While the United States and China have shown opposition and ambivalence in ascribing India to any significant status elevation, the Soviet Union during the Cold War treated India as the predominant power in South Asia. The material and diplomatic support at the United Nations by way of vetoing hostile resolutions allowed India to withstand pressures to end the war in Bangladesh before full victory in 1971. The diplomatic help was also essential to keep the United States away from militarily intervening on the side of Pakistan, despite sending in the Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal.
In view of the deteriorating security situation with Pakistan and the US-China alignment with Islamabad’s military regime, India, under Indira Gandhi, signed a Treaty of Friendship which saw Moscow offering substantial military and economic aid to India, as well as political support to the United Nations through its veto power. Thus in 1971, it was the Soviet Union that saved India from a UN Security Council censure, and it was Soviet weapons that gave it an edge over Pakistan in the Bangladesh liberation war. It was also the Soviet support that partially prevented US military intervention against India, even before status considerations permeated this relationship.
In April 1969, Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin visited India in the background of a reported Soviet deal to sell arms to Pakistan when Prime Minister Gandhi told Kosygin, “Nothing should be done from which it could be inferred that the Soviet Union treated India at par with Pakistan…an equidistance between India and Pakistan tended to cause irritation in India.” After that, the Soviets heeded this advice. The changing policies of Leonid Brezhnev in terms of Russia's approach toward the developing world, and an expectation of the correlation of global forces turning in Moscow’s favour, gave India a higher status in Moscow’s strategic approach.
An important dimension here is that the Soviets, for ideological reasons, sensed India’s status significance in the developing world and elevated it to a higher pedestal than most Western countries ever did during the Cold War era. The visits of Indian leaders to Moscow were major events, with streets decorated with Indian flags as well as significant media coverage. India reciprocated, offering similar recognition to Soviet leaders during their visits. Even when the Soviets disagreed with India, there was less overt pressure to accept Soviet positions, although on many issues, including the mixed-economy model that India adopted and the urban housing, Moscow’s influence was apparent. Further, Soviet and Indian positions converged in many areas, including decolonisation and the new international economic order that the non-aligned countries championed. Russia also paid outward attention to the nuclear arms control positions of the non-aligned countries, even when Moscow was building some of the most lethal nuclear weapons. The colonial powers being all Western, did help the Soviet standing among the non-aligned countries.
While the Soviet Union was willing to accord the “managerial position” that India sought in the South Asia region and to offer the most sophisticated weapons in their arsenal to New Delhi, the United States showed much reluctance to do either. Moreover, it was Moscow that substantially helped India’s heavy industry as well as weapons-manufacturing capabilities. Russia’s support was pivotal for India winning the 1971 Bangladesh War. For America, an ally is someone who obeys Washington’s commands, and there is not much of a grey area. Whereas for Moscow, even if one was not a close partner, one could be treated respectably, for goals such as its position in the larger Global South. Reciprocity in equal measure was what India demanded from the Soviets, and it often got what it sought.
Stephen Cohen also contends that, unlike the United States, the Soviets in negotiations gave the Indian officials a sense of equality and status. He cites an incident when an Indian defence official refused to negotiate with a lower-ranking US official even though “the official was the decisionmaker responsible for the particular issue to be discussed. The Soviet Union had considerable success in negotiating with New Delhi, partly because it was willing to treat India as a ‘major power’, whatever its private views [were].” However, one event that affected India-Soviet relations to a great extent was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. This ill-conceived invasion by the Brezhnev regime negatively affected not only India’s security but also its status aspirations vis-à-vis Pakistan.
The United States and many of its Western allies, as well as Islamic states, adopted Pakistan as the frontline state fighting the Soviets and provided substantial military and economic assistance to the military regime of Zia ul Haq. Pakistan, in turn, with the help of the United States, created the Mujahideen forces, which engaged in brutal guerrilla warfare against occupying Soviet forces. More importantly, Pakistan under Zia ul Haq developed nuclear weapons during this period – all the while the United States closed its eyes and China supported Pakistan materially and politically. The 10-year-long war in Afghanistan brought considerable stress to India and a decline in its security and regional status. The advantage it had built over Pakistan in the 1971 war all but vanished. It took the end of the Soviet occupation and the collapse of the Soviet Union in early 1991 to allow India to re-emerge as a significant player, now free of this relationship and the economic model that it had partially adopted.
The successor state, Russia, maintained its strong weapons sale programme to India, but beyond that, not much was happening in this relationship. The co-development of some cutting-edge weapons like Brahmos short-range supersonic cruise missiles and the sale to India of one of its aircraft carriers also perhaps gave India minor status gains in the hardware domain, as this missile now is in high demand among Southeast Asian and Gulf states, making the Indian defence industry a somewhat credible weapons exporter.
While Moscow has supported India’s admission to key forums, India's rapprochement with Washington and Russia’s lowered status in New Delhi’s dealings have not yet diminished Russia’s support for India’s permanent membership on the UN Security Council as well as in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). During the 2022 Ukraine crisis, India adopted a position of neutrality, which was partly derived from material reasons, such as Russia’s supply of weapons and spare parts and gas and oil on favourable terms to India.
Additionally, India has been wary of a tight Russia-China and potentially Pakistan alliance. But there is an underlying status reason that the Western media often has failed to recognise while criticising India’s continued friendship with Moscow. Indian commentators have reminded the media of the six or seven instances when the Soviet Union exercised the veto at the UN Security Council that prevented a UN reprimand on controversial Indian actions in Kashmir, Goa, and the 1971 Bangladesh War. The general tone of the Indian argument has been that at crunch time it was Moscow, not Washington, that came to India’s rescue, and that Russia’s recognition of India’s status ambitions is more deep-rooted than that of the United States, which is a much more recent vintage.
This argument may be getting kudos from Moscow, but it is not necessarily helping relations with the United States and the West. The large-scale popular apathy, or even sympathy, in India toward Moscow in the aftermath of Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine in February 2022 is due to the memory of Russia’s historical efforts in the status enhancement of India – not status humiliation, as from past US policies.
Excerpted with permission from The Unfinished Quest: India’s Search for Major Power Status from Nehru to Modi, TV Paul, Context/Westland.
