India's stand on Ukraine is a moral repudiation of her status

In a live debate aired a couple of days ago (1st April) on BBC World's weekly programme, Work-life India, Shyam Saran, former Indian Foreign Secretary, J N Misra, former Indian diplomat, and Vivek Mishra, Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, were hard put to defend India's reluctance so far, to directly condemn the Russian attack on Ukraine.

The BBC presenter Devina Gupta asked whether India's stand on Ukraine was neutral or did it seem pro-Moscow at the moment. She also wondered as to what was stopping India, being the largest democracy in the world, in calling out Russia for invading another sovereign nation. She also asked whether India's stand would affect her image globally.

All the three panellists defended India's stand on the grounds of realpolitik. India's decision, Mr Saran said, was very much to be expected, taking into account her record. India's stand was neither pro-Russia nor it was pro-US; it was, as India's foreign minister said, pro-India. He said he was satisfied with India's decision.

Vivek Mishra seconded Saran's opinion and believed a conflict in the Eurasian continent did not concern India. It was not in our interest, he said, to meddle in the Ukrainian conflict. Moral considerations, as per their opinion, did not matter in international affairs.

This, I am afraid, was not India's record. India always took a principled stand on international issues. So much a principled stand, one expert on foreign affairs commented, that her stance on any international dispute could be predicted well in advance.

I believe India's present reluctance to condemn Russia's invasion of her western neighbour, is a repudiation of the moral status she once enjoyed. It amounts to a tacit endorsement of Russia’s attempt to violate the sovereignty of a weak nation and to suppress the free will of people to be the arbiters of their own fate.

The present decision, taken ostensibly in line with her past stance on international issues is a narrow interpretation of the Non-aligned foreign policy formulated by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

It implied keeping her decisions on international issues independent of the two power blocks, led by the United States and the Soviet Union that had emerged after the Second World War It also meant India would not be a member of either block and would also not join any treaty organization set up by these blocks.

It did not mean, however, that India would remain neutral on international issues as has been erroneously understood by some. India always took a principled stand on all major disputes among nations that emerged after her independence, notably, the war in Korea and the Suez crisis among others.

One can muster up no better example to support the thesis that Non-aligned policy as pursued by India was not a passive doctrine than Indira Gandhi's intervention in what was then East Pakistan.

A rigid interpretation of non- alignment on her part would have held her back in coming to the aid of the hapless Bangladeshi people facing repression at the hands of a brutal military regime.

When the BBC asked her whether she could not withdraw her support to the Pakistani guerrillas to quieten the situation, she retorted, ‘What do you mean to quieten the situation, do you mean we should keep quiet when a massacre is happening? ‘. She also asked whether they, meaning the British, stood by when Hitler was rampaging over Europe.

A more analogous case to the present invasion of Ukraine by Russia was the military intervention of the Soviet Union in Hungary in 1956 to suppress a local uprising there. Although generally considered sympathetic to the Soviet Union, Nehru, denounced Soviet action on multiple occasions.

In his speech on 5th November 1956, at the UNESCO General Conference in New Delhi, he expressed his sympathy for the national forces in Hungary and condemned the action of the Soviets.

On 07 November, he wrote to President Eisenhower, 'I entirely agree with you that armed intervention of any country in another is highly objectionable and that people in every country must be free to choose their own governments without interference of others'.

As communication was not so developed in those days, an awkward situation was created when India’s Ambassador to the UN, on his own, abstained on the Security Council resolution on Hungary. Nehru supported him publicly, but showed his displeasure in a telegram to the latter:
There is much feeling in the domestic circles that our attitude in regard to Hungary has not been as clear as it might have been. There is naturally great sympathy for the Hungarian people and resentment at the use of the Russian army in strength to supress them. From the legal point of view and because of lack of full information, our statements can be justified. But the fact remains that large bodies of Soviet forces have suppressed a nationalistic uprising in Hungary involving terrible killing and misery for people.

Nehru was deeply moved by the plight of the Hungarian people. Speaking of his speech of 19 November 1956 in the Lower House of India’s Parliament, the BBC correspondent reported, ‘Now this speech was tremendously significant. It was delivered without text or notes, not a calculated speech but one straight from the heart. Never before has Mr Nehru spoken out so positively against Russian imperialism and for oppressed people behind the iron curtain. And it seems, from India’s latest resolution before the United Nations, that she means to follow this up’.

As the war in Ukraine enters well into its fifth week and record of Russian brutality piles up, India's image is likely to be hit, has already been hit, globally, contrary to what Misra believes. The situation in Ukraine today is more pathetic and perhaps more brutal than it was in Hungary in 1956. India is no longer the conscience keeper of the World she once was.

Views are personal