Contextualizing India–Russia Relations
| Author | Ankur Yadav,Sanjay Kumar Pandey |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020881718758810 |
| Published date | 01 July 2016 |
| Date | 01 July 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Contextualizing
India–Russia Relations
Sanjay Kumar Pandey1
Ankur Yadav1
Abstract
This article situates India–Russia relations in the historical, regional and global
context, and the ideological and political discourse in the two countries. It argues
that though geopolitics and state interest might have been the immediate, even the
compelling, reason behind the Indo-Soviet ties, their coming together was also in
accordance with domestic political discourse in the two countries. The article tries
to answer questions such as: Why is Russia important in global politics and for
India? What are the issues on which the world views and the national interest of
the two countries converge? What are the major challenges and opportunities for
India–Russia relations? It argues that the two countries need to find and agree upon
certain ideational or ideological commonalities to give stability to their relationship.
Keywords
Soviet Union, India, Russia, United Nation, global order, China, Pakistan, ideology,
multicultural, multi-ethnic.
On 13 April 2017, world’s largest democracy, India and the biggest country by
area, Russia, celebrated 70 years of diplomatic relations. This relationship has
been characterized by spirit of pure friendship (Mikhailov, 2017). A Joint
Declaration issued at the time St. Petersburg summit, after the talks between PM
Modi and President Putin, said, ‘the Indian-Russian special and privileged strategic
partnership is a unique relationship of mutual trust between two great powers’
(Press Trust of India [PTI], 2017). Praising Russia’s generous support for India’s
development since independence, PM Modi said in 2014, Even a child in India, if
asked to say who is India’s best friend, will reply it is Russia because Russia has
been with India in times of crisis (PTI, 2014; Simha, 2015). The new leadership in the
two countries is trying to keep pace with changing global geopolitics. Dmitri Trenin
Article
International Studies
53(3–4) 227–257
2018 Jawaharlal Nehru University
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0020881718758810
http://journals.sagepub.com/home/isq
1 Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi, India.
Corresponding author:
Sanjay Kumar Pandey, Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, School of International Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
E-mail: skpandeyjnu@gmail.com
228 International Studies 53(3–4)
believes it is a new beginning for India after PM Narendra Modi was elected in
May 2014. The year was fateful for Russia under Vladimir Putin’s leadership as
the country faced worsening of relations with the West after the Ukraine crisis.
‘India and Russia asserted themselves as prominent and independent players in a world
which nds itself in transition from the post-cold war order dominated by United States.
… Under Putin and Modi, Russia and India have made bids for such roles for themselves’.
(Trenin, 2015, p. 11)
Soviet Perception and Policies Towards India
The history of contacts between India and Russia goes back many centuries.
A Russian merchant from Tver, Afanasy Nikitin, arrived in India in 1469 and
spent three year in the country, traveling all the way from Kerala to Sri Lanka
(Kamalakaran, 2016, p. 1). He was perhaps the first Russian to travel to India in
the fifteenth century. Nikitin’s travelogue, A Journey Across Three Seas, describes
his journey to India (Gapanovich, 2015). This was translated in English by Count
Wielhorski.
After the October 1917 revolution, Lenin and Stalin were conscious of the
importance of the East. As early as 1916, Lenin pointed out, ‘We shall exert every
effort to foster association and merger with the Mongolian, Persians, Indians,
Egyptians…for otherwise socialism in Europe will not be secure’ (Lenin, 1916,
p. 67). In a similar vein, Stalin wrote in an article, ‘Don’t Forget the East’ that East
provides ‘inexhaustible’ reserve of ‘natural resources’ and an ‘obedient manpower’
to the West. Hence, ‘It is the duty of communist’s to intervene in the growing
spontaneous movements in the East to develop it into a conscious struggle against
imperialism’ (Stalin, 1953, pp. 174–176). Soviet approach and policy towards
Third World underwent many changes. In general, they supported anti-colonial
anti-imperialist struggle, but it was contingent on their ties with the Western
capitalist world (Roberts, 1999, pp. 45–46).
After the end of the World War II, there was a change in Soviet ideological
posture towards the Capitalist West and the Third World. In the shadow of the
Cold War and the bipolar world, Non-Alignment, as professed by many newly
independent countries like India, was condemned as dishonest and disguising a
client relationship with imperialism (Gaan, 1999, p. 33, 122; Pant, 2011). Both the
USA and USSR saw Non-alignment with deep suspicion. Soviet media, ranging
from Izvestia to the New Times, called Nehru ‘a hireling’ of Anglo-American
imperialism and the running dog of imperialism (Singh, 1998, pp. 142–143).
Stalin died in 1953 and Khrushchev became the leader of the party. He was
bold enough to make some ‘ideological innovations’ (Khrushchev, 1956, p. 38).
The main theme of Khrushchev’s foreign policy was peaceful coexistence between
states with different social systems, peaceful settlement of international disputes
and universal disarmament (Khrushchev, 1959, pp. 74–75). For the developing
countries, Khrushchev did not agree with Stalin’s ‘two camp’ or the rigid bipolar
world view and conceded that a vast ‘zone of peace’ including ‘peace loving
states, both socialist and non-socialist, of Europe and Asia, have emerged in the
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