Challenge and Strategy by Sikri Rajiv

Author:Sikri, Rajiv.
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Sage Publications India Pvt, Ltd -- eBooks
Published: 2017-09-28T06:26:05+00:00

Chapter 9

Russia and Eurasia

The Soviet Legacy

W ith the focus of public attention on the foreign policy front in recent years having been on India’s relations with the US, it is easy to miss the value of India’s traditionally close and friendly ties with Russia, the successor state to the former Soviet Union. The deep roots of this relationship go back to the early 20th century when India was under British rule and the Tsars ruled Russia. The Russian Revolution of 1905 inspired Indian freedom fighters. Mahatma Gandhi, then in South Africa, was struck by the similarity in the prevailing conditions in Russia and India. He developed a close bond and carried on lengthy correspondence with Leo Tolstoy. Lenin followed with interest and sympathy the nascent Indian freedom struggle. Following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet leaders understood that their revolution stood a better chance of success if India too were to be free and independent. Even though many Indian freedom fighters who were greatly inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution established personal contacts with the Soviet leaders, it was Nehru’s thinking, more than anything else, which laid the foundation of the policy of the Indian National Congress towards the Soviet Union. After visiting the Soviet Union in 1927, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Jawaharlal Nehru came back deeply impressed with the Soviet experiment. Convinced that poor developing countries like India needed to follow not the capitalist path but a development model that emphasized social justice, equality and human dignity, Nehru was emphatic that India must develop close and friendly relations with the Soviet Union. It is noteworthy that even before India became independent, an official announcement was made on 13 April 1947 on the establishment of diplomatic relations between India and the Soviet Union.

Nehru’s faith in the Soviet Union was not misplaced. The Soviet Union consistently gave India valuable political, diplomatic and strategic support bilaterally as well as in international forums on Kashmir and other vital issues affecting India’s national interests. It was Soviet diplomatic backing and material support, and the confidence provided by the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation, which enabled India to successfully undertake the operations in 1971 that led to the creation of Bangladesh. This political understanding was underpinned by a strong economic and strategic relationship. Beginning in the 1950s, India received from the Soviet Union generous assistance for its industrialization as well as in the sensitive areas of defence, space and atomic energy. Short of capital, foreign exchange and technology, India appreciated that it received for infrastructure projects cheap economic credits repayable in rupees; reliable, affordable and good quality military supplies, also on credit; and large-scale supply of crucial products like oil and oil products—mostly via a swap deal with Iraq—fertilizers, metals, and so on. Some of today’s globally competitive public sector companies like BHEL, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), not to speak of the steel industry in India, were set up with Soviet cooperation.

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