India wants strategic partnerships, not friends with common values
Understanding New Delhi's response to the war in Ukraine
Marie Lall is professor of education and South Asian studies at UCL in London.
India has refused to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine and has abstained from a number of United Nations votes related to the war.
In March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, jointly with Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, only expressed "serious concern" about the "conflict and humanitarian crisis." India is maintaining strategic neutrality and has offered to mediate rather than take sides.
This attitude, despite around 20,000 Indian students living in Ukraine, has raised international eyebrows and resulted in a series of visits by Western leaders to New Delhi. The international attention and the recognition of India's importance have been welcomed, but India abhors interference in its policymaking processes and has made it clear that it will not tolerate international pressure.
The international media and commentators have offered several explanations for India's attitude, with most focusing on India's historical relationship with Russia and its dependence on Russian armaments, including the lease of a Russian nuclear submarine. Both are relevant but to a lesser degree than might be expected.
Rather, other issues are at play. India is, in fact, looking for more agile, issues-based alignments rather than values-based alliances that reflect its multipolar, revisionist world view. This is underpinned by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's brand of Hindu nationalist domestic politics.
For decades India's foreign policy choices were led by India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his vision of nonalignment.
This resulted in India not taking sides during the Cold War and leading other neutral nations as part of the Non-Aligned Movement. The values of post-colonial modernity, democracy and inclusiveness informed this position, but with the rise of China, India has had to gradually reevaluate its neutral stance, starting with the 2008 U.S. nuclear deal.
The Modi government looks at foreign policy from two distinct geographical perspectives, maritime and territorial.
While the anti-China Quad grouping comprising the U.S., India, Japan and Australia is key to India's hopes of retaining maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean, territorial calculations mean that India cannot antagonize Russia in light of continuous Chinese expansion across the Himalayan border. China claims Arunachal Pradesh, a large state in India's Northeast, while India wants the return of Aksai Chin in Kashmir.
Despite high-value trade and close economic ties, the India-China border has not been settled and continues to lead to frictions. In 2017 India saw a 73-day standoff at Doklam in Bhutan when China tried to build a road in territory Bhutan claims as its own.
The June 2020 clashes between Indian and Chinese forces in Galwan, Ladakh, led to the deaths of soldiers on both sides and resulted in Russia facilitating meetings between Indian and Chinese negotiators. A Russo-Chinese alliance is India's biggest foreign policy nightmare.
While it is true that India is slowly reducing its dependence on Russian arms and spare parts, it is doing so in order to increase its policymaking agility, not to align itself with the anti-Russian camp. As former Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon explains, India wants "different partners for different issues."
Like China and Russia, India sees itself as a civilization, not a nation-state. Seeking flexibility and strategic autonomy is therefore linked not only to India's assessment of its own geography but also to a world view that aims for a global order absent a hegemonic power where India is properly recognized as a nuclear power with its own sphere of influence. This is in direct contrast to the world order view espoused by Japan, Australia, the EU and the U.K., who all endorse U.S. leadership.
India does not accept the label of being a natural ally with presupposed policy positions. New Delhi prefers issue-based alignments. Overall, the changed global context is seeing a move from alliances to issue-based partnerships that do not necessarily rely on shared values. This makes India's stand no longer unusual.
Even for those who believe that values should underpin alliances, it is increasingly clear that India's ruling party no longer shares the same democratic principles as those of its Quad partners.
India may like to present itself as the world's largest democracy, but that label is increasingly fanciful. The rise of Hindu nationalist populist politics has seen a backsliding of minority rights, especially since 2019.
India's domestic politics of Hindu majoritarianism is reflected in the change of status of Kashmir, the Citizenship Amendment Act and the citizenship verification process in Assam, all of which discriminate against Muslims. Rather than democracy, strongman politics are favored.
Recent fieldwork in the BJP-ruled state of Uttar Pradesh showed that classrooms in schools teach the demerits of democracy, emphasizing how single-party states are more stable and can advance more quickly. Vladimir Putin's popularity across the Indian public is widespread, a reflection of how much Indian domestic opinion has changed.
In addition, a strong anti-Western position has always united India's left and right. India's stand is consequently quite different from that of other Quad members. Given the global security changes brought about by the war in Ukraine, it is important that countries that collaborate understand each other's motivations and positions.
In this region, China remains the most important security threat, which makes India an important partner for Japan. But for those who worry about security in the Indo-Pacific, India's position must be appreciated in order to avoid unfulfilled expectations and disappointment in the future.