Modi’s India need for a “peace formula”: a call to India after the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia
Zelensky called Modi to say he needed India’s help in getting a “peace formula” in place.
The call comes as New Delhi seeks to boost trade ties with Moscow after becoming one of the largest purchasers of Russian oil – defying Western sanctions and providing a vital financial lifeline to Russian President Vladimir Putin as the Kremlin wages an unprovoked war against its neighbor.
The Indian government said Modi repeated his calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities and forvert to dialogue and diplomacy after the call.
Zelensky presented a 10-point peace formula to world leaders at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, in November. India took over the presidency of the G20 this month and will keep it until next year.
India wants to focus the G20 summit on priorities for the Global South including climate change, food security, inflation and debt relief.
Moscow has solidified its ties with India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the friendship between his country and Putin “unbreakable” during a meeting with him in September. He told the Russian president that it’s not a time for war. A year after the war, Modi is still not assigning any blame for the violence, and has expressed more concern over the spike in global food and fuel prices.
Modi was also thought to be a key player in the G20’s decision to issue a joint declaration condemning Russia’s war in Ukraine “in the strongest terms.”
India, which has a population of 1.3 billion, says that it will increase its purchases of Russian energy to protect its own interests as a country with less disposable income.
Russia sent India a list of more than 500 products for potential delivery last month, according to Reuters, including parts of cars, aircraft and trains.
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Putin said Sunday he’s ready to negotiate “about acceptable solutions” regarding the war in Ukraine, according to state media. In response, a Zelensky adviser said Moscow “doesn’t want negotiations, but tries to avoid responsibility” as it continues to attack civilians.
In the year since Russia invaded Ukranian it has been condemned, sanctions were slapped on it, and huge amounts of arms and technology was sent to help it defend itself.
Despite the Indian government’s efforts to diversify, Moscow continues to be India’s biggest arms dealer — more than 30 years after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Russia has reportedly supplied India with around $13 billion in weapons in the past five years alone.
Russia opened its first Consulate in Mumbai in 1900, when India still was under British rule. But relations really took off during the Cold War.
“It started out as strategic sympathy for the Soviet Union, in the backdrop of India getting independence from the British. It is an anti-imperialistic experience according to Rajeswari Rajagopalan, a political scientist at the Observer Research Foundation. “And as the Cold War picked up, it became a more anti-West, anti-U.S. sentiment they shared.”
The end of the Cold War didn’t change that. The Ukrainian war has not been mentioned. India’s nationalist TV news channels often accuse the United States — rather than Russia — of doing more to ruin Ukraine.
In November of last year, Modi’s top diplomat, S. Jaishankar, traveled to Moscow where he was met by his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
Praveen Chakravarty, a political economist affiliated with the Indian National Congress party, says that the actions that India is engaged in do not reflect any remorse or even mild criticism of the events inUkraine. “If anything, it seems to aid and abet.”
India has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. 1.6% growth for the United States is forecast by the International Monetary Fund, compared to 6.8% for India. By 2030, India is forecast to be the third-largest economy in the world, behind the U.S. and China.
It’s already the third-largest oil consumer in the world. It needs more to fuel that growth. But because India has few oil and gas reserves of its own, most of the oil it needs has to be imported. It’s a country that is very sensitive to price.
Indian officials have defended those purchases by saying it’s their job to find bargains for their citizens. And Jaishankar, the foreign minister, has suggested it’s hypocritical of wealthier Westerners to ask them not to.
“Europe has managed to reduce its imports [of Russian gas] while doing it in a manner that is comfortable,” Jaishankar told an Austrian TV channel last month. “At 60,000 euros or whatever is your per capita income, you’re so caring about your population. I have a population of 2,000 people. I don’t have the money to pay high prices for oil, because I need energy as well.
Last April, Jaishankar visited the White House for a virtual summit between Modi and President Biden. The Indians were told by their U.S. officials that they should not buy more Russian oil because of India’s energy needs.
“U.S treasury officials aim to keep the market well supplied and deprive Russia of oil revenue,” a senior fellow with the Washington based Center forStrategic and International Studies said in a recent interview. “They are aware that Indian and Chinese refiners can earn bigger margins by buying discounted Russian crude and exporting products at market prices. They’re fine with that.”
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Russian and Soviet weapons have historically been used in India’s military. Most of those contracts date back to the Cold War, a conflict in which India was officially non-aligned but close to Moscow. The majority of India’s arsenal is Soviet-made.
“Let’s just go to the [Indian] Air Force. Most of those aircraft are called flying coffins. Very often Indian pilots die when they are testing, or flying, those,” says Aparna Pande, a political scientist at the Hudson Institute in Washington. “So India knows they need to be replaced.”
The Russian tanks falling apart in Ukraine might have been a surprise to some Indian defense experts. They’ve been unhappy with Russian equipment for years.
I want to change my apartment, and I want West elm, so let’s say my entire apartment had only Ikea furniture. I cannot just get a new chair. Pande said he had to change his entire dining table and chairs. “So what India has done [in terms of updating its weapons] is piecemeal. Big ticket items are still made in Russia. So that’s the change which has to happen, and this is what will reduce the Russian influence.”
India’s biggest foreign policy preoccupation is not Ukraine or Russia. It’s China. The two countries share a more than 2,000-mile disputed border. Satellite imagery shows China may be encroaching on Indian territory. There were disagreements between soldiers there in June and December.
So even if Washington doesn’t like it, Biden administration officials say they understand why India has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and they’re willing to grant India a wide berth.
Three of India’s neighbors — Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh — are seeking urgent loans from the International Monetary Fund, as developing countries in particular struggle with rising global fuel and food prices.
The G-20 foreign ministers meeting and the Indian prime minister’s “complicit” comment on Ukraine’s violence in Mumbai and Bengaluru
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and their Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang, are all expected to attend the two-day meeting in New Delhi.
In July last year, Lavrov walked out of a previous G-20 meeting in Indonesia after Western delegates denounced the Ukraine war. At a G-20 meeting in April, the US Treasury Secretary and representatives from other countries walked out when Russia spoke.
Indonesia became the G-20 presidency last year, while Brazil will hold it next. But Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has sought to bill it — at least to a domestic audience — as a personal achievement by the prime minister, as he runs for reelection next year.
There are billboards in India with Modi’s face and India’s G-20 logo. In recent weeks, highway flyovers in Mumbai and New Delhi have been festooned with flower boxes. The lampposts were painted fresh.
But at a similar G-20 finance ministers’ meeting last week, Yellen accused Russian officials in attendance of being “complicit” in atrocities in Ukraine and in the resulting damage to the global economy.
That meeting, held Feb. 22-25 near the southern Indian city of Bengaluru, ended without a final joint communique being issued. Analysts aren’t certain whether this week’s foreign ministers meeting will end differently.