Justice Markandey Katju-
(Justice Markandey Katju is a former Judge, Supreme Court of India, and former Chairman of Press Council of India. The views expressed are his own)
Indian Prime Minister Modi visited Moscow in July this year and met Russian President Vladimir Putin. Now a month later in August he visited Kiev and met President Volodymyr Zelinsky. Why?
When Modi visited Moscow and hugged Putin, there was a strong reaction by Zelinsky, strongly criticizing Modi for parleying with an invader.
Now Modi has hugged Zelinsky.
What is one to make of all this?
India has strong economic and defense ties with Russia, importing oil and weapons from that country on a large scale.
But India also has strong economic ties with Western countries. In 2021 US-India bilateral trade reached a record $157 billion. The US is India’s largest trading partner, and most important export market.
So India is today in an unenviable position, like a woman with two husbands, who far from being friendly, are at each other’s throats.
Modi likes to be in the limelight. This desire has increased after the setback the BJP got in the 2024 parliamentary elections when it lost its majority in the Lok Sabha.
By going to Russia in July he thought his image as a ‘Vishwaguru’ and arbitrator of international disputes would be resurrected, despite his domestic setback. But he could not imagine how furious the Western powers, not just Zelensky, must have been at his embracing of an invader of Ukraine, and violator of international peace, and they must have conveyed their feelings to Modi in no uncertain terms.
After the Chinese forcible occupation of a part of Ladakh, India has been forced to come closer to USA for getting support.
There are presently two big alliances in the world, which are hostile to each other–(1) USA and Europe (2) China and Russia.
Modi is trying to run with the hares, and hunt with the hounds, by trying to please both, but in fact he has offended both.
When he went to Moscow and embraced Putin, he must have got a sharp rebuke from the US Govt. So to placate and mollify the West, he now went to Ukraine.
But there he did not criticise Russia for invading Ukraine, and instead uttered homilies and platitudes asking Russia and Ukraine to hold dialogues with each other.
This must have further infuriated Zelinsky, for two reasons (1) Modi did not condemn Russia, the aggressor and invader (2) How can there be a dialogue with an invader which has occupied part of one’s territory? First, the invader must vacate the territory it has forcibly occupied, and only then can there be meaningful talks.
Some of the points I have mentioned are also in this interview of Dr Subramaniam Swamy.
The Union Foreign Minister Jaishankar, in a press conference, has said that the Indian govt wants dialogue to resolve the conflict, but he has ignored the point mentioned above, namely, there can be no dialogue with a country that is occupying one’s land.
Modi’s visit to Ukraine was an exercise in futility and only shows how desperate he has become to get publicity after the BJP’s setback in the recent parliamentary elections.
