India believes it can keep getting closer to the West, but Russia, because of its own compulsions and despite being increasing friendless and isolated, will still provide it international support and also avoid aligning with China. This is a presumption that must be countered
When Russian President Vladimir Putin visits New Delhi at the end of this year, he will have a tough task ahead of him, in spite of the warm personal equation that Mr Putin supposedly shares with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who appreciates the fact that Moscow did not deny him a visa over the post-Godhra violence. However India-Russia relations seem to be on a downswing. Bilateral trade, after scaling a peak of $11 billion in 2012, dropped to $10 billion in 2013.
There are greater geo-strategic trends at play here. These largely have to do with three assumptions that the Ministries of External Affairs and Defence hold. First is the belief that a Russia-China partnership will never happen. Since most of India’s bureaucracy is English-speaking, and most of the country’s data collection is from open secondary sources (which usually means the English Press), the belief has gained ground that the negatives in the Russia-China relationship far outweigh the positives. As a result, in spite of current Russia-West tensions, New Delhi believes there will be no further nexus between Russia and China.
What this means for Indian policy is perpetuation of the belief within the bureaucracy that India can continue to grow closer to the West but Russia, because of its own compulsions and despite growing even more friendless and isolated, will a) continue to provide international support to India (veto on demand at the UN Security Council) and b) avoid aligning with China. This is a dangerous belief that must be countered.
If Russia loses its economic incentives to deal with the West and its political incentives to deal with India, what is left for it on the tableIJ What then prevents Russia from throwing in its lot with ChinaIJ After all, in practical terms, how much did it take for US President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to build the bridge to Mao Tse TungIJ
The second area of concern is New Delhi’s belief that it can compartmentalise the Salafi-Wahhabi threat to India’s internal security and exclude the problem from foreign and defence policy-making. While most of India’s internal security experts agree that Wahhabism is a deadly ideological threat to India, they have no idea how to counter it within the framework of a secular Constitution.
For example, if India starts funding anti-Wahhabi madarssas, what prevents a future Government from promoting Christianity in the country and oppressing HinduismIJ Yet the signals are worrying. Wahhabism seems to have completely hijacked Indian Sufism, and is dividing Indian society like never before. On the other hand, India is critically dependent on Wahhabi countries for its energy supplies and as a destination for its immigrant labour who repatriate $72 billion a year (of which $40 billion is from the Gulf alone).
India is stuck in a hostage situation for sorts but does not understand it. For short-term profit and medium-term energy security, it is basically subsidising terrorism against itself. The reason Indian political leaders do not understand this is because of how inputs in the Prime Minister’s Office work. The MEA is largely trade-driven but also ideologically motivated by Nehruvian beliefs that good relations must be fostered with everyone. It probably does not receive briefings from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. Hence, it has no handle on the dire internal security situation that Salafism poses.
Moreover, Indian scholarship on Islam is sub-standard and abysmal. There is a belief that simply interacting with Islam for 1,300 years has made India ‘understand’ the religion. Nothing is farther from the truth. If anything India’s understanding of emergent forms of Islam, across the academic and political sphere, is deeply flawed and extends about 200kms beyond the border. Radical Islam today is not being shaped in Quetta or Aligarh, but in Riyadh and Cairo — the nuances of whose ulema we simply do not understand.
Third, is Delhi’s belief that America is our new friend. How can it be a friend, when it is actively goading Russia and China into an allianceIJ How can it be a friend when it is actively subsidise the Wahhabi threatIJ How can it be a friend when it is directly responsible for either sanctioning or destroying our only allies in the Muslim world — secular Arab democracies and IranIJ
Why is this message of ‘America is India’s friend’ percolating as accepted wisdomIJ This primarily because of the narrative that India is being plumped up to take on China as America’s new blue-eyed boy, effectively promising to ‘hyphenate’ India with China (at this point, any such hyphenation is merely delusional self-flattery). This narrative particularly seductive to India’s bureaucrats though known, as they are, for being perpetual underachievers. It also feeds into India’s extreme inferiority complex over the so-called ‘issue’ of technology denial. After all, if we are getting fighter jets and submarines that the US will only sell to the UK or Canada, then we really must be the cat’s whiskers!
Needless to say, the military finds this seductive as well. Given the Generals, Admirals and Air Marshals love of flashy new toys that they have no idea how to use, a Peter Ustinov quote is particularly germane: “When we’re kids, we all wear helmets and toy swords and love playing soldier; it’s just that some of us never really grow up”.
What is happening is that India is being encircled on multiple levels but it simply does not understand the scope and nature of the threat. For example, when the Prime Minister asks for a briefing on the security environment, based on departmental briefings, he probably sees the map as being full of friends, with only Pakistan marked red and China a deep shade of pink.
The real map, however, is one of Pakistan and China both being adversarial; Russia inexorably entering the Chinese orbit and with it much of Central Asia; the Wahhabi nations, our mortal ideological enemies who show know no signs of reining in their venom; and Iran, probably the only counterpoint to the Wahhabi threat, a neutral shade of gray that we have been forced to exclude from our calculus.
The substance of the Modi-Putin December meeting can be the most important element determining our future security. One will do well to pay heed to it, very closely.