India can no longer spare Moscow

“India First”, India first. Since coming to power, Prime Minister Modi has made it his mantra and the war that is raging in Ukraine today has not changed his line. His interests first. It doesn’t matter if the Russian army commits war crimes or razes Ukrainian cities, India continues to spare Vladimir Putin.

Like China or South Africa, it abstained from voting on UN resolutions calling on Russia to stop using force once morest Ukraine. Invited to participate in the G7 summit at the beginning of the week, France and some other emerging countries did not want to subscribe to the part of the final communiqué condemning the “unjustifiable war of aggression” led by the Russian President. If India pleads for the immediate cessation of hostilities, it fails to point out the responsibility of Russia, with which it maintains historical relations and on which it is very dependent for its purchases of arms and ammunition. It even takes advantage of the situation to buy the oil that Moscow, under Western sanctions, sells to it at bargain prices.

Between a Vladimir Putin who is trying to redirect his trade flows and Westerners who are seeking to broaden the front of democracies once morest Moscow and Beijing, New Delhi, which displays a historic position of non-alignment in international relations, plays on both counts. . Against the backdrop of territorial rivalry with China and Pakistan, it does not want to alienate either Russia, which has supported it on the Kashmir issue, nor the Americans, who are promising large-scale investments, and the Europeans, with which it has just relaunched negotiations for a free trade agreement.

But India can no longer hide behind opportunistic neutrality. Failing to endorse sanctions once morest Moscow, it must question its conscience when it becomes an accomplice of Russia by helping it to compensate for its economic losses. In the face of brutal and imperialist aggression, we expect from it, which prides itself on being the largest democracy in the world, a very clear condemnation of Russia.