Bracing to the geopolitical complexities, will India-Russia hold up their ties?

Russian-Indian ties have always been amicable. The leaders’ chemistry is great, and citizens feel cordial toward one another. Ordinary Russians regard India as a dependable friend with whom their own country has a trouble-free relationship. For their part, most Indians see Russia as a trusted ally who has never harmed India’s strategic interests in its seventy-five years of independence.

During the Soviet era, India and Russia had decades of strong ties at the highest levels. The morality of India and the Soviet Union were not imposed on one another. When the Soviet Union suppressed the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, India, which was eager to speak out the flaws and injustices of Western imperialism, kept quiet. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, more than made up for India’s relative calm. It backed India in the dispute over Kashmir, which India and Pakistan have fought over since 1947. Russian economic and military help to India was matched by political backing for India at the United Nations Security Council on the Kashmir problem, when Pakistan, backed by the US and the UK, advocated acting to resolve the conflict.  Despite their friendship, Russia attempted to constrain Mao Zedong and his colleagues during the Sino-Indian conflict of 1962. Following this disaster, Russia increased its weaponry and technical aid to India. However, as the newly constituted Russian Federation strove to reestablish its foreign policy, the turbulence of the first post-Soviet years echoed across the Indo-Russian relationship as well. 

The Boris Yeltsin government had a pro-Western foreign policy stance in the years after the demise of the Soviet Union. Simultaneously, India was approaching the point when it needed to liberalise its economy and seek to the West for trade and investment. While a result, both countries were consumed with internal concerns as they transitioned to a new international order. 

The two nations signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in 1993, and a year later, a Military-Technical Cooperation Agreement. Following a brief time from 1990 to 1993, India became a prominent importer of Russian weaponry, resulting in a steep drop in the amount of arms shipments. Russia’s defence exports to India and China then accounted for 41% of the country’s overall earnings. It was crucial for the survival of Russia’s armaments sector, which suffered as a result of lower orders from its own military following the collapse of the Soviet Union. India and Russia signed $650 million worth of weapons deals in 1992. Since then, the relationship has grown into cooperative research, design, development, and manufacture of state-of-the-art military systems from a strictly buyer-seller partnership. Both countries are presently active in the development of indigenous tanks and fighter planes, as well as the modernization of existing defence equipment.

In 2017, within the yearly INDRA framework, the first-ever TriServices exercise was undertaken, and India became a full member of the SCO, resulting in positive improvements in the alliance. INDRA was once a single-service exercise, but that had changed into all three services — army, navy, and air force — are participating. This development was triggered by the cancellation of the Multi-Role Transport Aircraft and India’s departure from the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft programme, which began in 2007. India chose to terminate the latter project after 11 years of stagnation on issues such as cost-sharing and technology. 

The 21st India-Russia annual summit is significant, especially with the arrival in India of the long-range S-400 surface-to-air missile defence system. Putin’s visit drew a considerable interest; it was his second trip overseas since the COVID-19 outbreak began, following a conference with US President Joe Biden in Geneva in June. The importance of the bilateral relationship as a special and privileged strategic partnership has been emphasised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The conference resulted in the signing of a 10-year defence technological cooperation pact, as well as a $600 million deal for the Indo-Russian joint venture to produce over 600,000 AK-203 Kalashnikov rifles in India. In addition, both nations have set a lofty target of increasing bilateral trade to $30 billion by 2025. The conference resulted in the signing of 28 agreements in total. 

Notwithstanding deepening of the relations with the U.S. over the last two decades, India still appears to lack trust in its strategic relations with the States. The country also has apprehensions about Russia’s close defense and strategic proximity with China. Against this backdrop, India is likely to engage both powers simultaneously to counterbalance China while retaining its strategic autonomy. The underlying notions of that of the Quad’s strategic footprint will also expand, especially as China’s tendrils reach throughout the Indo-Pacific. On the other hand, the more active China becomes in its border conflict with India, the more likely India is to rely on the Quad. As a result, Russia will need to be more attentive to India’s worries about China’s territorial ambitions. India faces a difficult task in striking the correct balance between Russia and the Quad. This moreover indicates that without entering into close alignment with either the U.S. or Russia, India would engage both as per its security and strategic requirements. In the long term, India appears to have its own ambition of becoming a big power; thus aligning with either the U.S. or Russia may hamper its goals.

Neither India nor Russia, for that matter, wish to be China’s or the US’s vassal state. And one way they may endeavour to avert that conclusion is to remind China, the US, and the rest of the globe that they can rely on each other for support. Following recent tensions with China, India may wish to increase its reliance on the United States. But, if history repeats itself and the present is any clue, it will maintain its connections with Russia.