India puts itself first

MK Bhadrakumar

Former Ambassador

Washington expects India to comply with its ‘sanctions from hell’ against Russia. This paradigm has been cast as a battle between democracies and autocracies. But India will not get swayed by such dissimulation. The fact that PM Narendra Modi made a notable exception to receive the visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for a 40-minute meeting against the tumultuous backdrop of global politics has conveyed a powerful message. Modi has underscored that India attaches the highest importance to relations with Russia in its global strategies. Indeed, it bears testimony to Modi’s warm personal relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and to the centrality he attaches to the strategic partnership with Russia in his own global vision.

The West’s real agenda is the reimposition of a unipolar world order to perpetuate its domination of the international economic and political order.

There couldn’t be a more definitive signal than what Modi gave — namely, that India’s strategic autonomy is non-negotiable and its national honour as a fiercely independent country is not up for bargaining. Hopefully, the curtain will now come down on western bullying.

Equally, the readout of EAM Jaishankar’s meeting with Lavrov suggests that an in-depth discussion on the ‘overall state of cooperation’ took place. EAM’s emphasis on a ‘stable and predictable’ bilateral relationship presaged the confidence publicly expressed by Lavrov that ‘a way would be found to bypass the artificial impediments which illegal unilateral sanctions by the West create. This relates also to the area of military and technical cooperation. We have no doubt that the solution would be found and respective ministries are working’.

Jaishankar has skilfully navigated the Indian approach in a hugely transformative period in the international system and world order by viewing the paradigm solely through the prism of the country’s interests, as Modi would have expected. The national consensus will laud this.

Fundamentally, what needs to be understood is that the confrontation brewing over Ukraine for a decade is in reality about the contours of the world order. The spectre that haunts the West is that its five-century-old global domination has come under serious challenge as multiple power centres (such as China, India) have emerged in various regions. This is a last desperate throw of the dice, so to speak, to push back the forces of history. The West’s real agenda is the reimposition of a unipolar world order to perpetuate its domination of the international economic and political order.

While in Delhi last week, US Deputy National Security Adviser Daleep Singh blurted out the truth when he explained the raison d’être of giving a ‘financial shock’ to Russia’s central bank: ‘What we are doing is pushing Russia back decades. I think they’re going back to the USSR, in terms of their technological sophistication, that reduces Mr Putin’s ability to exert influence and to exercise power on the world stage.’ Russia has become a thorn in the flesh because of its independent foreign policies that impede or block the West’s global policies to transfer wealth from resource-rich countries or to bully weaker countries into submission. On the other hand, in military terms too, Russia has obtained a superiority over hypersonic missiles which may give it a monopoly on nuclear-capable weapons in the foreseeable future. And on top of all this, Russia’s alliance with China and India can potentially become a game-changer for the economic order.

The confidence in Washington that the sanctions would deal a lethal blow to Russia’s economy is shaky already. Reuters reported on Friday that the rouble clipped its strongest mark since the Ukraine conflict began on February 24, thanks to ‘a genuine improvement’ in the country’s finances and also due to capital controls. Russian stock indexes hit their highest since February 22. And, of course, Russia didn’t default on its debt repayments. Meanwhile, if Russia creates new facts on the ground to the east of Dniepr river, we are looking at a new world altogether. At the end of the day, the US leadership will not be taken seriously anymore, particularly in Europe. The frenzy of rage in Washington is self-evident.

On a parallel track, the US’ overuse of sanctions as a weapon to punish countries is also triggering a blowback. Raghuram Rajan wrote last week, ‘It is not impossible to imagine a country being subjected to economic warfare because of its government’s position on abortion or climate change, for example. A widespread fear of indiscriminate sanctions would lead to more defensive behaviour. Following the action taken against Russia’s central bank, China, India and many other countries will worry that their own foreign-exchange holdings (of advanced-economy debt) may prove unusable if a few countries decide to freeze their assets. More countries also might start exploring collective alternatives to the SWIFT financial messaging network.’

Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s first deputy managing director, has said the unprecedented financial sanctions imposed on Russia threaten to gradually dilute the dominance of the US dollar and encourage the emergence of small currency blocs based on trade between groups of countries. In fact, the share of international reserves has fallen from 70 per cent to 60 per cent over the past two decades with the emergence of other trading currencies.

The erosion in the status of the dollar as the ‘world currency’ would have profound geopolitical consequences. The sum of all outstanding debt owed by the US federal government on February 1 surpassed $30 trillion for the first time. Government Debt to GDP is expected to reach 138.10 per cent of GDP by the end of 2022. Now, what happens if the US cannot pay off its debt? The highly arbitrary, unlawful seizure of Russia’s central bank reserves shows that anything is possible. The US has really ripped up the playbook.

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