A dragon in the room as Modi breaks bread with Putin today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dinner with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow was due since 2022. As the two break bread on Monday, there will be a dragon, not the proverbial elephant, in the room. It will be the Russia-China relationship that most likely will be among the top things playing on PM Modi’s mind.

PM Modi landed in Moscow later today on a two-day visit, his first since Russia engaged in the war with Ukraine in 2022. Putin visited India in 2021 and Modi’s visit should have taken place in 2022, but for the Ukraine war.

There has been a dramatic change in geopolitics since 2022. The West has tried, and looks to have failed, to cripple Russia economically. In the meanwhile, the Russian embrace of China, to India’s discomfort, has gotten tighter.

India has walked a diplomatic tightrope, and despite pressure from western countries, maintained close ties with Russia. New Delhi has bought oil from Moscow, which helped its economy to stay afloat amid sanctions by the West.

That is why the Kremlin said the West was jealous of PM Modi’s Russia visit.

“They are jealous — that means they are closely monitoring it. Their close monitoring means they attach great importance to it. And they are not mistaken, there is something to attach great importance to,” said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

While Russia has its eyes on the West, especially the US, towards which India has inched closer, New Delhi would be thinking about Beijing.

Ironically, it was the US itself that tried to get China to open a military front against India during the 1971 Bangladesh war. The US under President Richard Nixon was very close to Yahya Khan’s Pakistan, and didn’t want East Pakistan to achieve independence.

Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger pressed China to open a military front against India, says strategic expert Brahma Chellaney.

“It was Kissinger’s job to goad the Chinese into initiating troop movements toward the Indian border, according to declassified White House tapes and documents,” Chellaney writes in an opinion in Project Syndicate.

In those times of fast-paced diplomatic moves, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi went for a friendship treaty with Russia. Chellaney says security provisions of the pact helped to deter China from opening a front against India.

This gambit of trying to prop up China against Russia would return to bite the US itself. Beijing has now become Washington’s nightmare when it comes to global influence.

Nixon had also mobilised its nuclear-armed 7th Fleet to counter India. The threat was only checked by Russia (then USSR) deploying its naval fleet in India’s favour.

India has diversified its weapons procurement of late but Russia, New Delhi’s traditional brother in arms, remains one of the mainstays. More so because of the S400 missile system that India has procured from Russia.

It is an eye on expansionist China that India has been developing and building its arsenal. Beijing has been upgrading its defence infrastructure on the borders with India, and the two are locked in a confrontation in eastern Ladakh.

As Modi attends the private dinner with Putin at his dacha (Russian for cottage) on the outskirts of Moscow on Monday, he will be looking at Russia’s pull in influencing China’s behaviour.

India and Russia are both aware of “the other’s interest in engaging a geopolitical adversary”, says Ajay Bisaria, India’s former high commissioner to Pakistan.

“Russia acknowledges that the US may be a may be a closer partner for India, just as India sees Russia’s compulsions in its tight embrace of China. Yet, India would hope that Russian influence would modulate Chinese behaviour,” writes Bisaria for The Times of India.

Modi and Putin, in the two days of the Indian PM’s visit, will review ties in a whole range of areas, including defence, investment, energy cooperation, education and culture.

In India’s calculus, Russia is part of its efforts to counter China, says the Wall Street Journal.

However, the hands-off approach that the USSR took during the 1962 Sino-Indian War remains a worry, more so with Russia now seemingly becoming dependent on China.

Strategic expert Brahma Chellaney believes it is India that can convince Russia to not align too closely with China. He points out how the two are competitors, with sharply diverging interests in Central and Northeast Asia, and the Arctic.

“Someone must drive a wedge between Russia and China. With the US unwilling to take the lead, it is up to India to convince Russia not to align itself too closely with the People’s Republic,” says Chellaney.

So, when Modi and Putin break bread at a dacha on Monday, there will be a lot to chew on, and an invisible dragon ever ready to breathe fire.