'None of us can afford to sit on the sidelines' Modi told on Ukraine
India's neutral stance on Russia's illegal invasion comes under pressure by a visiting European leader.
New Delhi: India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been told to his face that he cannot afford to sit on the sidelines when it comes to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis made the comments while giving the keynote speech at India’s premier foreign affairs conference — the Raisina Dialogue — which began in Delhi on Wednesday.
Modi himself did not speak but was in the front row to listen to his Greek counterpart.
Mitsotakis acknowledged that ‘maybe there was some truth’ to the complaints by Global South countries that Europe focussed too much on Ukraine at the expense of other raging conflicts.
‘But I would like to make the point here in Delhi that Urakine is much more than a local war on European soil,’ the Greek leader said.
‘It is a brutal challenge to international stability and the international rules-based order that India has supported and has every interest in maintaining.
‘And I think we all have a responsibility to use the power we have on the international stage and none of us can afford to sit on the sidelines.’
Mitsotakis otherwise oozed flattery as he sought to woo Indian business and investment in Greece and the European Union, lauding India as the democratic leader of the Global South.
‘Prime Minister the world is looking to you like never before when it comes to shaping the direction of the global debate and addressing the great challenges,’ he told Modi.
‘We cannot afford to overlook the cost of conflict.’
The context
India has benefited enormously from the strategic competition underway between China and the United States, with the West hoping that India’s rise could serve as a hedge against China both security-wise and economically.
As a result, the US, UK, EU and Australia have all made enormous efforts to court Modi, often overlooking his crackdown on freedoms at home.
This led to the reformation of the Quad, comprising Australia, the United States, India and Japan as well as the proposed India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor announced at last year’s G20 which India hosted.
Western countries suffering from anaemic economic growth want better trading arrangements with the world’s most populous country to unlock new markets and reduce their dependencies on China.
But while India’s security posture aligns with its Quad partners on China, it is far from the case when it comes to Russia, despite US and European pressure for it to throw its growing global weight against President Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion.
While Modi has urged Putin to bring an end to the conflict that has surged food prices hurting the world’s poor, this is something that India has largely resisted.
This is partly because Russia has been India’s weapons primary supplier since the 1950s — something India is trying to change by buying more arms from France, the US and Israel.
India has also made huge economic gains from the war by buying and reselling Russian oil that Moscow could not sell itself due to sanctions.
The Finnish think tank Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air said that Russia made a record $37 billion in crude oil sales to India last year.
Last week, the country’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishanker essentially told Europe to accept that India’s position would not change.
‘If I look at the history of India post-independence, Russia has never hurt our interests,’ Jaishanker told German newspaper Handelsblatt.
‘The relations of powers like Europe, the US, China or Japan with Russia, they have all seen ups and downs.
‘We have had a stable and always very friendly relationship with Russia.
‘And our relationship with Russia today is based on this experience. For others, things were different, and conflicts may have shaped the relationship.’
When pressed on whether India was helping Russia circumvent sanctions by buying up its crude oil, Jaishanker said India had lost its energy suppliers in the Middle East to Europe when the continent sought to break free from Russian gas after the invasion.
‘If no one had bought the crude oil from Russia and everyone had bought the crude oil from the other countries, prices on the energy market would have shot up even further,’ Jaishankar said.
‘If Europe had wanted to maximize the damage at the time, it would have had to stop all economic relations with Russia completely.
‘But it didn't. If Europe was so convinced and the principles were so important, why did it allow relations to end gently?’