By Rahul Dixit
Russian submarines’ dramatic entry into the Indian Ocean just ahead of the fast-approaching USS Enterprise and British warships during the 1971 East Pakistan War had spooked the Western powers no end. It was a major jolt to the US and British who had clandestinely decided to extend support to Pakistan in the war. The timely Russian help to India in liberation of Bangladesh forms a golden chapter in the history of relations between the two countries. When External Affairs Minister Mr. S Jaishankar broached the subject during his Australia visit, he once again served a cold reminder to the West that it was not there when India needed them the most. It was Russia which rose to the occasion and hence the substantial inventory of Soviet and Russian-origin weapons that Indian forces still employ in defence of the country.
Mr. Jaishankar’s ability of serving precise examples to drive home his point is well-known to the diplomatic circles. In Australia, the EAM yet again brought out the best examples of bias against India by the Western nations and in the process told the world that military and trade relations with Russia is entirely an internal matter of New Delhi. Mr. Jaishankar was forthright in his observation that the Western countries opted a ‘military dictatorship in the region’ as their preferred partner and did not supply weapons to New Delhi for decades. It was an obvious reference to Pakistan whose sins were ignored time and again by the United States as it chose to drive its own interests in the region with the help of military generals ruling in the neighbourhood.
The stand adopted by former US President Mr. Jimmy Carter and his successor Mr. Ronald Reagan during the Soviet-Afghan War of 1979 was full of bias against India as they chose to dismiss Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme as “nothing of America’s business” and kept pumping in money and weapons for the Paki forces. It left New Delhi with little choice than to procure Russian weapons and build a long-standing relationship with Moscow. The ties have certainly served India’s interests well. Today, when the West has opened a front against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, it wants India to snap ties with Moscow.
Mr. Jaishankar’s assertion in Australia should serve as a neat rebuke to the bloc that India would make decisions based on its own interests. By holding mirror to the other side of the divide, Mr. Jaishankar has yet again put the ball in their court.
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