My Take | India has been the big winner out of Ukraine war

Pundits have fretted endlessly about whether the war in Ukraine has helped or hurt China and the United States. But when it comes to great power politics, India has been, hands down, the big winner. Luck, genius, or perhaps a bit of both? Whatever it is, it has played a masterful balancing act with Russia, the US and China, extracting significant advantages and benefits while offering few concessions.

India took a risky bet by staying above the fray and risking Washington’s opprobrium. As it turns out, the US has gone out of its way to excuse New Delhi’s neutrality; it has even offered to sell the country more advanced weapons systems to replace its long-standing reliance on Russian arms. US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland has recently even offered to help India develop and modernise its domestic defence industry.

The US, after all, didn’t expand its geopolitical theatre from Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific for nothing. India was always going to be the key here, and not just for being a member of the Quad security partnership. Such a big player requires Washington’s indulgence.

Meanwhile, Russia and China have likely read too much into India’s neutrality over Ukraine, thinking it an opportunity to drive a wedge between New Delhi and Washington. While it’s true that the other two BRICS nations, Brazil and South Africa, have also taken a similarly neutral stance, it’s unlikely India would want to join any anti-Western alliance after its recent tilt towards the US.

With China, New Delhi’s most immediate concern is to stabilise its borders, as the periodic flare-ups have tied up thousands of troops. That means ending what has been effectively a low-intensity border war with China in the Himalayas. Except for the past one or two most militarily strategic locations, India has essentially won the argument with the Chinese that any normalised relations must be based on a restoration of the status quo before the 2020 confrontation. While there may not be a final resolution any time soon, Beijing dare not increase border pressure to antagonise Indians at this time.

At a time of global runaway inflation, India has been buying cheap oil, fertilisers and other commodities from Russia desperate for buyers as the latter faces unprecedented Western sanctions. It’s fascinating to watch how US officials have gone out of their way to claim that the oil sales are legitimate and do not breach sanctions.

But maintaining good relations with Russia as a pariah state goes beyond mere opportunism or realpolitik. Many Indians are far more critical of the US and Nato expansion as the underlying cause of the war in Ukraine. They are historically well-disposed towards Russia, remembering that the Soviets sided with New Delhi throughout the 1950s, at a time when the Western powers backed Islamabad. And Russia, even after the Soviet collapse, continued to be a reliable weapons supplier.

A confluence of underlying international power shifts, with China and Russia at loggerheads with America and the West, has put India in a sweet spot to enjoy the rewards, at least for now.