Russia is an unreliable, autocratic, and pro-China country. Yet India, the world’s biggest democracy, is aligned with the East European country due to a historical relationship and an Indian desire to maintain both Russian and American friends for any potential fight against China.
India has a long history of “friendship” with what is probably best, but rarely in contemporary times, described as an East European empire. On Aug. 9, 1971, the Soviet Union and India signed the “Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation” in New Delhi, but the relationship extends back much further into history.
Today, the old Soviet Union has crumbled. Russia is economically impoverished due in part to its territorial aggression in Ukraine and the resulting Western sanctions.
Other paradoxes and fissures in the Russia-India relationship are tangible.
This relationship is important to global politics, including the U.S. conflict with China, as democracy advocates around the world should want the best for India—not a risky relationship with a territorially-aggressive Russia, aligned with an even more dangerous foe: China. If India weakens because of a Russian double-cross, for example, then democracy weakens globally.
America thinks such purchases are unwise. When Turkey bought the S-400 system, the U.S. sanctioned it under the 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Washington is threatening the same against New Delhi, along with a downgrade to U.S.-Indian cooperation more generally.
Moscow’s continued hold on India distances the South Asian country from far better opportunities for defense cooperation with the United States and Europe, with whom it shares values of democracy and freedom.
The most high profile of the Moscow-Delhi collaborations, the BrahMos missile deal, “is about India trying to become an arms exporter,” wrote Joyeeta Basu, editor at the Sunday Guardian in New Delhi. “It’s about giving a push to indigenous industry,” which is a priority for the present government.
Basu wrote in an email: “Successive governments had ignored this aspect and kept India dependent on arms imports. Things have started to change now.”
According to Basu, “getting an order for Brahmos missiles from a foreign country is very significant for India. It’s the first big order coming from abroad.”
Basu and another Indian defense expert, Subir Bhaumik, hinted that Vietnam and Indonesia also want to buy the BrahMos system.
“The sale of Brahmos marks an important landmark for India in its effort to become an exporter of military hardware,” Bhaumik wrote in an email. “So far [India] is one of the highest importers of military hardware but the Brahmos sale to Philippines is a noteworthy game-changer.”
India’s military sales will increase the massive South Asian country’s “military diplomacy in Asia and if Vietnam and Indonesia follow the Philippines ìn buying Brahmos, it surely helps Delhi develop strong military relations with these countries who have given enough indication to stand up to China,” Bhaumik wrote.
“That these countries are close to China’s nightmare, the Malacca chokepoint, is significant, not … least because the Indian navy is getting a base in Sabang, Indonesia fairly soon,” he said. “It has been training Vietnamese submariners.”
Sajjanhar noted that India’s “Quad” security relationship with the United States, Japan, and Australia, along with Indo-Pacific issues more generally, and China in particular, has led to Russo-Indian tensions.
“India has tried to explain to its Russian interlocutors that India’s growing relations with the US or its membership of the Quad or Indo-Pacific are not in any way directed against Russia,” wrote Sajjanhar. “They are an insurance against the aggression and expansionist policy of China.”
That Russia has not supported India in its relationship with the United States and allies is difficult for the Russo-Indian relationship.
“It is a matter of regret that Russia has failed to fully appreciate the threat that India faces from China on its land borders, particularly because there is no lessening of China’s intimidating actions in sight,” Sajjanhar wrote.
What is more, India dislikes that Russia adopts language supportive of China. “Some Russian officials … sing paeans of praise for China’s Belt and Road Initiative, fully realising that its flagship project, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) passes through territory illegally occupied by Pakistan,” wrote Sajjanhar.
“It would be reassuring if these Russian officials were to simultaneously criticise China for its aggression against India, for unilaterally violating all the agreements signed between the two for maintaining peace and tranquility on their border and for constructing the CPEC through territory belonging to India.”
Sanjahar argued that “Russia would not wish to see a China-dominated Asia or a China-dominated world. In pursuit of a multi polar world, India is its most viable partner.”
India is an important balancing partner against Beijing’s growing economic and military power, and its goals of global hegemony. But Moscow, aligned as it is with Beijing, poses the risk of a double-cross, and the distancing of India from true friends of democracy in Europe and North America.
Let’s hope that India can wean itself, with the help of other world democracies and allies, from reliance on an alignment with Russia’s unreliable technology and illiberal influence.
