A friend of India

Sandeep Dikshit

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Tribune news service

The new Russia under Boris Yeltsin had pivoted towards the West and India was put on the backburner. This changed mindset was reflected in arms sales to India dropping from $17 billion in `86 to just $1 billion in 1992.

In 1996, Yeltsin turned to Primakov, then chief of the bifurcated KGB's foreign intelligence wing, after the new affair with the West started curdling up.

Primakov had made his first contribution to rediscovering India during then Foreign Secretary J N Dixit's first visit to post-Soviet Russia. The visit was on the verge of becoming a diplomatic embarrassment. No senior Kremlin functionary would meet Dixit. Primakov stepped in to arrange for the desired appointments. This role brought him closer to the Indian leadership and he played an important role in preparing for Yeltsin's `93 visit to India.

The turning point came when he replaced Andrei Kozyrev as Foreign Minister in 1996. Kozyrev believed that India and Pakistan should be treated on an equal basis. A former Chairman of Institute of Oriental Studies, Moscow, Primakov backed India's stand that Kashmir was a bilateral matter to be resolved within the framework of the Shimla agreement. His successor in the spy agency, Vyacheslav Trubnikov, kept alive links with the Indian intelligence establishment and later served as Ambassador to India. 

Though Primakov is more famous in the West for turning his US-bound plane around on learning of NATO's bombing of Serbia in `99, he will be remembered in Asia for ensuring Russia's reengagement with India, Japan and China. It was also under his eight-month watch as Prime Minister in `99 that India resumed arms trade with Russia in a big way.   

Although he was useful to current Russian President Vladimir Putin, Primakov was also an anachronism from the past as he was always upbeat about the reintegration of ex-Soviet republics. But his most significant contribution was perhaps in creating political consensus across the board, from Gennady Zugyanvov on the left to Vladimir Zhirinovsky on the right, on the revival and strengthening of ties with India.