India and Russia – Bilateralism and Multipolarity

Author

Senior Research Fellow at the CNRS and Senior Scholar at the Asia Centre think tank.

Since the signing of the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation in 1971, bilateral relations between Moscow and New Delhi have gained particular importance. After the difficult Yeltsin years, relations were strengthened when Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000. By that time, India had made two major changes throughout the 1990s, highlighting its emerging status: a new economic policy that was more open to the world, and the formalization of its status as a non-NPT nuclear power.

A "Privileged" Bilateral Partnership

President Putin's first visit to India in October 2000 led to the establishment of the "India-Russia Strategic Partnership", which was elevated to the level of a "Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership" in 2010. This was followed by regular dialogue structures, from the annual summit between the Russian President and the Indian Prime Minister to the intergovernmental commissions dealing with military technical cooperation for one, and cooperation in trade, economy, science, technology and culture for the other. In addition to these bodies, there have been numerous high-level visits (ministers, chiefs of defense staff, national security advisers, etc.). Despite these strong ties, and compared to Sino-Indian, or Indo-American trade (respectively $85 billion and $75 billion in 2018), Indo-Russian economic trade remains modest: nearly $11 billion in 2018, with a net profit for Moscow, although the GDP of India ($2,726 billion in 2018) far exceeds that of Russia ($1,658 billion). However, two sectors stand out in Indo-Russian trade: defense and energy.

Despite these strong ties, Indo-Russian economic trade remains modest [...] However, two sectors stand out in Indo-Russian trade: defense and energy.

For a long time, the USSR and then Russia has been a major source of weaponry and technology transfer for India. Although Russia's share of arms sales to India is falling, it remains essential: over the years 2014-2018, Russia accounted for 58% of India's arms purchases, the world's first largest arms importer (or second, depending on the year), with Israel (15%) and the United States (12%) coming far behind. Beyond weaponry, military maneuvers are developing. There are, for instance, the bilateral naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal in 2018, and the joint exercise in Vladivostok that brought together all three armed forces in 2017.

With energy deficits, India imports most of its hydrocarbons from the Middle East, but it is active in the Russian Far East, where the Indian giant ONGC has invested nearly $3 billion in the fields of Sakhalin, while Rosneft has invested in India. An Indian consortium is also present in the Siberian Arctic. While France and the United States have not yet been able to implement their nuclear power plant projects in India, Russia has been developing the Kudankulam site in Indian Far South. The site will eventually have six reactors, the first of which has been operational since 2013.

Narendra Modi's presence as a guest of honor at the 5th Eastern Economic Forum in September 2019 in Vladivostok further confirmed the recently strengthened bilateral ties on all fronts, and India's interest in the Russian Far East. New Delhi, on this occasion, opened a $1 billion credit line to Russia, while Moscow reaffirmed its commitment to increase its investments in India.

Space also deserves a special mention, with the support of Russia, among other things, India is in preparation for its first manned space mission scheduled for 2022, and is expected to eventually join the international space station.

From Bilateral to Regional and Multilateral

Beyond bilateral relations, India and Russia are stakeholders in various regional bodies, three of which include China: BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which expanded to India and Pakistan in 2017, and the RIC format, which brings together Russian, Indian and Chinese foreign ministers once a year in principle. New Delhi also benefits from Russian support in multilateral affairs. Moscow has long supported India's desire to expand the circle of permanent members of the Security Council, and to entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group - which Beijing is blocking.

India and Russia also know how to support each other on sensitive issues. In 2014, New Delhi declared that it understood Russia's "legitimate interests" in Ukraine, and Indian diplomacy barely commented on Syrian affairs, while denouncing international terrorism. As for Moscow, it reaffirmed at a very early stage that Kashmir was "a bilateral issue" - the Indian position - when Pakistan launched in the summer of 2019 an international campaign against the abolition of Kashmir's autonomy under Indian administration.

New Delhi also benefits from Russian support in multilateral affairs.

However, there are diverging views. New Delhi boycotts the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, which Moscow approves, and India is suspicious of the growing relations between Russia and Pakistan, forced by the Afghanistan situation, which have led to bilateral military exercises since 2017. As for Russia, it is avoiding to use the Indo-Pacific concept that is dear to India, and is monitoring, like China, what could become of the Quad, a dialogue forum bringing together the United States, Japan, Australia and India.

The American Parameter

Russia does take note of the rapprochement between India and the United States, initiated under Bill Clinton, strengthened under George W. Bush, and recently marked by multiple military agreements aimed at increasing interoperability between the forces. But the Indian rule remains to preserve as much as possible its margin of strategic autonomy. Indo-American partnerships are not equivalent to alliances. The continuation of US sanctions under the Trump administration, and in particular the 2017 CAATSA (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act), is a problem for India, both with regards to Iran and Russia. The two are indeed linked, Iran being for Delhi a key state on the road to Afghanistan and Central Asia, and to implement the "North-South Transport Corridor" project linking Mumbai to Bandar Abbas, Tehran and the Eurasian Economic Union led by Moscow. More directly, American threats weigh on the many weapons contracts (frigates, nuclear submarines, T-90MS tanks) decided or under negotiation. The fate of the S-400 anti-aircraft missiles sought by New Delhi will be emblematic in this regard.

In 2015, Andrei Volodin viewed the Indian position on Crimea as an indication of Indian support for "a global polycentric architecture", and the double rejection of a Pax Americana and a Pax Sinica. Other Russian observers, who are more critical, consider the bilateral relationship insufficient because of the lack of significant economic exchanges and Russian soft power in India, and question the aftermath of American sanctions [1].

But all consider, including many Indian observers, that "both nations have a deep foundation of strategic consonance and yet allow for a degree of issue-specific flexibility". The Vladivostok Forum, and the twentieth bilateral summit held there as well, aimed to stimulate this old relationship in an international context modestly defined as "complex". In that sense, bilateral partnerships do not contradict the all-out diplomacy pursued by Narendra Modi's India after that of the Congress Party, the dialectic of these two dynamics perfectly reflecting the construction of a multipolar world facing growing competition between China and the United States.

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[1] Alekseï Zakharov. Deux amis dans le besoin. Où va le partenariat stratégique russo-indien? Russie.Nei.Visions , n° 116, IFRI, oct. 2019.

Copyright : Mikhail KLIMENTYEV / SPUTNIK / AFP