India cannot afford to antagonise either Trump or Putin by aligning with one of them. At the same time, it is not in a position to oblige both
India is now faced with probably the toughest challenge to its diplomacy since the end of the Cold War, with United States President Donald Trump directly forcing New Delhi to make difficult choices in its foreign policy.
Trump’s imposing 50 per cent tariff on Indian goods is a veritable shocker for the Narendra Modi government and presents a scenario it does not seem to have visualised or prepared for. As long as reciprocal tariffs were meant for the entire world, it was still palatable for India, but to be singled out along with a select few like Brazil makes it clear that New Delhi cannot have it both ways – sup with Trump and dine with Putin.
Shift in geopolitics
The tariff hike shines light straight into the vision of India’s foreign policy establishment, which after the demise of the Soviet Union, managed to open up to Washington while maintaining its historical relationship with Moscow.
But over the last 20 years, geopolitical equations have undergone a sea change with the rise of China as the foremost game-changer.
Russia, too, after being politically subdued for a decade after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, started to defy the US and its Western allies after Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000.
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Putin protested against the entry of US-backed security infrastructure in the former Soviet region, attacked Georgia when its government turned pro-Western, resisted the US and NATO-led efforts to topple Syria’s Bashar al-Assad government and finally invaded Ukraine when it wanted to join NATO.
How India-Russia ties grew
For India, the rise of Putin was a cause of discomfiture as it made it difficult for New Delhi to continue hobnobbing with the West and move closer to the US, while trying to keep its relations with Moscow intact.
After watching India for some time, Putin made his first move that alarmed New Delhi. Russia signed a security partnership with Islamabad, even promising military weapons to that country – all these actions were unprecedented, as Moscow had always kept Pakistan at arm’s length, in deference to India’s security concerns.
India’s policy makers got the message, and in the last few years, there has been a conscious attempt to placate Putin and continue the special relationship with Russia. The Ukraine invasion happened, and India was forced to walk the talk.
With sanctions and related restrictions imposed on Russia by the US-led West, Putin turned to India for relief. And, New Delhi obliged, increasing its imports from as little as two per cent before the war to around 35 per cent now. The US looked the other way, though there was opposition from a section of its allies in Europe. Now, with Putin frustrating Trump’s efforts to end the Ukraine war, the US has decided to arm-twist India into stopping dealing with Moscow.
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Wooing Washington
Now, where does this leave India? In the last three decades, successive governments in New Delhi have made a beeline for the US, and voluminously expanded engagement with Washington on all fronts – economic, political, social and security. The parallel rise of China as a major global power and its rivalry with the US helped India get closer to Washington.
For the mandarins in the US perceived New Delhi as a hedge against the Chinese rise in Asia. From this perspective flowed extensive US engagement with India with New Delhi earmarked as its strategic partner to being a member of the Quad. New Delhi too became the US’s police in the South China seas and the Pacific, patrolling the much-contested oceans on behalf of Washington, to keep Beijing in check.
India’s policy-makers, heady with US-backed power, particularly in the last 10 years since the advent of the Modi government, calculated that with the world’s sole superpower in tow, it could take on China. Pakistan all but fell off India’s radar as a nobody, since in New Delhi’s view, Washington had delinked the two feuding neighbours – a long-standing demand of successive Indian governments.
Trump breaks the bubble
Trump, by his belligerent tariff, has, for all practical purposes, demolished India’s smug perception of its relations with the US. The first and foremost is that as long as India is geopolitically useful to it, the US will be its friend. The moment it crosses an unwritten line, the friendship amounts to nothing special.
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Second, India, instead of building its own stable one-to-one relationship with China, is blindly depending on the US to keep Beijing in check. Trump’s hostile move against India indicates that the Modi government will need to talk to the Xi Jinping dispensation and sort out all the sticking points, particularly the border dispute, to each other’s satisfaction.
Third, New Delhi so far appeared to have taken Moscow for granted and retained it as a friend in standby mode. As long as the US did not object, India was fine with importing Russian crude. Trump’s tariff will test where India really stands in its relationship with Russia.
Will India lean on China now?
Now that Trump has figuratively kicked India on its backside, reports say that Prime Minister Modi is planning to visit China, after seven long years.
Ever since the last phase of the previous Joe Biden administration, when ties with the US came under strain over the Khalistan issue, India had softened its ties with China. Beijing too had reciprocate,d and the result was the reduction in tensions on the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC) between the two countries. It is fortuitous that at the moment, ties between the two are on an even keel.
But expecting China to somehow bail out India or at the least, cooperate with it, in its moment of crisis may be risky. For Beijing, whose principal ally remains Pakistan, will want its pound of flesh in return for any favours it may do for India.
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India’s predicament
In diplomatic terms, India is in an unenviable situation. It cannot afford to antagonise either Trump or Putin by aligning with one of them. At the same time, it is not in a position to oblige both – if it continues to import Russian crude, Trump may tighten the screws on India even tighter. If New Delhi stops buying crude from Moscow, Putin will never forgive India. The impact of this can be grave for New Delhi as it would amount to letting go of a strategic and time-tested partner.
The government has said it will act in the national interest and face the tariffs head-on. Rhetorically, the intention is noble and practical, but in reality, this means having to surmount the unexpected challenges and threats it may throw up. The next few months will show whether India has the wherewithal to put up with the resulting turbulence.
