This is an Era of War, Mr. Modi

Along the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in 2022, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi had said that “this isn’t an era of war”. While many commentators jumped to the conclusion that this implied criticism of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it is worthwhile understanding what this statement may mean as the Russian president visits India.

Firstly, it is important to note that Modi’s assessment or characterisation of this era turned out dead wrong. Not only has Russia continued its war in Ukraine, since that time the Hamas attack on Israeli soldiers and civilians has led to Israeli attacks – still ongoing – in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as Israeli conflict with Iran, Syria, Lebanon and the Ansarollah (or Houthi) group in Yemen.

Israel continues its occupation of Palestinian territory accompanied by starvation, assaults and murders as well as occupation of Lebanese and Syrian territory. In Sudan, our very good friends the Emiratis, continue to the arm the brutal Rapid Support Force paramilitary group as it commits mass murder and starves civilians. Further west, the US has conducted murders across the Caribbean and deployed a fifth of its fleet off the coast of Venezuela while it pressures its president to leave power. East of us is the civil war in Myanmar, which has continued since the military coup of February 2021. Further east is the possibility of China launching a war to integrate Taiwan forcibly under its rule.

Secondly, saying it isn’t an era of war at the SCO, which counts Russia as one of its most important founding members was an interesting choice. War has been the mode through which Putin has shaped the country he has ruled. The month after Putin became prime minister in August 1999, there was a massive apartment bombing in Moscow. Despite no evidence about Chechen involvement (and some evidence implicating the Russian security services, the FSB) Putin ordered the aerial bombardment of Chechnya, followed by a land war that lasted eight months, followed further by an insurgency that lasted more than eight years.

It was not just Chechnya that went through hell during this time, but also the unprepared, under-resourced Russian Army. Putin used the hell of that war to not just reshape the army but Russian society and economy as well. From the chaotic freewheeling corruption of the Yeltsin years, Russia transformed into a state where the oligarchs – if they survived – became servitors of the Kremlin, political opposition was eviscerated, the press was muzzled and dissidents murdered abroad.

It was this state, which used war, that tried to extend Russian influence again, through the Syrian civil war, through Wagner deployments in African war zones, through early actions in Crimea in 2014, and then the full-on invasion of Ukraine. In March 2023, Xi Jinping told Vladimir Putin, “Right now there are changes – the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years – and we are the ones driving these changes together.” For China, these changes may be based on becoming central to the global economy, but Putin is driving change his way – through an era of war.

How war brought India and the Soviet Union close

Thirdly, even if we ignore global dynamics, Russia (and before that, the Soviet Union) has been central to India precisely because of war. We still source the majority of our military imports from Russia, even if they have tapered off a little. From aircraft, to submarines, to an aircraft carrier, to the S-400 ground to air missile defence system, our war systems carry a Russian imprint. During Putin’s visit, the delivery of scheduled S-400 systems, and its upgrade, the S-500, are on the agenda.

Historically, from before the Sino-Soviet split in 1961, it was war that brought India and the Soviet Union close, and the prospect of conflict with China – an issue that still remains important. It was the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation that allowed us to wage the 1971 war, with the USSR providing us cover (In return, we took the Soviet side in its ill-considered invasion of Afghanistan). It was the Soviet veto in the UN Security Council that allowed India to ignore global pressure in our own internal war in Kashmir.

As an assessment of the world, as an assessment of Putin’s worldview, and for the basic rationale undergirding India-Russia relations, saying “It is not the era of war” is so opposite the truth that only a student of "Entire Political Science" could say it.

To be fair, Modi has a history of making remarks in public that have not been thought through. There was his insistence that we use the gas produced from gutters full of rot to make cooking gas. He also waxed eloquent about using wind turbines to source water (possible, but not on scale) and oxygen (possible, but insanely costly). Then there was the scene of him trying to use an acronym to symbolise India-China relations as one based on strength, except he managed to spell it as STREANH.

These instances are amusing at best, and embarrassing at worst, but they are not significant. We are not investing in gutter gas, or trying to become an oxygen superpower based on wind turbines, and while the childish fascination for English acronyms in a government that tries to paint itself as swadeshi is funny, it has limited policy implications.

Misunderstanding the role of war in the world, for Russia, and for India-Russian relations is not a mistake of this type. It has serious and long-term implications. Denying the war that exists means that we implicate ourselves in actions that may have heavy costs. For example, despite the continuing aggression of Israel, we have hosted its most extreme cabinet ministers to deepen economic ties as if the country was at peace. Not only does this make us complicit in any crimes, in the event that the Israeli bet on perpetual war and domination of its neighbours fails, India will be on the losing side.

Our inability to take a principled stand on Ukraine has meant that all the early hullabaloo of India acting as something of a mediator has evaporated. Whatever the outcome, India has chosen to be remembered as irrelevant. Ignoring reality makes us easy to ignore, and the two clearest examples of this are the outcomes of Chinese aggression in Galwan and the diplomatic disaster after Operation Sindoor. In the first case, we found ourselves with no tools, or partnership to leverage, vis-à-vis China and are quietly normalising ties having gotten nothing. In the second, we sent politicians across the world in the most ambitious diplomatic outreach we have done in decades. The outcome of which was a big damp squib.

There is the old saying that in times of peace prepare for war, and in times of war, prepare for peace. The second is important in the current context. While India does not need to be dragged into the wars of others, it will – if it has no role at all in managing outcomes – be left out of the peace that ensues. This is why a much poorer India helped labour for peace in the Korean War, and won plaudits and a deserved role as a global leader. As India prepares to welcome Putin, one of the people who has made this the era of war, we need a pathway to peace.

It is also worth understanding why Indian diplomacy was able to punch far beyond its weight in the post-Independence era. First and foremost was the moral heft it carried because of Gandhi’s stature for leading a largely non-violent movement. This itself was tied to the wave of decolonisation in which India could position itself as – if not the leader – certainly one of the leaders of a peer group of countries reshaping the world.

Tying these things together was a national leadership with leaders like Nehru, Naidu, Azad, Ambedkar and others who were open to the world in their vision of building a democratic India, something that most of the world felt would fail in such a poor country.

These conditions no longer exist – and only some of them are under the power of the government, such as being open to the world and the defence of democracy. That said, post-Independence India had a clarity of vision. After the experiences of World War I and World War II, it explicitly argued that it would not be sucked into great power wars, and would focus on internal development.

No stated national security policy or framework for foreign relations

This did not mean a retreat, because we assessed that international law would add as a bulwark against adventurism by the superpowers in an era of war, and that a large number of countries would like to have some independence, like us, from great power competition. This meant that India stepped up on the global stage and found partners in the Non-Aligned Movement, in the Group of 77 at the UN, and through the forceful advocacy of international law.

India’s position was clear both at home and abroad. Nehru would reference things like the Vietnam War in his domestic speeches, and we would argue against apartheid on the global stage. We engaged with the US and the USSR both, as well as other countries, but on our own terms. This is why Austria reached out to us to help them recover their sovereignty.

Today our position is clear neither at home or abroad. We have no stated national security policy. We have no framework for our foreign relations. When we engage with Russia, or with the US, or with China, or with the EU, nobody knows what we will stand for. Everybody continues to engage with us, because we are a big country and large economy (even if on per capita terms we remain amongst the poorest), but we have no partnerships that can count on us or on which we can count on, because nobody knows what we want.

What was once touted as strategic ambiguity under Non-Alignment 2.0 – a strategy coined under UPA II which itself left a lot to be desired – has now just become strategic confusion. Forget alignment or non-alignment, we now have nothing except vague bleatings like, “This is not an era of war” that are wrong on facts, analysis, and are devoid of any strategic meaning altogether.

Omair Ahmad has worked as a political analyst and journalist in India, the US, and UK.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

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