Herald View: Back on the Vishwaguru trail

The special session of Parliament over, our Vishwaguru prime minister is back to doing what he does best—posing for the cameras. Even media beholden to the government and the ruling party for advertising largesse couldn’t really find a way to dress up the inaugural session as a Modi show. Not for lack of trying, though, and despite all the help from supposedly non-partisan players like the Speaker and the President.

The first session of the 18^th Lok Sabha will be remembered not for the orchestrated campaign to corner the Congress on the Emergency of 1975 but Rahul Gandhi’s rousing declaration of Opposition intent.

Session over, the prime minister quickly took himself abroad. From the look of it, to collect Vishwaguru brownie points—as an ‘observer’ at the G7 summit with no real locus standi and, if you’ll buy the spiel, in Russia as a senior statesman and preferred trade partner.

The very same statesman who inspired the gushy ‘War rukwa di, Papa!!!’ advertisement. (Apologies to the viciously trolled young woman who features in the advert.)

Take a casual stroll through the great social media garden for an all-new collection of serial selfies with world leaders. If that still doesn’t convince you of His greatness, you must be a compulsive contrarian or worse.

On the trade side, the visit to Russia has yielded little beyond a resolution to increase bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2030. A more honest description of this ‘bilateral trade’ is Russian exports to India of oil and weapons, besides foodgrains and diamonds.

For perspective, this bilateral trade is currently worth $64 billion, of which Russian exports to India account for $60 billion, or 94 per cent of total trade. If the two leaders also reached an understanding to reduce this trade imbalance, it is a closely guarded state secret.

For additional context, the trade expansion does not involve high technology or more military hardware, most of which is manufactured in Ukraine.

The feel-good toffees Russia has promised are an offer of Russian citizenship and compensation of Rs 1.3 crore and monthly expenses to cover the education of minor children of Indian mercenaries fighting alongside the Russian army in Ukraine. The offer was originally extended to the families of four Indians who died in battle. You be the judge if this was worth a state visit.

Oh, but we forget the other reason Mr Modi had to visit Moscow! Our beloved prime minister had to be seen receiving The ‘Order of St Andrew the Apostle the First Called’, Russia’s highest civilian honour.

The award recognises outstanding services to Russia in various fields, including the sciences, arts and culture, and goes mainly to prominent government and public figures, including foreign leaders, such as Xi Jinping, who received it in 2017. Mr Modi’s award was announced in April 2019, for promoting bilateral relations.

In his acceptance speech, Mr Modi expressed deep gratitude (we know the feeling) to President Vladimir Putin and the Russian people for the honour. He duly credited Putin’s visionary leadership for taking bilateral cooperation to new heights and reiterated his own commitment to strengthening the privileged strategic partnership between India and Russia.

Apart from unconfirmed talks to build six more nuclear power plants in India and a maritime corridor between Chennai and Vladivostok, the gateway to Russia’s Far East, the Indian delegation was supposed to discuss a long-term agreement on the supply of oil from Russia at discounted prices.

The oil deal is strategic no doubt—especially given the hostilities between Russia and the West—but Modi’s government is walking a tightrope because it risks alienating the US, France and other partner nations in the West, which look at the India-Russia bonhomie with extreme suspicion.

Always a statesman and votary of peace, Modi also reportedly ‘rebuked’ President Putin for the missile attack, during his visit, on a children’s hospital in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

This was the day after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine took to X to express his disgust at Modi hugging Putin in Moscow. ‘It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day,’ he posted, after 39 people were killed in the missile attack.

“As a friend, I’ve said, for the brighter future of our next generation, peace is of the utmost importance,” Modi said in Hindi, with an uncomprehending Putin in attendance.

“When innocent children are murdered, one sees them die, the heart pains and that pain is unbearable.” So touchingly ironic! Mr Modi or his government have said not a word in condemnation of Russia’s war on Ukraine or Israel’s genocidal project in Palestine, where an estimated 13,000 children have been killed since 7 October 2023.

Nor has Mr Modi seen the need to visit strife-torn Manipur in his own country in over a year since the state fell into a spiral of ethnic violence. How do you bear the pain of Manipur, Mr Modi? 226 dead, 1,500 injured, 60,000 displaced, 28 ‘missing’—that’s just the toll data for Manipur a year after violence erupted in the state on 3 May 2023.