Narendra Modi’s visit to Kyiv and Warsaw was called “historic”, because it is the first visit of an Indian prime minister to independent Ukraine and free Poland. However, what results did it bring for Ukraine and is it really as symbolic as the time in which it took place?
“I am lucky to be the first in many places,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi joked during his meeting with the Indian diaspora in Poland on July 21. The joke was about his visit to this country – the first in the last 45 years, but not only. At the beginning of July, the Indian leader visited Austria – also for the first time in more than 40 years, and on August 23 – National Flag Day – he was in Kyiv. And this visit was also the first since the establishment of diplomatic relations between our countries. Did it bring the same historical results?
Bloody hugs
From the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war, India’s position appeared to be ambivalent, sometimes even pro-Russian. However, Ukraine continued to conduct bilateral relations (not always actively, let’s be honest), in particular, during the last ten years, trade between the two countries grew, and in 2021, on the eve of a full-scale invasion, it was the largest in the last 10 years. However, the issue of cooperation at the political level remained a weak point. Over the past three years, political communication has intensified through phone calls and field meetings. A vivid example of the “sag” of the political level is the time difference between the two extreme rounds of political consultations — as much as 13 years. Last year’s were even preceded by those in 2010. The situation is similar with high-level visits. Prior to the March visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, the heads of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry had not visited New Delhi for almost seven years.
Against this background, the annual summits between Narendra Modi and Russian ruler Vladimir Putin, which ended only with the start of a full-scale invasion, seemed like a clear political message. However, foreign policy, particularly Indian policy, is more complex than it may appear at first glance. Although India and Russia are connected by many agreements and treaties, dependence on the purchase of weapons, as well as a “specially privileged strategic partnership” (this is the definition of relations between the countries since 2010), New Delhi has begun to reduce this dependence on the Kremlin (first of all, when it comes to on the purchase of weapons) since the beginning of the Russian war against Ukraine in 2014, and with the beginning of a full-scale invasion, this withdrawal is taking place at an accelerated pace, in particular, with the help of partners in the United States and Europe. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to Moscow on July 8 was supposed to prove that despite rapprochement with the West, India is independent and can hold a dialogue with whoever it wants. However, the fact that it coincided with another terrible crime by the Kremlin, which apparently wanted to show New Delhi’s complete pro-Russianness in this way, hastened the country’s decision to eventually more clearly exit the Moscow bubble.
European turn
One of the aspects of India’s foreign policy during the prime ministership of Narendra Modi is the strengthening of cooperation with EU countries. Thus, cooperation between New Delhi and Rome is increasing, in 2022 the trade turnover between the two countries has increased to a record 15 billion euros, and journalists of the two countries like to joke about “Melodi” – an acronym from the surnames of the leaders of the two countries – Meloni and Modi – evidence of political “chemistry” between two politicians.
Long live India-Italy friendship! 🇮🇳 🇮🇹
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 15, 2024
But New Delhi also more actively started communication with the countries of Central Europe. Thus, in January, during the visit of the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Petr Fiala, to India, both countries signed agreement on strategic partnership in the field of innovation. During the visit to Warsaw, which preceded the visit to Kyiv, the Prime Ministers of both countries also agreed on a strategic level of cooperation. In addition, Narendra Modi invited Polish entrepreneurs to join the “Make in India” initiative — to create their own enterprises on the territory of India and manufacture products for the global consumer. The visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Kyiv should also be considered more in terms of concrete agreements, rather than rhetorical passages about peace.
Peace negotiations or economy of relations?
“India has never been neutral. She is always on the side of peace,” Narendra Modi emphasized at the meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyi. Both before and during the visit, there was a lot of talk about India’s role as a possible mediator in the Russian-Ukrainian war or about some other role of New Delhi in achieving peace in Ukraine. At the same time, if you analyze the concrete steps and agreements, much of what is related to peace is largely rhetoric, and the important things lie behind the concrete steps and agreements reached both before and during the visit of the Indian leader to Kyiv.
Thus, on August 20, three days before the visit, the founding meeting of the Ukrainian-Indian working group on cultural cooperation was held. This is an important step, because without the deepening of cultural cooperation, there will be no strengthening of the political level. That is why one of the agreements signed during the stay of the Indian Prime Minister in Kyiv was related to culture. Two other working groups that met on the eve of the visit — on cooperation in education and cooperation in the pharmaceutical industry — also reached a logical conclusion in the form of bilateral agreements on August 23.
Analyzing the information presented in to the joint statement of Ukraine and India following the visit of the Prime Minister of Indiawe see the whole range of relations — agriculture, expansion of the legal framework, for the sake of mutual protection of investments, strengthening of scientific and technical cooperation, an emphasis on strengthening defense cooperation and “interest in working on raising the level of bilateral relations from a comprehensive partnership to a strategic partnership in the future.”
The agreement contains clauses related to ensuring a just peace, but the main backbone is concrete treaties and agreements (which still need to be implemented), and not rhetoric about India’s participation in achieving peace in Ukraine.
The visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Ukraine took place on an extremely important day for us – National Flag Day – and this is another hidden message that indicates that there is a future in these bilateral relations, not easy, but one that can bring a lot of benefits to both partners
