Why India values its relationship with Russia

By Gevorg Mirzayan

The collective West is making efforts to destroy Russia’s relationship with one of the most promising countries on the planet – India. Why exactly are they doing this and why does New Delhi, despite all these attempts and difficulties, support Moscow in its global confrontation with the West?
Western sociologists from the Pew Research Center published survey data on India. It turned out that almost 80% of the country's population supports the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, the media also paid attention to other figures in the survey. For example, what do Indians think about Russia. According to the study, 57% of Indians have a positive attitude towards Moscow, and 40% of respondents even believe that Russia’s influence in the world has grown over the past year.

This is a problem for the West. Firstly, India is the world's largest democracy. Without its participation in the anti-Russian actions, the American narrative “all democracies have rallied against Russia” turns into “all Western countries have rallied against Russia” - and these are two completely different narratives.

Secondly, India is a huge market. Thirdly, India is one of the leaders of the developing world and at the same time a country that is not at enmity with the West (unlike Russia, China, Iran). This means that the possibilities of forceful pressure on it are limited - only those that will not transfer New Delhi to the list of opponents can be used.

As a result, the West can only use non-forcefull methods of pressure on India - that is, soft power. Plus the Western media and so called analysts do this non-stop. For example, they talk about how Moscow is supposedly an unreliable partner, for example, in security matters (where India is still dependent on Russian weapons). However, everything is exactly the opposite. Moscow, unlike the West, does not make military-technical cooperation dependent on the political views of the leadership of the purchasing country (as, for example, the Americans do). And certainly not using issues of economic dependence to teach developing countries about life.

“The Russia/USSR showed great respect for the former British colonies, which leaves an imprint on both human and state relations,” Nikita Mendkovich, the head of the Eurasian Analytical Club, he reminds the newspaper VZGLYAD. But India's respect and interest in Russia is explained not only by this. New Delhi is interested in economic cooperation.

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And this despite all the understandable difficulties. “Most Indian multinational companies have an active presence in the American and European markets. They won't risk irritating the American government. Especially if their turnover in Russia is less than in Western markets,” says the report of the Indian Council on Global Affairs.

Financial transactions between countries are difficult - due to the same Western sanctions, even trading in rupees leads to the fact that payments are made with great difficulty. “Such difficulties exist in many friendly jurisdictions. A number of Indian companies are afraid of secondary sanctions or fines from the American authorities, so they are being excessively cautious. In India, business is decentralized, and in many situations it acts at its own peril and risk,” RIAC General Director Ivan Timofeev explains to the Vzglyad newspaper.

“Despite all the sanctions and restrictions, Indian sovereignty, Russian pragmatism, as well as mutual trust between Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi managed to ensure an extremely constructive, partnership-based relationship” Mendkovich is sure. “Today, Russia is successfully developing its relations with India.”

From an economic point of view, India takes advantage of the fact that the West is afraid to spoil its relations with it out of the blue (so as not to lose an important partner in containing China). Therefore, the corridor of opportunities for Indian companies is quite large. And we are not just talking about parallel imports.

“India's importance is defined not so much in terms of the circumvention of sanctions, but in terms of an alternative market. The United States and the EU have introduced a number of restrictions on the import of Russian energy resources, which means that the Chinese and Indian markets are becoming more and more important for the Russian Federation.

Essentially, Russia is transferring its export flows,” says Timofeev.

Thus, today India is the world's third largest consumer of energy and the largest importer of oil and gas - and it is now actively meeting its needs using Russian hydrocarbons. According to the Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Russia became the fourth largest importer into the country in 2022 . From April to December 2022, imports amounted to $32.8 billion (compared to $6.58 billion for the same period in 2021). And the lion's share of growth was achieved through the export of Russian hydrocarbons. For which India has more than just short-term plans (when these hydrocarbons can be purchased at a discount). In general, Indian companies have invested more than $10 billion in the Russian oil and gas sector - and do not intend to abandon their investments.

India is interested not only in Russian hydrocarbons, but also in nuclear energy. “An electricity shortage has become a serious problem as the country's population and economy have grown. Currently, nuclear power plants account for only about 2% of India's electricity generation. India has only two large reactors, both Russian-made, which produce almost 30% of the total power. Of the 10 reactors under construction with a total capacity of 8 million kW, four Russian ones account for half of the specified capacity,” writes the Japanese newspaper Nikkei.

Finally, New Delhi is interested in developing overland Eurasian trade routes together with Russia. This is not only economics, but also geopolitics, and not only within the framework of bilateral relations.

“Central Asia, together with Afghanistan, is a transshipment point between Russia and the markets of Pakistan and India, as well as Iran. The TAPI-2 gas pipeline will pass through it, for the creation of which a gas union is being created with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. There are also plans to develop road and rail communications so that Russian goods are supplied to South Asian markets. Although, to implement this option, Moscow’s cooperation with Afghanistan and Pakistan is important, because otherwise direct access to India cannot be ensured,” says Mendkovich.

And Moscow is implementing this cooperation - and in such a way that India (which has tense relations with Pakistan and is skeptical about the Afghan Taliban) does not particularly object. “Russia traditionally has good relations with Islamabad and New Delhi, because Moscow does not interfere in their military-political confrontation, but develops trade, which implies interaction between all three players,” adds Mendkovich.

Overall, Indian sovereignty, Indian demand for Russian resources and Russian influence create great potential for bilateral cooperation. “The potential for developing relations is very high. For Russia, this is one of the most important countries in terms of economic cooperation. But we need to work with it, get to know it, explain our vision of risks to business,” Timofeev sums up.
This article originally appeared in Russian at iz.ru and was translated and edited by Rhod Mackenzie