#166 Putin' Vodka In Bihar

India Policy Watch #1: Love For Putin Insights on burning policy issues in India - RSJ You must have noticed a distinct anti-west, pro-Putin tone in the media outlets that toe the government’s line in India. The intellectual right has been busy with columns equivocating on who has to shoulder the blame for the war. What could be the reasons for this? There’s of course the strategic autonomy argument. We are dependent on Russia for our defence and oil requirements. It has been a reliable friend of ours in the past. And we cannot trust the US anyway. There’s also the added hypocrisy of western Europe which continues to trade gas with Russia while lecturing us on our purchase of oil. Everyone is looking out for their interests and so should we. It is best to keep equidistant from any particular formation and act as a ‘swing power’. Pranay has written in the past few editions on why strategic autonomy as a policy isn’t suited for the likely emerging world order. But that aside, you can somewhat understand the anti-west stance if its origins lie in the traditional suspicion of the west and reflexive desire to be non-aligned in the policy circle in India. But there’s more here. The anti-west stance is also about fighting the favourite imaginary global nexus of liberals and wokes. So, you will notice almost every television debate on Ukraine will devolve into some kind of liberal and Biden bashing. If you are so concerned about Ukraine, why don’t you put your troops on the ground instead of hectoring India - is the usual line taken by anchors. Implicit in it is some kind of ‘Putin envy’ that I have noticed among the right-wing intellectuals in India. The idea that a strong man like Putin has revived national pride among Russians and brought it back into the superpower league from where it was languishing in the aftermath of the Soviet meltdown. This is obviously rubbish if you bother to look at the data. Russia is a small power whose economy has gone from bad to worse under Putin. It has a huge nuclear stockpile from its past that gives the rest of the world the only reason to pause before dismissing it as a nobody. But there’s a fascination among the right intellectuals to make the case for a Putin-like revival of India. I remember just before the 2014 elections, Swapan Dasgupta made this argument in the Sunday Times of India (Mar 9, 2014): “However, to a people exasperated with prolonged uncertainty and decline, Putin is the antidote to the unending sadness and deprivation that defined 20th century Russia. He has created the conditions for the average Russian to feel good, get rich and, for a change, indulge. This exuberance is unlikely to last indefinitely but, for the moment, the Russian context favours a Putin-like robustness......To the west, Putin’s reclamation of Crimea (and, earlier, a slice of Georgia) and his assertion of Russia’s stakes in Ukraine may seem ominous. For Russia, it is, however, symbolic of the bid to reverse the historic defeat in the Cold War. But Putin’s bid to reclaim Russia’s status as a Great Power was only possible because the economic and political foundations for an enhanced role have been firmed up over the past decade. In India, on the other hand, the fierce desire of the past 25 years to transcend mediocrity, shoddiness and look the world powers in the eye has floundered. It is not that the UPA government has no achievements to its credit. India has progressed but it has seriously under-performed in terms of its potential... Whether faith in Modi encapsulates the anger at a dismal present and a brighter future will be tested in a free election. If Modi prevails on May 16, we shouldn’t be surprised if his detractors paint him to the world as India’s Putin. If he lives up to the liberal demonology, those with a stake in India’s future should be elated. Just as Russia is with Putin.” I remember this column distinctly for two reasons. It was already so wrong back then in thinking that Russia was becoming a Great Power under Putin. But, importantly, it gave me an early indicator of what kind of aspiration the right has from its political dominance in India. Some kind of muddled civilisational nationalism with akhand Bharat fantasies whose best example for them was an expansionist Russia of 2014. Putin was their best answer to western liberalism and the wokeism that accompanied it. It worried me then and it has only gotten worse. The right intellectual ecosystem has continued in the same vein in the last two months. Here’s R. Jagannathan writing in the Swarajya on how NATO is past its sell-by date: “The reality is that Europe is the most fractious of continents, and just as France and Germany decided after the two world wars that enemies must be part of the same economic union to avoid future wars, Russia needs to become a part of both the mutual defence pact and the European Union. This way Europe’s security needs will be buttressed with a mutual economic zone where Russia’s energy can power Europe, and Europe’s markets Russia’s economic revival. America can at best be an observer in this alliance. The world cannot allow its over-grown military-industrial complex to decide who should go to war against who just so that this complex can protect its commercial interests. India’s own security architecture would be better protected by aligning with this expanded Europe, and especially with France and Germany, with Russia and Japan being other big partners. A Franco-German-Russo-Indo-Japanese QUINT (rather than an America-led QUAD) could lead to a less threatening relationship with China.” It is quite an intellectual leap to first contemplate some kind of QUINT with those powers coming together. What specific long-term interests bind them? None, except for the author’s fantasy to somehow shoehorn Russia as a legitimate and peaceful power under Putin. At its heart lies the same revivalist admiration and fantasy that Swapan Dasgupta spoke of in 2014. There’s, however, a different reason I can think of about the stance taken by these pro-government media channels on Russia and the war in Ukraine. And this credits the government with a lot more intelligence in managing its position on Ukraine. It is about the government playing the two-level game really well here. As we know, all negotiations in international relations are a two-level game as Putnam put it. At any time, a state is negotiating with other states (intergovernmental) while simultaneously managing its domestic constituency and its concerns on the issues. A clever negotiator will look to use his position on one ‘table’ to influence the outcome on the other in a way that gets him a ‘win’ that’s part of his ‘win-set’. Maybe, just maybe, the government is playing a clever two-level game. It is using its phalanx of friendly editors and journalists to talk up India’s dependence on Russia, its historical special ties with it and how dumping Russia at this moment will be perceived negatively by the people of India. This seems like a good tactic to follow because it allows the ministry of external affairs to sit at the international table and show the constraints India has to give its unqualified support to the west. “See, this is the domestic mood on Russia. What do you want us to do beyond a point” - that’s what India might be telling the west. This seems like a good way to continue sitting on the fence on the issue and hoping for the war to end to have things sort themselves out. I would like to believe this is what the government has been doing to keep itself away from western sanctions while it continues to engage with Russia. Is it working? Well, it seemed to have worked for a while. However, the US patience seems to be wearing thin as this warning from Brian Deese, the White House National Economic Council Director, suggests: "Our message to the Indian government is that the costs and consequences for them of moving into a more explicit strategic alignment with Russia will be signif… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit publicpolicy.substack.com