The Great Indian Chessboard
Allister Maunk, AIA Indian section




Vladimir Putin and Manmohan Singh
The year 2005 was a great year for the Russo-Indian relations. Rapprochement pace was increasing throughout the year, marked by official visits, weapon deals of previously unknown scale and joint military exercises. The year was sealed by the visit of the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Russian Federation from December, 4 to December, 7, 2005. It was the sixth official visit in the series of the annual meetings between the two countries since Putin's coming to power in 2000. It was also a second visit of the Prime Minister Singh to Moscow this year, after his May 8-10 participation in the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Victory Day.

As the Russian and the Indian media claimed, terrorism issue had to be the dominating one during Singh-Putin Summit in Moscow. Before the one-to-one meeting with Putin at Green Drawing Roomin the Kremlin Singh called for joint efforts by India and Russia to fight the menace.

''Russia and India must work together in all possible forums to counter terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,'' Singh said in his acceptance speech at the Moscow State University on the occasion of conferment of the title of "Professor Honoris Causa" on him. Asserting that one could not be selective in dealing with terrorism, Singh said, ''we must fight terrorism wherever it exists, because terrorism anywhere threatens democracy everywhere.'' Pointing out that the threat of terrorism was the most important common concern of both India and Russia, he said it should be tackled effectively without losing the ''openness of our societies which we so value and cherish.'' ''Terrorism exploits the freedom our open societies provided to destroy our freedoms,'' he said, Russian media reported.

It is hard to comment Singh's declarations on fighting terrorism to protect democracy in Russia without a grin, as the last years in Russia were marked with extensive freedoms suppression for the sake of "fighting the terrorism."

But this is irrelevant, as actually the main topics of the Singh-Putin discussion were different. The agreements signed by the leaders testify to that.

First of all, the agreement on protection of intellectual property rights to regulate joint weapon producing work was signed, concluding the job started by the Indian Defense Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, during his visit to Russia on November, 15. This agreement crowned the $10 billion worth package of contracts on delivery to India of Russian arms agreed upon between Mukherjee and the Russian leadership. "India and Russia share the perspective to move towards collaborative defense projects, designs, develop and market next generation military products," Singh said at the joint conference with Putin after the signing. Besides Russia's Federal Space Agency and ISRO signing an agreement on cooperation in the field of solar physics, India and Russia signed a Technology Safeguard Agreement to make operational the 2004 pact on joint use of space-based Global Navigational Satellite System – GLONASS to provide for joint development of new generation navigational satellites.

Secondly, following delegation-level parleys covering India's requirement of civilian nuclear energy Putin and Singh inked a corresponding agreement.



Russian and Indian leaders after the meeting
Underlining the issue Putin said, "We have been successfully cooperating in nuclear energy and the Kudankulam nuclear power project (nuclear power station in Tamil Nadu) is an example. We see India taking necessary steps to build relations with the Nuclear Suppliers Group." He added that India is separating military and civilian nuclear programs and has adopted the necessary legislations, apart from actively working with NSG countries. "We consider India our strategic partner. We would work to ensure that India could cope with the tasks and goals it has set in the peaceful use of nuclear energy," he said. Nearly five months after inking a historic agreement with the US on civil nuclear cooperation, Manmohan Singh too had indicated India's desire to boost cooperation in this strategic field with Russia, which has so far supplied two nuclear reactors to India for the Kudankulam plant. "We see Russia as a vital partner in furthering the objective of full civil nuclear cooperation between India and the international community," Singh had said, Indian and Russian press quoted.

Indian officials accompanying the Prime Minister also acknowledged that the talks with Russia were, indeed, fruitful, but said it would not be possible to spell out the details because of strategic reasons.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov also marked following the visit that Russia and India need closer industrial cooperation in strategically important areas.




Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov
"It is important to continue and develop traditional areas of cooperation and to find efficient means of switching from old buyer-seller schemes to joint development and closer industrial cooperation in areas that are strategically important for both our countries: energy, including nuclear, machine building, including aircraft production, and creating new information technologies and means of communication," Zhukov said at the international forum "Russia and India: Strategic Partnership in the 21st Century." Russia is particularly interested in India's experience in the IT sphere, the Russian deputy premier said, RIAN reported. He cited the BrahMos missile system and the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier as successful examples of bilateral cooperation. In the energy sector, he noted the reconstruction and modernization of Indian power stations, joint oil and gas prospecting projects on the continental shelf of the Bay of Bengal and the joint development of the Sakhalin-I project in Russia's Far East, in which India has made major investment of about $10 billion. "In general, India is showing a strong interest in developing oil and gas deposits in Russia and is ready to invest," Zhukov said.

It is important to note here that the last Indo-Russian agreements as signs of prompt rapprochement drastically shift the balance of powers in the Asian region, exactly as Russian foreign policy strives. Islamabad fears are rising. "It seems a pragmatic approach by the Indian ruling elite in the aftermath of the Indo-US strategic cooperation. This would not only keep the Indian option for the Russian military hardware and nuclear technology alive, but also pressurize the Bush administration to ensure the Congress ratification for Indo-US nuclear deal. In addition, this re-engagement would facilitate India's strategic adventurism in Central Asia," a Pakistani analyst wrote summing up the Singh's visit. As it was noted in the previous review in November Pakistan reported its readiness to spend $300 million out of $698 million being extended by United States early next year for the purchase of F-16 fighter planes. Being a key American ally Islamabad was also irritated by the US attempts to lure India to its side by the nuclear deal. When Russia joined the Indian nuclear "celebrations", Pakistan decided to take action, which will not please Washington. As the local sources claim, Islamabad intends to start negotiating the purchase of up to eight nuclear power reactors from China during the next decade. The deal estimated up to $10 billion. Pakistan's increasing reliance on China as main supplier of its nuclear reactors will, doubtlessly, raise concerns within the anti-nuclear proliferation lobby in the West, despite an apparent attempt to pacify western concerns about proliferation by the Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who stressed that the country's nuclear program was for peaceful purposes. "We have established an effective command-and-control authority to ensure the safety and security of our strategic assets. We have also adopted wide-ranging controls to prevent leakage of nuclear materials," he said. However, this deal, obviously, meant to tell the USA that Pakistan has other options, and the Chinese one is the least of all to be quietly accepted by Washington.

Talking about China it is also important to note several most attention-grabbing points connected to the Indian leader's visit to Moscow. They are all connected to the old revived idea of Nikita Khruschev on establishing the Triple Alliance of the USSR – China – India. At the press conference after the meeting with Singh, the Russian President said Russia and India firmly believe in building a multi-polar system of international relations. He was asked about trilateral cooperation between India, Russia and China, but evaded answering, saying "the three nations were interested in establishing peace and stability in the Asian region". "We maintain active cooperation in bilateral, trilateral and multilateral fora. Our mechanism for cooperation on major international issues has been growing including at the ministerial level," he said. On the same question, Singh said these three countries were the fastest developing economies of the world "and, therefore, we believe there is enormous scope for cooperation between them." But other events of December, 2005 give much more perspective on the future cooperation of the "Triple Alliance" than these vague statements of the leaders.

First of all, at the last week of the month information came out that the year 2006 is going to be announced in January as a Year of Chinese - Indian friendship. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao reached an agreement on this issue. As the analysts note both New Delhi and Beijing appear for now to sincerely push relations to a new height, overcoming deep suspicions since the 1962 border conflict.

Strangely enough, the year 2006 was also announced at the beginning of December, 2005, as the China's Year of Russia, and in the next one – in 2007 Russia will be hosting the Year of China. Coincidence, one may say? Of course it is possible, however, it's not the only concurrence – the Russian President is scheduled to visit China twice next year. In March he will open the Year of Russia in China, in June he will come to the celebrations of the fifth anniversary of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).



Shanghai Cooperation Organization logo
India has just an observer status in this structure, which comprises Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. But not for long - Russia has said it was in favor of India getting "full membership" of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization "as it would not only strengthen the multifaceted bilateral cooperation between the two countries but also lead to stability and security in Asia," Russian official sources noted at the end of December. "As Russia focuses on new organizations like the SCO, we will be happy to see India as a full partner (of the regional bloc)," a top Russian official told Asian Age newspaper. It was also suggested that Moscow did not want to forge a military cooperation with certain countries that could cause a strain on the Indo-Russian ties. "The India-Russia relations have convincingly proved their viability and (their) strategic partnership serves long-term national interests of both countries and contributes to the promotion of multifaceted bilateral cooperation and to stability and security in Asia and in the world at large," the official said.

As our Russian sources note, in June, during the SCO celebration summit India may become a full time player in this bloc, which is turning to be a NATO type alliance – a substitute of the Warsaw Pact bloc. And certainly, it’s a pure "coincidence" that joint triple military exercises of the Russian, Chinese and Indian armed forces are also scheduled for 2006…

Summing up, it seems appropriate to remind the old Soviet KGB proverb "one coincidence may be a concurrence, but two, or more – are the evidence to the plot." The year 2005 was obviously the most successful for the Russian foreign policy on the Asian direction, and in particular, on the Indian one. Moscow managed to pull New Delhi into its "Asian ring", encircling all of Central Asia (Russia - China - India - Iran -Turkey - Russia). The Americans and their allies, who were already few enough, are being resolutely squeezed out of this ring. Will the West be able to pull India out, breaking this ring, is still unknown, however, it seems that the chances are low, for there is almost no real activity seen on this direction.