Strategic significance of Putin's India visit

Photo: AFP

On 11 March, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited India to strengthen the close partnership Moscow and New Delhi have traditionally enjoyed for more than 60 years.
Putin, who last visited India as Russian president in 2007, met his counterpart Manmohan Singh and the Indian President Pratibha Patil. This will be Putin's first trip to India in his current capacity.
In 2007 Putin noted in an interview in the India Today magazine: "It is in our interest to have a strong, developed, independent India that would be a major player on the world scene. We see this as one of the balancing factors in the world."
The bilateral relationship was re-energized with the declaration of a strategic partnership between the two countries during the visit to India in 2000 by the then President Putin.
During the current visit, Putin was accompanied by two vice-premiers Sergei Sobyanin and Sergei Ivanov, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko, CEO of RosAtom Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Rostechnology Sergei Chemezev, and the General Director of Sukhoi Mikhail Pogosyan.
Partnership between the two countries has diversified enormously and today the relationship is a uniquely strong and expanding one, particularly in the fields of defence, nuclear energy, hydrocarbons, space research and science and technology.
Beginning with the State visit of President Patil in September 2009, India's Commerce and Industry Minister, Anand Sharma, Defence Minister A.K. Antony and External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna visited the Russian Federation in the months of October and November 2009, when diverse aspects of the bilateral relationship have been reviewed and the path ahead has been charted out.
The essential purpose of Putin's trip to India this time was to "reset" the bilateral relations, of late marred by problems like delay in the agreement on aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov. The sale of Gorshkov has been marred by a series of price disputes and delayed deliveries, compounding concerns in Moscow that India could be tempted to end its dependence on Russian military equipment.
According to an Indian government source Putin was keen to use the trip to sort out all remaining sticking points related to the vessel's sale.
The highlight of the visit was the signing of deals to sell Russian military hardware, including an accord on the Soviet-era aircraft carrier Gorshkov.
Other deals included a contract to sell India 29 MiG fighter jets and an agreement to install additional nuclear power units in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Putin's foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov told reporters.
Russia supplies 70 percent of India's military hardware but New Delhi has, in recent years, also looked towards other military suppliers including Israel and the United States.
An official with state aircraft holding United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) confirmed to AFP that UAC and India's HAL planned to sign a deal to create a "new joint venture" to develop the transport aircraft. Russia and India have already pledged to commit 300 million dollars each to the project.
Russia is the biggest supplier into areas of energy and information technology in India. Energy has emerged as a focus between oil and gas rich Russia and energy-hungry India.
Russia has agreed to build 16 nuclear reactors at three different sites and six of them would be built by 2017.
Russia is already building two nuclear power units in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu and agreed to install four more nuclear reactors there as part of an agreement signed during President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to India in 2008.
India is one of the world's biggest markets for nuclear technology and the reactor deal is a triumph for Russia's state atomic agency Rosatom which faces stiff competition from French and US rivals.
Putin reportedly said: "Cooperation in hi-tech is the priority for us. The Russian government is ready to directly support this activity with the help of additional financial assistance, if need be." In the space realm, Russia agreed to put two Indian astronauts into space in 2013.
Together with Brazil and China, Russia and India are part of the so-called BRIC grouping of major developing economies seeking to promote a multi-polar world economy not dominated by the United States. The four countries, combined, currently account for more than a quarter of the world's land area and more than 40% of the world's population.
By 2050 the combined economies of the BRICs could eclipse the combined economies of the current richest countries of the world.
However, at just over 7.5 billion dollars in 2009, bilateral trade turnover is miniscule and the two countries will aim to increase it to 20 billion dollars by 2015. (India and China want to raise their bilateral trade over $30 billion by that time).
India-Russia cooperation against Islamic militants was believed to come up for discussion as terrorism has spread from the Philippines to Kosovo, including Kashmir, Afghanistan and Russia's northern Caucasus.
About 25,000 Russian troops and border guards are stationed on the Tajik-Afghan frontier guarding Tajikistan. Russia, which has repeatedly accused Islamic militants of assisting Islamic rebels in Chechnya.
In the 1970s and 1980s, alliances were relatively clear cut. The US maintained close ties with Pakistan and its military, exploiting the country as a base for its covert support of Islamic fundamentalist guerrillas against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. China also supported Pakistan. The Soviet Union maintained economic and defence ties with India and supported it in its conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir.
But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the strategic equation has changed. Both sides have realised the India-Russia agreements were not a return to the relations or rhetoric of the Cold War but were based on "new global realities".
The visit of Prime Minister Putin is to return the earlier visit of India's Prime Minister to Russia on 6th December, 2009. Indian ties with the Russian Federation are historic, close and uniquely enduring.
Russia wishes to make it clear that Russia's presence in India will continue despite close relationship between India and US. India at the same time wants to demonstrate that it has the ability to balance its relations with both US and Russia and provide a signal to the US that India can afford to run its independent foreign policy as an emerging global power.
The author is former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.