapur, the BHEL Heavy Electrical Equipment Plant at Haridwar, the Korba Coal Mining Project, the Bharat Ophthalmic Glass Ltd in Durgapur, the Bharat Pumps and Compressors Ltd in Naini, the IDPL Antibiotics Plant in Rishikesh, the Synthetic Drug Project in Hyderabad and the Surgical Instruments Plant in Madras.

The Societ Union also helped India in emerging as an important space power. It assisted in setting up the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station at Thiruvananthapuram and in launching the experimental satellites Aryabhata, Bhaskara-I and Bhaskara-II. It provided the cryogenic engines to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which made an important contribution to India’s progress towards self-reliance in launching spacecrafts. Currently, Russia is assisting in the Chandra-yaan-2 Joint Indo-Russian Lunar Mission, which is aimed at exploring lunar soil at a distance as far away from the landing site as possible, to confirm the presence of water. It has also agreed to India’s participation in Russia’s GLONASS Satellite Navigation Programme which would enable India to receive high-precision navigation signals for both military and civilian purposes. During the Gorbachev period, the two countries had agreed upon and were working on the details for jointly setting up an international space agency with the mandate to make information, collected through satellites on resources and climate, available to other countries and monitoring peaceful uses of the outer space. This project could not materialise partly because of the ensuing political turmoil in the Soviet Union.

Most of the projects for heavy and basic industries undertaken with Soviet assistance were financed out of credits extended by the Soviet Union, which was also the case with Soviet military supplies. The Soviet credits carried an interest rate of two-and-a-half per cent per annum and were repayable generally over a period of 12 years. Another distinguishing feature of the Soviet economic assistance to India during that period was that it was generally given for the establishment of entire complexes rather than individual plants. This involved assistance for the development of ancillary industries, both horizontally and vertically. Moreover, economic cooperation agreements with the Soviet Union were in most cases package deals, involving assistance in the preparation of blueprints, supply of raw materials, components and machinery, supply of technical documentations and provision for training personnel. The implementation of these package deals facilitated the transfer of technology to India from the Soviet Union on a very large scale, mainly through the association of Indian engineers and technicians with the designing and construction of the plants and by the training of thousands of Indians in Soviet technical institutions and plants as well as in technical institutions set up for this purpose in India with Soviet assistance. The fact that the Soviet economic assistance was made available to India on the basis of a long-term commitment, facilitated its harmonisation with the development plans of India. Another important feature of the Soviet economic assistance was the provision for making payments for the credits by the export of goods from India. This provision was of considerable importance at a time when India used to run chronic balance-of-payment deficits with the rest of the world and its reserve position was generally not very comfortable.

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THE first bilateral trade agreement between the two countries was signed in 1953. After that, trade between the two countries increased exponentially. What lent special significance to the trade relations between them was the purposive manner in which the two countries utilised the instrument of bilateral trade for the economic development of India as well as for the benefit of the USSR. Adaptations and sophisti-cations were introduced in the trade agreements for forging new and dynamic economic relations to serve mutual interests. These agreements made a significant contribution to India’s planned development by imparting an element of stability to flows of exports and imports, including those of strategic products and raw materials like petroleum, petroleum products, fertilisers and metals. They also made it possible for India to expand and set up export-oriented industries, the production of which was geared to meet the requirements of Soviet consumers.

There has been endless controversy as to whether India made the right choice in pursuing an import substitution and heavy-industry-based development strategy during the earlier phase of its economic development and whether the state should have played as important a role in the economy as it did during that period. There is no intention here to enter into this controversy. It needs only to be underlined that within the framework of the strategy adopted by India and the development policy pursued by it, the Soviet Union made a signal contribution to ensuring its success particularly by building India’s infrastructure and industrial base.

The Soviet Union emerged as the largest trading partner of India as well as the biggest destination of India’s exports, surpassing the United States, in the years 1981-82, 1982-83 and 1984-85. In 1991-92 also, India’s exports to the USSR at Rs 5255 crore were marginally higher than those (at Rs 5245 crore) to the USA.2
The Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation, signed in August 1971, reflected the high peak reached in Indo-Soviet relations. This Treaty became an important safeguard for India’s security, sovereignty and territorial integrity. Its most important security clause was Article 9 which provided that the contracting parties would enter into mutual consultations when either of the parties was subjected to an attack, so as to remove the threat and take appropriate measures to maintain the security of the region. It is generally believed that the Soviet material and diplomatic support as well as the confidence provided under this Treaty enabled India to successfully undertake the operation during the 1971 war for the liberation of Bangladesh. According to some analysts, it effectively prevented China from intervening in the war on the side of Pakistan. The Treaty was renewed in 1993 during Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s visit to India, but without its security clauses and ideological underpinnings.

While maintaining close relations with Leftist groups in India on a party-to-party basis, the Government of the USSR put no pressure on India to bring about any change in its socio-economic and political system. In the inter-national arena, the two countries shared a great deal of ideological affinity. But here too, India retained its independence of action and judgement on international issues and thus remained true to its non-aligned status. Even during the peak of the Indo-Soviet relationship, India maintained very meaningful relations with the West and did not hesitate from articulating its differences with the Soviet Union on critical international issues. For example, Indira Gandhi, the then Indian Premier, rejected twice during the 1970s, the Brezhnev Doctrine on an Asian security arrangement under the Soviet leader-ship. While not joining the Western bandwagon against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, India lost no opportunity to warn the Soviet leadership at the highest level, of the grave consequences of the latter getting bogged down in the Afghan quagmire.

The first half of the 1980s, which coincided with the early part of the Gorbacheve regime in the Soviet Union, can be regarded as the golden era of Indo-Soviet relations. That was the time when economic relations between the two countries reached their peak. The drastic transformations that President Gorbachev brought about in the foreign policy of the Soviet Union made it almost entirely convergent with that of the foreign policy of India. President Gorbachev extricated the Soviet foreign policy from its ideological and imperialistic moorings and planted it firmly on the ethical ground in which India’s foreign policy was entrenched from the very beginning since its independence. There emerged, after this change, an almost total identity of views between the two countries on disarmament, multilateralism under the United Nations and other world order issues. This shift in Soviet foreign policy and its convergence with the principal tenets of India’s foreign policy was reflected in the New Delhi Declaration and other statements issued and important decisions taken during President Gorbachev’s visit to India in November 1986.
The two countries decided to work for establishing ‘a new dynamic multilateralism’ and constituted a group of eminent social scientists drawn from the two countries to review developments in the world economy and international economic relations on a continuing basis, with a view to suggesting strategies and policy measures on the basis of which the two countries could take initiatives for the establishment of a just and equitable world economic order. In the New Delhi Declaration,3 President Gorbachev joined the Prime Minister of India in giving a call for moving towards ‘a nuclear-weapon-free and non-violent world’. This became the title of the Rajiv Gandhi Action Plan for a Nuclear Weapon-free and Non-Violent World Order submitted by India to the United Nations in 1988. The New Delhi Declaration also stated that ‘an end to the arms race is an essential pre-requisite for the establishment of a new world order’. This reflected the view firmly held and frequently articulated by Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister. The Declaration was also the first official document signed by the leader of the world’s second largest nuclear weapon power which specified a dateline, that is, before the end of the 20th century, for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union also for the first time joined India in proposing that ‘pending the elimination of nuclear weapons… an international convention barring the use of threat of the use of nuclear weapons should be concluded immediately’. The most tragic part was that this golden era of Indo-Soviet relationship was far too short-lived. The Gorbachev regime collapsed in 1992 and with this, came the end of the Soviet Union.

Indo-Russian Relations

WITH the disintegration of the Soviet Union, an entire epoch of contemporary history came to an end, as did the Indo-Soviet relationship, as it was shaped and had evolved during the Soviet era. The Soviet experiment in socialism had profoundly influenced the course of events in the rest of the world. The Soviet system provided the much sought after alternative to the capitalist system prevailing in major advanced countries and was widely seen as the harbinger of social justice and equality. The socialist system in the Soviet Union collapsed not because there was anything fundamentally wrong with the ideology, per se, but because of the way it was sought to be put into practice. The system crumbled under the weight of its rigidities, excesses and resistance to change required to adjust to the changing environment.

Into-Soviet relations went through a phase of drift and disarray during the last phase of the Gorbachev regime and the first few years after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Russia became the inheritor state on which devolved the responsibility of carrying out all the treaty obligations, agreements and contracts entered into by the Soviet Union with other countries, including India. In the early 1990s, the Russian economy and polity as well as its foreign policy went through drastic, even traumatic transfor-mations. The main emphasis on the economic front was on dismantling state controls, introducing privatisation in a system where no private sector existed and giving a greater role to market forces. In the realm of foreign policy, there was a pronounced lurch towards the West, particularly the United States. Integration with Europe has been an enduring Russian aspiration coming down from the time of Peter the Great. Gorbachev talked about a Common European Home4 stretching from the Urals to the Atlantic. But Yeltsin followed a very lopsided policy on this matter. Under him, Russia started seeing itself mainly as a European power and almost forgot that vast tracts of its territory lay in Asia. Its relationship with Asian countries, including India, was thus relegated to the background.

India lost almost all its trading and other special economic advantages in the inheritor state, Russia. There was an overnight switch to conducing trade between the two countries through payments in free foreign exchange. Trade was sustained at a modest level, mainly in the form of exports by India, In payment for the revalued and rescheduled debts incurred in the past. But here too there were delays on the part of the Russians in issuing licences to importers, due to the virtual breakdown of governance. The value of trade declined to the rock bottom figure of $ 0.94 billion in 1993-94. Thereafter, the two-way trade remained stagnant between $ 1 billion and $ 2 biollion till the end of the 1990s.5 After the breakdown of the Soviet Union, military supplies to India were disrupted as many military establishments in the Soviet military-industrial conglomerate closed down and the government authorities were unable to coordinate supplies from defence units spread all over the Soviet Union. Due to the chaotic supply conditions, prices were sometimes raised unrealistically. Things started looking up somewhat after President Yeltsin’s visit to India from January 27 to 29, 1993.

This visit was partly intended to restore the balance in the Russian foreign policy, which had drifted too far away from Asia towards Europe. President Yeltsin visited China and India in quick succession as they were regarded as the most important targets in the attempt to restore the balance. The visit laid the foundation for a new relationship with India. During the visit, the problem of ensuring uninterrupted and assured supply of spare parts and equipment for the Armed Forces of India was seriously addressed and the commitment to keep up the flow of supplies was reiterated. But in India, there were still doubts if things would start improving any sooner after the visit, as Moscow was not fully in control of the autonomous regions within the country. President Yeltsin also laid to rest all doubts about Russia honouring its commitment to supply the cryogenic engines to India. The first cryogenic engine arrived in India in September 1998, and the remaining six came at intervals of six months each. The problem of revaluation of the huge debt incurred by India during the Soviet period was sorted out just prior to the visit, on the basis of a give and take policy. There was no reduction in the debt stock, but 35 per cent of the debt was agreed to be rescheduled for payment on easy terms. This, in effect, brought down India’s debt servicing burden on debts to Russia by 30 per cent. Out of the principal outstanding debt of Rs 31,377 crore, Rs 19,643 crore was to be repaid over the next 12 years at an average rate of interest of 2.4 per cent. The remaining Rs 11,734 crore was rescheduled for repayment over 45 years without any interest burden. India’s annual trade plan with Russia came to an end. Therefore, there was to be no oil purchase by India under a trade plan.
There was no question of going back to the old Indo-Soviet economic relationship. The basic parameters of that relationship changed irrevocably. There was going to be no rupee payment for imports from Russia. There was no question of Russia making credit available for India’s industrialisation to be paid back through exports. There was also going to be no military or other strategic supplies on credit to be paid through exports. All purchases in this regard had to be made in free foreign exchange. Russia agreed to upgrade its relationship with India to a strategic level but there was going to be no special relationship of the past, at least during the period of Yeltsin’s presidency. The new relationship was devoid of the geo-political significance of the old Soviet era.

In 1998, Russia faced an economic disaster. In August that year, the rouble was drastically devalued and bankruptcy was declared. A 90-day moratorium on payment due to non-residents was imposed on banks and there was a freezing of the short-term state bond market. As compared to 1992, the total output was reduced to half. The decline in output was greater than that in the United States during the Great Depression of 1929-31, when output declined by 35 per cent. The rouble was rendered useless as 85 per cent of the total transactions was taking place in dollars, which totally replaced the rouble in international transactions.
After 1992, Russia decided to embark upon the IMF-prescribed programme of economic development. As a result, the real sector of the economy was starved of liquidity. There was, therefore, a collapse of investment in plants and factories. As investment in research and development dried up, technologies became obsolescent. For the same reason, human capital in the areas of education, health, science and culture also suffered deterioration and degra-dation. Privatisation in the absence of a private sector led to the capture of industries by the personnel of the state apparatus and other non-business entities. This led to asset stripping on a large scale and the consequent transfer of capital to foreign banks. On the social side, pensions and wages, even of military personnel, remained unpaid for years, resulting in all-round demoralisation and untold suffering of the common people. One-third of the population fell below the poverty line. The average longevity of the Russians went down significantly. The middle class was virtually wiped out.
The policy prescribed by the IMF did not deliver capitalism as it was intended to do, but in the process, it destroyed the economy and substantially weakened democracy, which was evident from the degradation and rigging of the political institutions in the country. Towards the end of the 1990s, particularly during Yevgeny Primakov’s premiership, the government in power agreed on an outline of a new economic policy, according to which the state was to restore order to the budget, and honour all its obligations for payments to its employees, defend property rights, enforce tax payments and clamp down on the shadow economy. It was also intended to lower tax rates, impose partial currency control and print limited amounts of money to pay off wage arrears. The Russian Duma approved this policy, but the IMF was still resisting. It withheld the release of a substantial part of the emergency support it had agreed to provide in July 1998. Governments of the Western countries saw in this eminently reasonable economic policy the beginning of a return to communism. The US Government kept away from Russia throughout the period of the crisis and did not bestir itself to arrange a rescue package, and US companies made hardly any investment in the country.

There were, however, some silver linings in the situation. Ordinary Russian citizens displayed a tremendous ability to put up with the ordeal of economic distress. Even during the worst of times, Russian society did not succumb to large-scale violence. In spite of the depredation of the economy perpetrated by domestic vested interests, much of the human and natural resources remained intact. There was also a clarity in the country on not returning to a state-controlled and state-directed economy and on maintaining the basic structure of democracy.

There was an evidence of a turnaround in the Russian economy under President Vladimir Putin’s regime during the early years of the 21st century when the rate of growth of the economy reached the impressive figure of five to six per cent per annum. The size of the economy increased from $ 200 billion in 1998 to $ 1.4 trillion in 2008. In 2007, foreign investment crossed $ 100 billion. During the decade before 2008, per capita income increased by 20 per cent and some 30 million persons were lifted out of poverty.6 This became possible partly because of the rise in the global oil prices, but mainly due to a nationally designed development strategy. A major factor was the restoration by Putin of national self-esteem after the humiliation of the Yeltsin period.

A maljor weakness of the Russian economy is that more that 60 per cent of the federal budget revenue comes from oil and gas taxes, and extractive industries contribute two-thirds of the value of exports and a quarter of the GDP.7 However, in spite of these structural weaknesses, under the present political leadership, Russia is making a steady progress towards regaining its mid-1990 position and moving beyond it to emerge as a major economic power, a prospect which is well within the realm of possibility. Russia is a vast country with rich natural resources and highly trained and skilled manpower. Universal spread of its educational system guarantees constant accretion to this manpower pool. In spite of some degradation of its technology since the 1990s Russia remains a powerhouse of high technologies and its fundamental science is still considered as one of the best in the world. Moreover, Russia remains the second largest military power in the world, a position it is likely to retain in the foreseeable future.

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RELATIONS with Russia are of vital importance to India. This relationship has been time-tested and is based on mutual trust and support of the peoples of the two countries. A large part of the goodwill and friendship of the Russian people, which was cultivated during the period of Indo-Soviet relationship, still survives, though in a dormant form, partly because of the lack of energetic effort by India to revive and draw upon it for nurturing cooperation between the two countries.

India has enjoyed a much higher esteem among the establishment and people of Russia than in the West. The Soviet Union, and later Russia, steadfastly stood by India at several critical junctures of its post-independence history. The Soviet Union always supported India’s position on Kashmir, even though it encouraged India to settle the issue with Pakistan and offered its assistance, if requested, to facilitate the process. The perception in Pakistan and among its Western friends, that the Soviet Union could use its veto in the Security Council, came in the way of their reviving the issue in the United Nations. The Soviet Union stood by India during the Bangladesh crisis in 1971. In the early 1990s, in spite of the tremendous pressure exercised by the Clinton Administration, Russia adhered to the core part of its agreement with India for the delivery of the cryogenic engines to ISRO as per the original schedule. Russia refused to participate in sanctions against India following the latter’s nuclear explosion in 1998. In fact, the same year, it signed a 10-year agreement with India on military and technological cooperation. It also reiterated its decision, taken in 1988, to supply two nuclear reactors for the Kudankulam nuclear plant, currently under construction. It defended its decision to do so on the ground that the agreement reached with India pre-dated the establishment of the NSG, which bars the transfer of nuclear equipment and technology to non-members of the NPT that do not accept full-scape safeguards. It continued uninterrupted the supply of equipment and spare parts for India’s Armed Forces even in the midst of chaos, disorder and disruption in the Soviet Union. In this connection, it is also important to note that Russia is the only major country engaged in global arms trade, which, as a matter of policy, has not supplied arms to Pakistan. This is a vivid demonstration of its sensitivity to India’s security interests.

With the exception of China, to a limited extent, India is the only country with which the Soviet Union, and later Russia, has shared technologies in critical sectors. Technology on a fairly large scale was transferred for establishing heavy and basic industries in India during the Soviet period. Recently, Russia has transferred or agreed to transfer key strategic technologies in the defence sector, mainly through the joint development and co-production of weapon systems. In this connection, the example of the Brahmos missiles, which are already being produced and have been deployed, readily comes to mind. In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union had leased a nuclear-powered submarine to India, which helped in capacity building in India for designing and operating such submarines. Russia has collaborated with India in a very significant way in the building a launching of the nuclear-powered submarine, Arihant. There is also joint collaboration for the production of T-90 battle tanks. During President Medvedev’s visit to India in December 2010, deals were concluded for the joint development of Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft and Multi-Role Transport Aircraft. Both of these involve the transfer of advanced sensitive technologies to India. The agreements by Russia for the supply of nuclear reactors also provide for the transfer of technology and the progressive indigenisation of the reactors.

Russia is India’s most important and reliable defence partner. It is likely to remain the principal source of supply of defence equipment for India in the foreseeable future. Russia is the only country with which India has an Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation at the ministerial level.

There is on the ground a comprehensive institutional framework for conducting bilateral relationship between the two countries. Their Heads of State/Government have been meeting at annual summits for the last five years or so. In addition, they have the occasion of meeting and exchanging views on strategic and other bilateral issues on the sidelines of the gatherings of Heads of State/Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), BRICS, and the IRC which brings together India, China and Russia. The Indo-Russian Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation, co-chaired by the External Affairs Minister of India and the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, provides guidelines and outlines of a long-term vision for bilateral economic, scientific and cultural cooperation. It has some 10 working groups dealing with specific areas like energy, petroleum, science and technology, information technology, environmental and natural resources. The Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation, chaired by the Defence Ministers of the two countries, provides the requisite momentum and impetus to bilateral relations in the military field. There are also joint fora of the nuclear, space, energy and petroleum agencies of the two countries to discuss scientific collaboration and thrash out agreements on important projects and programmes. The two countries have an Integrated Long-Term Programme of Cooperation in Science and Technology. This programme has been extended from time to time. During President Medvedev’s visit to India in December 2010, it was extended up to 2020. The agenda for the strategic partnership between the two countries is being continuously widened, depending upon the need to reach an under-standing or forge common positions on evolving strategic issues.

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THERE is a striking convergence of the positions of the two countries on a number of strategic issues. On the nuclear issue, both India and Russia are in favour of the international community making a systematic and progressive effort to reduce nuclear weapons globally with the ultimate goal of eliminating them.8 On non-proliferation, the Russian position is determined by the perception of its interest as a major nuclear weapon power. Russia sees its interest in preserving the existing nuclear order and attaches great importance to ensuring non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. It was among the first to sign the CTBT. Moreover, Russia sees itself as a committed member of the NSG, the MTCR and the Australia Club, all of which are intended to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. After the 1998 nuclear explosions by India and Pakistan, Russia joined the PS (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council) to call upon India and Pakistan to observe a moratorium on nuclear testing, unconditionally sign the CTBT and accede to the NPT. At the same time, Russia showed a great degree of pragmatism and sensitivity to India’s security requirements. It did not join the Western countries in applying sanctions against India, continued uninterrupted the supply of military equipment and spares to India, and adhered to the commitment to supply cryogenic engines for India’s space programme. Russia appreciated the declaration by India of a voluntary morato-rium on nuclear testing and the Government of India’s effort to develop a broad national consensus for signing the CTBT. In a speech made by him in Mumbai on October 5, 2000 to a gathering of nuclear scientists, President Putin stated that he would like to see India participate in the CTBT but at the same time recognised that India’s decision should be based on its strategic vision, national interest and needs of the people.

More recently, Russia fully backed the US move in the NSG to obtain a waiver for India from its restrictions on the supply of nuclear material, equipment and technology to non-member countries. Now that India has indicated its intention to join these groups, Russia has ‘expressed readiness to assist and promote a discussion and positive decision in the NSG on India’s full membership in the NSG’.9 Russia ‘also took into positive consideration India’s interest in full membership in MTCR and the Wassenaar Arrangement’.10

However, on an important disarmament issue, that is, the US decision to develop and deploy a global BMD system. India’s attitude has been somewhat ambivalent, which in recent years, has cast a shadow on the Indo-Russian relationship. In the Joint Statement issued by President Putin and the then Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, at the end of the Russian President’s visit to India in 2000, ‘both side stressed the need for full implementation, in good faith, of existing bilateral and multilateral arms control treaties, including the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty’. Thus, India, along with Russia, adopted a clear-cut position against President Bush’s publicly declared intention to withdraw from this treaty in order to pave the ground for launching a BMD system. But subsequently, when the system was formally launched by him, the then Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh wholeheartedly welcomed it in the Indian Parliament. The UPA Government, both by its silence on this issue and by agreeing to the provision in the Indo-US Defence Framework, signed on June 28, 2005, to ‘expand collaboration relating to missile defence’, has continued the policy of the NDA Government. Since Russia regards the development and deployment of BMD as the greatest threat to its security, it has been irked by India’s ambivalence on this issue.

In the Putin-Vajpayee Joint Statement of October 5, 2000, India and Russia agreed that they ‘would work together and with others towards a multipolar world based on sovereign equality of all states, territorial integrity and non-interference in their internal affairs as the only sustainable basis for the emergence of a new, equitable and just international order’. The two sides also ‘expressed their determined opposition to unilateral use or threat of use of force in violation of the UN Charter and inter-vention in the internal affairs of other states, including under the plea of humanitarian assistance’. The above statement was clearly directed against US unilateralism and its recourse to use of force against other countries without being authorised by the UN Security Council. It is significant that the Joint Statement that the Prime Minister of India issued with President Medvedev in 2010 is silent on these issues, which may be because of the distinct lurch in the Indian foreign policy towards the United States, following the Indo-US Nuclear Deal.

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SINCE the late 1990s, there has been frequent speculation regarding the possibility of the formation of a trilateral alliance consisting of Russia. China and India. This idea gathered momentum after its endorsement by Primakov, the then Russian Prime Minister, during his visit to India in December 1998. In reply to a leading question by a correspondent, he said: ‘If we succeed in establishing a triangle, it would be very good.’ Since then, this idea has not been espoused by any Russian statesman nor has it figured in any talks held between the leaders of India and Russia or in any statement issued by them. As a matter of fact, in the Strategic Partnership Agreement between India and Russia of October 3, 2000, it is specifically stated: ‘The strategic partnership between the sides is not directed against any other state or group of states and does not need to create a military political alliance.’

Indeed, these three countries have recently come together in the common platforms of SCO, BRICS and IRC, but none of these three groupings are in the nature of a military alliance, let alone being directed against the United States. Their sole purpose is to provide platforms to formulate common positions on global issues and to undertake schemes of mutual cooperation. The recent military exercise undertaken under the aegis of the SCO was not directed against the United States or any other power outside the Organisation. They were mainly intended to make preparations to meet emergency humani-tarian situations and to learn from each other’s experience. In any case, India did not participate in the military exercise. The question of India, China and Russia forming a strategic triangle against the United States does not arise, mainly because the relationship of each of them with the United States is more important than their relationship with each other. By emphasising multipolarity, multilateralism under the United Nations and the supremacy of international law in the declarations adopted at these fora, the intention is to create a space for themselves in the international arena in the context of the proclivity of the United States to resort to unilateralism and interfere in the internal affairs of other countries in violation of international law.

That India finds these platforms of strategic value is reflected, among others, in the fact that it is seeking the elevation of its status in the SCO from an observer to a full member. In the Medvedev-Manmohan Singh Joint Statement, ‘the Russian Federation agreed to make efforts along with other SCO members to accelerate the process of India’s entry into the Organisation’. In the Joint Statement, the two sides also noted the successful interaction between India, Russia and China in the IRC format and the importance of this regional format in fostering dialogue and cooperation on global and regional issues between these three major states and great civilisations of the region, in accordance with the Joint Declaration of the 10th IRC Ministerial Meeting held on November 15, 2010 in Wuhan, China.
On the issue of terrorism, the Russian position is closer to India’s standpoint and more in unison with its interest than the position of the United States and other Western countries. A part of the reason is that both India and Russia are victims of terrorism emanating from the same source and both these countries are under pressure to preserve the unity and integrity of their pluralistic societies against the onslaught of both internal and external forces. The common position of the two countries on terrorism was reflected in the Joint Statement of October 2000 in the following terms: ‘They condemn terrorism and extremism in all its forms, irrespective of political, philosophical ideological, religious, ethnic, racial or any other consideration that may be invoked to justify them. The two sides condemn states that aid, abet and directly support cross-border and international terrorism.’ In the Joint Statement, the two sides also ‘noted with concern the growth of the force of religious extremism in their neighbourhood and the objective of these forces, with official support, to destabilise the entire region. They called upon these authorities to contain and eliminate these forces and return to the path of peace and moderation’. This part of the statement was clearly addressed to Pakistan. It is doubtful if the United States and its Western allies would ever join India in taking such a categorical position on Pakistan’s role in perpetrating terrorism and in encouraging forces of religious extremism.

On yet another issue of strategic interest to India, that is, its candidature for the permanent membership of the UN Security Council, Russia has extended to India its categorical and unwavering support. In the Putin-Vajpayee Joint Statement of October 2000, the Russian Federation ‘reiterated that it supports India…as a strong and appropriate candidate of the expanded Security Council’. Since then, this support has been reiterated several times at the highest political level, including the Joint Statement issued at the time of President Medvedev’s visit to India in December 2010.

In the energy field, Russia is in the process of completing the construction of two nuclear reactors in Kudankulam and is likely to build another 16 new reactors by the year 2017, if a mutually satisfactory understanding is reached on the legislation on liability enacted by the Indian Parliament. Both countries have agreed to enhance their cooperation in research and development in the nuclear field, in exploring Russia’s uranium deposit in Yakutia, developing new generation reactors, jointly building reactors in the third countries and setting up global nuclear energy centres. In the non-nuclear energy field, by far the most important development has been the investment by India of approximately $ 2.7 billion in the Sakhalin-1 offshore oil exploration project and its purchase of Russia’s Imperial Energy Company for $ 2.5 billion. India is seeking more investment opportunities in Russia’s upstream oil and gas sectors, including the Sakhalin-3 project.
Under the Integrated Long-term Programme for Cooperation in Science and Technology, originally signed in 1987, more than 500 joint projects have been taken up, and several of them have been successfully completed. In the context of President Medvedev’s vision of the innovation-based modernisation of Russia, the main thrust of the programme in the coming years is going to be on joint collaboration for the development of innovative technologies. The Russian President has launched the Skolkovo Innovation City Project and is keen on India’s participation in it. India should wholeheartedly participate in this project. This would open the way for collaboration between the scientists of the two countries to create innovative technologies which can go a long way towards accelerating and sustaining their economic growth and making their economies competitive in the world. The two countries have an adequate pool of trained and highly skilled manpower to achieve success in this endeavour.

A major weakness in the relations between the two countries is the relatively low level of trade exchanges and investment flows. In modern times, a strategic bilateral relationship between major powers cannot be sustained without its having a significant economic content. In fact, more often than not, it is the economic content which vests the bilateral relationship with its strategic character. Economic exchanges between India and Russia remain far below their potential. Bith India’s exports to Russia and the total trade between the two countries declined dramatically, by more than 50 per cent, between the years 1991-92 and 1992-93. The decade of the 1990s saw a moderate increase in the two-way trade. The trade in 1999-2000 was marginally higher than that in 1991-92. In 1999-2000, India’s exports reached the level of Rs 4108 crore and the value of total trade was Rs 6808 crore.11 There has been further growth in the two-way trade during the past decade, reaching a level of approximately $ 8 billion in 2009-10. However, the rate of increase has been much lower than that in India’s trade with its other major trading partners. The two countries have set the target for the value of bilateral trade to reach $ 20 billion by 2015 and have agreed to implement a set of measures to achieve this target. An increase in the two-way flow of investment, undertaking joint projects and joint collaboration for the development of innovative technologies in the civilian sector can have the effect of propelling the trade between the two countries to new heights.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

 

1. Arun Mohanty, ‘Indo-Russian Strategic Partnership: A Reality Check’, Mainstream, Volume 49, No. 16 (2011).

2. Government of India, Economic Survey of India, 1974-75 to 1990-91 (New Delhi: Ministry of Finance, Economic Division).

3. The New Delhi Declaration was signed by the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev during the latter’s visit to India in November 1986.

4. Mikhail Gorbachev, ‘Address to the Council of Europe’ (Strasbourg, July 6, 1989).

5. Government of India, Economic Survey of India, 1990-2000 (New Delhi: Ministry of Finance, Economic Division).

6. Vladimir Radhyuhin, ‘Oil revenues: bonanza for Russia’, The Hindu, August 4, 2008.

7. Ibid.

8. Joint Statement issued by the Governments of India and Russia on the occasion of President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India (New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, October 5, 2000).

9. Joint Statement issued by the Governments of India and Russia on the occasion of President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to India (New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, December 21, 2010).

10. Ibid.

11. Government of India, Economic Survey of India, 1999-2000 (New Delhi Ministry of Finance, Economic Division).