Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Today India needs US more than Russia' that was published in Newsband

Today India needs US more than Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India was a productive one. Many agreements were signed between the two countries. The deals touched oil, energy and infrastructure to military training. The opening of India’s rough-diamond procurement policy by Prime Minister Narendra Modi will mean Mumbai can dream of becoming a worldwide hub for the industry. President Putin’s offer of 12 nuclear reactors was good enough.

Putin refused to address a joint session of Parliament. This could be because Russia has watched with displeasure as India has diversified its military imports, especially when it comes to helicopter and aircraft purchases. Last year a senior Russian official called the decision to buy fighter aircraft and missiles from France, the U.S. and Israel “illogical and unfair”.

India too was outraged by the Russian decision to lift its embargo on defence sales to Pakistan, and the first-ever Russia-Pakistan framework agreement that was finalised last month. But India still maintains about 70 per cent of its defence inventory from Russian hardware, and is one of Russia’s biggest buyers.

Given Russia’s growing isolation from the West, and India’s growing closeness to the U.S. — President Barack Obama’s visit is coming up in January 2015 — their relationship is bound to be challenged in many ways. The U.S. didn’t fail to criticize the India-Russia deal.

The USA's participation in defense production in India will result in America's major role in India's mission against terrorism in India by the external agencies. One can’t deny the fact that US is the sole superpower in the world and weakened Russia is still its greatest enemy. For decades India was dependent on Soviet Union for military and political support. Large sections of Congress and left wing parties and universities were enthralled by the Soviet model. But one should note the fact that the previous relationship was a stronger nation's relationship with a weaker nation. Today we are closer to a more equal relationship. This is what a balanced multi-faceted relationship with pulls in different directions looks like. There is nothing testing or troubling about it. Get used to it.

Russian technology and economic model are inferior to those of USA, France, Japan and Canada. It is as simple as that. Added to this for certain technologies like Nuclear power, the safety standards are compromised in Russian technology. India's close relation with Russia for the past 40 years has resulted in miserable standard of living for common man because India followed Russian model for industry and for economy.

The fact is Russia is closer to China than to India. China is a threat for India. China is a tough competitor for US on the international level. Hence it is natural for India and US to join hands to prevent China from becoming a threat to India and at the same time not let China go ahead of US. Thus it is clear that both India and US badly need each other. India, the largest democracy in the world could gain more benefit from the USA and its Western allies especially in terms of counter terrorism, strategy, education, technology and, above all, employment to the technocrats in all fields.