NEW DELHI – Can France replace Russia as India’s most valuableinternational partner? For many, this is an outlandish idea. For them,Russia’s place in India’s international relations is unique and unchanging.Some would dismiss the proposition by affirming that the United States hasalready replaced Russia as India’s privileged partner since the end of theCold War.
Dig a little deeper, though, and you will discover why France has begun toloom so large in India’s geopolitical calculus. A peep into that futuremight be visible this weekend when the visiting French President, EmmanuelMacron, sits down with Prime Minister Narendra Modilink>. They already have someinteresting things in store. For example, the two leaders are expected tolay out a vision for bilateral strategic coordination for the Indian Oceanand back it with measures to facilitate operational cooperation betweentheir security forces in the littoral.
These steps are welcome and overdue. But they are just the beginning. Modiand Macron are well-placed to turn India and France into long-term partnersin shaping the geopolitics of Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific. But first toour claim that France could be “India’s new Russia”. It begs the question:Why has Russia won India’s political affections for so long?
After India gained independence, it was by no means inevitable that SovietRussia would become a lasting partner for India. It was Russia’s repeatedexercise of the veto to trump the Anglo-American tilt towards Pakistan onthe Kashmir dispute that laid the foundation for Delhi’s enduring faith inMoscow.
It is not that the UN or anyone else can take Kashmir away from an Indiathat is so much stronger than in the 1950s. But it is good to have areliable friend in the UNSC who can block unfriendly moves by other powers.France, like Russia, is a permanent member of the UNSC and has a veto.
Until recently, it was Russia alone that made an unambiguous choice betweenIndia and Pakistan in favour of the former. As Russia reaches out toPakistan, that special position now belongs to France. For example, Parishas foregone the opportunity to sell major weapons systems to Pakistan andhas focused on a strong defence partnership with India.
Delhi’s new strategic appreciation of the French connection is also rootedin India’s recent nuclear history. Twenty years ago, when he came to Indiato announce the strategic partnership, President Jacques Chirac argued thatIndia’s exclusion from the global nuclear order was unacceptable and mustbe corrected. That was in January 1998, a few months before India conductedits nuclear tests.
Although it was the US that did all the political heavylifting to generatethe international consensus in favour of the nuclear reconciliation withIndia, Paris does get some credit for thinking through the raison d’êtrefor the nuclear deal. If the Clinton Administration began to erectinternational sanctions against India immediately after the May 1998nuclear tests, Yeltsin’s Russia wavered in its support to Delhi. But Francedid not. Paris did do much to temper the collective great power response toPokhran II.
But what about India’s extraordinary military relationship with Russiadeveloped over the decades? When Prime Minister Indira Gandhilink> decided to diversify India’sdefence ties in the early 1980s, she turned to Paris. Since then India’sdefence relationship with France has steadily grown; but it is yet to reachthe full potential. If and when India goes beyond the accountant’s approachto defence modernisation, the natural synergy between France’s strategiccapability and the size of the Indian market would come into play.
India’s decision to buy the Mig-21 aircraft in 1961 was a political oneforced down the throat of a reluctant defence establishment by PanditNehru. Today, with a similar commitment, Modi could begin the constructionof a genuine defence industrial base in India in partnership with France.
But can France give India the special strategic assistance of the kind thatRussia has delivered? Consider, for example, the Indian lease of Russiannuclear attack submarines and Moscow’s cooperation in the development of anindigenous line. France, too, builds nuclear submarines and it should notbe impossible to imagine cooperation between Delhi and Paris on militarynuclear propulsion and other sensitive areas.
But these types of decisions are not merely industrial or financial. Theycome out of shared interests and goals. What bound Russia and Indiatogether was the need to construct a regional balance of power system inSouthern Asia during the second half of the 20th century.
In the changed context of the 21st, India and France have many reasons todraw closer. The prospects of even limited American retrenchment, the riseof China and its power projection into regions as far away as the SouthPacific, Africa and the Mediterranean, the tightening embrace betweenMoscow and Beijing, the breakdown of the detente between Russia and Europe,and the turbulence in the spaces between India and France demand that Delhiand Paris pool their resources and act together.
Like with Russia and the US, India’s relationship with France can’t just bebilateral. Much in the manner that Moscow and Washington brought theirother partners into their engagement with India, Paris opens the door forstronger strategic ties between India and Europe as a whole. The unfoldingmaritime cooperation, joint efforts to counter terrorism, and the buildingof the solar alliance, underline the emerging globalisation of theIndia-France partnership and eventually that between Delhi and Brussels.
An alliance with Paris, in pursuit of stability and security in Eurasia andthe Indo-Pacific, does not mean Delhi abandons its engagement with Moscowand devalues its strategic partnership with Washington. A recalibration ofIndia’s ties with Russia has been unfolding, slowly but surely, since theend of the Cold War. The US, on its part, can only be pleased that Indiaand France are ready to take larger responsibilities and share the burdenfor maintaining regional and global order. – The Indian Express
By: C Raja Mohan