The old warmth has gone out of Indo-Soviet relations. By itself this need not be a matter of concern. A certain amount of disenchantment was unavoidable after the honeymoon. Moreover changes of historic importance have taken place in India, Russia and the world and it is only natural that the two countries should reappraise their relations in the new context. The regrettable part is that there has arisen on both sides a certain amount of uneasiness and even lack of confidence in each other’s intentions and policies. This fact can no longer be slurred over in view of the sharpness and sustained nature of the Soviet criticism of India’s leadership and policies. The issues should in fact be faced squarely if unjust suspicions and unnecessary misunderstanding are to be eliminated when it is still possible to do so.
Indian public opinion first awoke to the change in Russia’s policy in 1965 when Moscow observed strict neutrality in the Rann of Kutch and Kashmir crises. This provided confirmation for the view that the post-Khrushchev Soviet leadership had moved away from his policy of extending whole-hearted support to India in its disputes with Pakistan and intended instead to adopt the mediator’s role. But Moscow was careful to reassure New Delhi that it was not seeking Pakistan’s friendship at the cost of relations with India. The Russians have generally lived up to this assurance. While they have continued to provide India valuable military hardware, they have not yet acceded to Rawalpindi’s requests for similar equipment.
Loyal Ally
Broadly speaking three major developments account for the change in Soviet policy. First, Pakistan has ceased to be America’s loyal ally since 1962 when Washington provided a limited amount of military aid to India. This has given Russia the opening it had been waiting for. Secondly, since Peking has been assiduously cultivating Rawalpindi, Moscow cannot afford to be left far behind. Finally, the Soviet Union has been trying hard to win a foothold in the Muslim CENTO countries on its southern border for strategic as well as political reasons. Pakistan attracts special Soviet attention by virtue of its close ties with Iran and Turkey.
In the circumstances, it was only to be expected that the Brezhnev-Kosygin team would modify Russian policy towards the sub-continent. In fact Mr. Khrushchev himself had begun to explore the possibility of improving relations with Pakistan in the wake of Rawalpindi’s steadily growing disenchantment with the United States after the death of Mr. Dulles in 1958. The election of Mr. Kennedy as President in 1960 and the U.S. decision to extend military assistance to India in the wake of the Chinese aggression in October 1962 greatly accelerated the process. If Mr. Khrushchev was more cautious in making overtures to President Ayub Khan than his successors it was mainly because Rawalpindi was not yet prepared to alienate Washington.
The pertinent point is that India has shown the necessary maturity and has quickly adjusted itself to Russia’s new policy without rancour. It would be idle to pretend that New Delhi docs not fear that Russia may at some point decide to provide military hardware to Pakistan. As it is, its veto may not be available to India in the U.N. Security Council in case Pakistan decides to raise the Kashmir issue. But this has not provoked much bitterness in New Delhi. It cannot be said that Moscow has been equally understanding of India’s problems and difficulties. If anything the Soviet criticism has of late been unnecessarily carping and often unfounded.
Stark Fact
The Russian leaders cannot be unaware of so simple and stark a fact that but for massive food aid from the United States in the last two years millions would have faced starvation in India and that the consequent upheaval would have led not to a communist revolution but to anarchy and all that it implies. In spite of this dependence on America, India has not endorsed its Viet Nam and West Asia policies and has in fact vigorously championed the cause of the Arabs and repeatedly called for an end to U.S. bombing raids on North Viet Nam at the risk of provoking President Johnson’s displeasure. This should have attracted Russia’s whole-hearted praise. Instead Moscow has chosen to make and inspire attacks on the Indian Government for its alleged failure to follow a bold policy on Viet Nam. What precisely New Delhi could have achieved has never been spelled out.
For propaganda purposes the Russians have been pressing the attack against the post-Nehru Congress leadership on the ground that it has retreated from the policy of expanding the public sector under the pressure of the so-called vested interests at home and abroad. The alleged shift in favour of the private sector and foreign investment in the economic field has been represented by the Russians and Indians of their persuasion as part of a wider shift to the right in the country’s political life.
The Russians are themselves trying to get rid of over-centralisation and to provide incentives to managers and workers in terms of greater autonomy and special performance bonuses. It is therefore difficult to believe that they do not understand the compulsions which have forced reluctant men in New Delhi to accept a certain unavoidable curtailment of the role of the public sector. The disastrous political consequences of ill-conceived economic policies in Ghana and Indonesia should have been a warning for the Russians that they should not be over-anxious to push friendly regimes towards the so-called non-capitalist path of development and thus invite their overthrow.
As for foreign investment, India has always been anxious to attract it provided that it did not threaten to change the pattern of development and to inhibit the growth of indigenous capital. There has been no shift in this broad approach. The best evidence in support of this claim is that the flow of foreign capital has not risen in the post-Nehru period. Surely Moscow should not make the charge that India has surrendered to foreign capital when it and other Soviet bloc countries are not in a position to assist it in fields like fertilisers.
The talk of shift to the right in the political field is even more baffling. The men in the Congress Party who have been singled out for irresponsible attacks by Radio Peace and Progress, Moscow, and other Soviet media since before the last general election were important figures in the Nehru era. The continued exclusion from office of a couple of men like Mr. Krishna Menon who has opposed the Congress twice at the polls and Mr. K.D. Malaviya cannot lead the generally hard-headed Russians to the absurd conclusion that the Congress Party has moved sharply to the right. On the contrary since on Russia’s own definition the Jana Sangh and the Swatantra have emerged as strong parties on the right, the Congress has to follow a centrist policy in the interest of its own survival.
Absurd Length
The Russians have gone to the absurd length of inspiring the propaganda that they are disenchanted with India because it has failed to live up to their expectations. According to this theory, India was expected to check both the U.S. and Chinese influence in South and South-East Asia with Soviet assistance. In conformity with their tradition of reading the present into the past the Russians have made it appear that China figured in their calculations when Mr. Khrushchev and Mr. Bulganin made their historic visit to India in the winter of 1955. The stark fact of the massive Russian economic and military assistance to China in the next five years is conveniently ignored. So is the failure of Russia’s own massive efforts to stop the expansion of American influence in South-East Asia.
Moscow may not like to face the logic of the situation but the fact remains that nations of South-East Asia fear China and look to the United States for protection. South-East Asian leaders can differ whether the American presence in the Pacific is sufficient to meet their security requirements or whether it is required on the mainland itself in South Viet Nam and Thailand. But there is hardly any difference of opinion among them on the need for continued American presence in the region. Non-aligned India preoccupied with its own security and internal problems cannot replace the United States as the guarantor of South-East Asia. Even the mighty Soviet Union cannot do so.
The Russian propaganda line is thus too absurd to be taken at its face value. Several explanations are possible of Moscow’s present posture. First, the competition with China in mouthing radical slogans and the desire to bring the two Indian communist parties together again under its auspices leaves Moscow little option but to carry on the present snide campaign against India. Secondly, the Soviet Government has decided to reduce its aid commitments to India and has designed the present propaganda line to serve as an alibi. The cut in aid to India can be the result of two factors – heavy commitments in West Asia and the decision to concentrate efforts in that part of the world to the neglect of South-East Asia generally. Thirdly, like America, Russia has come to the conclusion that the Chinese threat is not as serious as it thought earlier and that, in any case, India cannot do much to meet it. Finally, the Soviet policy is in a flux for want of firm direction and leadership in Moscow.
These explanations may not be wholly incompatible with each other. But the nature of the shift in Soviet policy will depend on the degree to which each of these explanations is valid.
The Times of India, 20 December 1967