Jaishankar Made A Powerful Point With His Quip About European Arms Being Used Against India

It appears to some Indians that the West wants to keep Pakistan as a back-up plan for containing India in the event that it ever becomes their economic competitor like China earlier became.

Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar quipped during a event in Finland last month, the same one where he talked about the US’ double-dealing towards India’s Russian oil imports, that European arms have been used against India while Indian arms were never used against Europe. The context concerned his defense of India’s continued energy and military ties with Russia, which has provoked harsh condemnation from the West over the past four and a half years.

As he phrased it, “No European country has been attacked with Indian weapons. I wish I could say that for Europe weapons vis-a-vis India. Europe sells weapons, which are used to attack India. Not just now but for many years. We Indians have never done anything to endanger Europe. I think that’s a reasonable point.” The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) latest international arms trend report confirms that European countries continue arming India’s rival Pakistan.

According to their data, 16% of Dutch exports and 12% of Swedish ones from 2021-2025 went to Pakistan, with the Dutch exports amounting to 4.6% of Pakistan’s imports during that period. While that might not sound like a lot, and European (including American) exports to Pakistan used to be higher decades ago, European military equipment has been used by Pakistan in conventional clashes with India. This includes those that broke out after terrorist attacks that India blamed on Pakistan.

Of relevance, it was argued earlier this year that “India Has Good Reason To Be Concerned About Poland’s Close Ties With Pakistan” after Jaishankar chided his Polish counterpart Radek Sikorski for agreeing last fall to expand defense ties with Pakistan months after the Pahalgam terrorist attack. He told him that “Poland should display zero tolerance for terrorism and not help fuel the terrorist infrastructure in our neighbourhood.” Poland also reportedly helps Pakistan indirectly arm Ukraine as reported here.

The Europeans therefore aren’t in any position to pressure India into reducing its import of Russian arms, especially since Russia remains very sensitive towards India’s concerns about its rapid rapprochement with Pakistan. In the event that Russian equipment sold to Pakistan was used against India, Russia would almost certainly stop such sales upon India informing it of this or take measures to prevent illegitimate use, yet the Europeans couldn’t care less since India isn’t their special partner like it is Russia’s.

What’s all the more surprising about their flagrant disrespect of India’s sensitivities is that these same countries are trying to woo it away from Russia, yet they won’t cut off their relatively minor arms sales to Pakistan as an act of goodwill, thus explaining why Jaishankar implied suspicions about their intentions. It accordingly appears to some Indians that the West wants to keep Pakistan as a back-up plan for containing India in the event that it ever becomes their economic competitor like China earlier became.

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau declared while in India earlier this year that “we are not going to make the same mistakes with India that we made with China 20 years ago in terms of saying, we are going to let you develop all these markets, and then, the next thing we know, you are beating us in a lot of commercial things.” Given the sensitivity of US-Indian ties, however, Jaishankar wisely chose to focus on how European arms have been used against India, but his point is also relevant for US ones.