The realities of international life have amply showed that India-Russia relations are complementary and rooted in strategic necessity on both sides
The visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to New Delhi on Monday for the 12th bilateral summit underscores the viability of this relationship across time, across governments, and across rigidities of political philosophies prevailing at any moment in time.
With no other country has India had such a sustained annual interaction at the highest level. This denotes an appreciation of the mutuality of interests as well as profit in sustaining ties and deepening them.
The Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation of 1971 had stressed the idea that an attack on one country would be deemed to be an attack on the other. This fended off Cold War bullies then trying to throw their weight about in our region, giving comfort to Pakistan. The dissolution of the Soviet Union had led to a spirit of liberal ideological rebellion on both sides, particularly in Moscow, which sought to influence the leadership in both countries to abandon New Delhi-Moscow ties born in the Communist era. But this spirit died an early natural death.
The realities of international life have amply demonstrated since then that India-Russia relations are complementary and rooted in strategic necessity on both sides. Mr Putin’s recent remarks in a newspaper article have sought to emphasise this while alluding to the Declaration on Strategic Partnership between India and Russia signed in October 2000. In a sense, this was the successor agreement to the treaty of 1971 minus the clause on coming to each other’s aid in a military crisis. But it has not escaped attention that while the laid-down terms of the new India-Russia accord provide scope for wide cooperation, the trade and investment ties are in need of a major boost. The two-way trade is only about $10 billion and the resolve is to push it to $20 billion in the next three years. If this is achieved in the non-military and non-energy sector, we would have made real progress.
Ten agreements were signed during Mr Putin’s brief working visit. Among these, the spotlight was on the $4 billion to be spent on acquiring weapons systems from Russia. This is a climb on a historical trajectory. But where the will, ability and efficiency of implementation on both sides will be tested are the economic areas, in which business to business relations are sought to be energised by governments on both sides, leading to enhanced investments and trade. If this does not take off, we risk being caught in a time warp.
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