‘Relations between India and Russia are rooted in history, mutual trust and mutually beneficial cooperation.’ Discuss. (2021, 20 Marks)
The statement repeats the official vocabulary of the partnership; the December 2025 summit called it “time-tested” and “anchored in trust and mutual respect”, and S. Jaishankar termed it “one constant in world politics” (December 2023). Each claim holds, but each needs qualifying: the history includes hard-nosed episodes, the trust is strongest between governments, and the cooperation has become lopsided.
Rooted in history
- Foundations: on 13 April 1947 the two sides announced they would open missions in each other’s capitals. The year 1955 brought the Bhilai steel agreement and an exchange of visits by Jawaharlal Nehru and Nikita Khrushchev, and Soviet vetoes on Kashmir from 1957 gave India its most valuable diplomatic shield.
- The 1971 Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation (9 August 1971) followed the Sino-American opening. Its Article IX was a consultation clause, not a defence pact, yet Soviet vetoes in December 1971 protected India’s Bangladesh campaign.
- Continuity after 1991: the 1993 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, the Declaration on Strategic Partnership (October 2000) with annual summits, and the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership of December 2010, during Dmitry Medvedev’s visit.
- The qualification: Moscow stayed neutral in the 1962 war and mediated even-handedly at Tashkent in 1966. Andrei Kozyrev’s westward turn in the early 1990s nearly abandoned India; in 1993 Russia withheld cryogenic-engine technology under American pressure.
Mutual trust
- Russia’s record: it has never vetoed against India, backs India’s claims to a permanent Security Council seat and to Nuclear Suppliers Group entry, and supplied what others would not, including licensed production and a leased nuclear submarine, INS Chakra.
- India’s record: it declined to condemn Russia over Crimea (2014) and has abstained on the main Ukraine resolutions, while Narendra Modi told Vladimir Putin at Samarkand (2022) that “today’s era is not an era of war”.
- Institutionalised trust: twenty-one annual summits by December 2021, the first 2+2 ministerial dialogue that month, and a cross-party consensus in India. Nandan Unnikrishnan (2017) rests the tie on five pillars: political, defence, economic, scientific and cultural.
- The limits: Russia’s deepening partnership with China, its Druzhba exercises with Pakistan from 2016, its outreach to the Taliban and Sergei Lavrov’s attacks on the Indo-Pacific idea show trust thinning at the strategic level. The partnership also runs almost wholly between governments, with little business or societal depth.
Mutually beneficial cooperation
- Defence: the BrahMos joint venture (1998) produced a missile used by all three services and India’s first major defence export, to the Philippines (2022). AK-203 rifles are made at Korwa.
- Space and nuclear: Aryabhata (1975), Rakesh Sharma’s flight (1984), the training of Gaganyaan astronaut-designates in Russia, and the Kudankulam reactors.
- Energy: ONGC Videsh holds 20% of Sakhalin-1 and Rosneft about 49% of Nayara Energy.
- Benefit to Russia: Indian orders sustained its defence industry in the 1990s, and India repaid Soviet-era debt.
- The imbalance: trade was about $8 billion in 2020–21; the fifth-generation fighter project collapsed in 2018. Since 2022 discounted crude has lifted trade to about $69 billion (2024–25), but Indian exports remain under $5 billion.
Conclusion
The statement captures the foundations accurately and the future less well. History and trust are real but depreciating assets; C. Raja Mohan argued in 2021 that the old convergence had broken down and India now follows interest rather than sentiment. The 23rd Annual Summit (December 2025) tried to renew cooperation with a 2030 economic programme and labour mobility; balanced trade will decide whether the tie stays mutually beneficial.