Korybko To The Hindu: India Is Far From “Passive” Towards The NATO-Russian Proxy War
India is already doing everything that it realistically can to support its interests and those of its partners across the Global South. What The Hindu’s editorial team wants, however, is for it to unilaterally sacrifice those interests in order to serve the US’ by taking its side against Russia in their ongoing proxy war.
The Hindu, one of India’s top newspapers, published an editorial on Friday titled “Neutral, not passive: On India’s stand on the Russia-Ukraine conflict”. Their brief two-paragraph piece lobbied for India to “empathise more vocally with [Ukraine], raise the voice and interests of the Global South, and call for upholding international laws and sovereignty of all states, while at the same time pushing for a pragmatic and permanent solution to the conflict.”
According to them, its existing stance “could be interpreted as inactiveness”, especially amidst fellow BRICS partners China and Brazil pining to play a greater role in brokering peace. They also referenced the words of visiting Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova, who pressured India to take her country’s side in this conflict. For these reasons, The Hindu’s editorial team urged their country to stop being so “passive” towards everything, at least as they interpret its present position as being.
In reality, however, India is already far from “passive” towards the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine. It’s actively using its chairmanship of the G20 this year to support the Global South’s economic, financial, and humanitarian interests, all of which have been threatened to various extents by this conflict. Its policy of principled neutrality has already reaped impressive dividends for India as well since it’s now poised to informally lead the Global South amidst the impending trifurcation of International Relations.
Furthermore, while China has a tangible 12-step peace plan, Brazil doesn’t have anything at all. In fact, it’s a diplomatic anomaly in BRICS since it votes in support of anti-Russian UNGA Resolutions instead of abstaining from them like its partners do, thus meaning that its end game for Ukraine is poles apart from China’s. Readers can learn more about President Lula’s grand strategy here, which is beyond the scope of the present piece but is being cited to show that The Hindu didn’t accurately describe Brazil’s policy.
Moving along, there’s really isn’t anything novel that India can do in terms of brokering peace between Russia and Ukraine since China’s aforementioned policy pretty much already covers all dimensions of this process. All that Delhi could do at most is repeat its prior calls for a ceasefire, which are already being echoed across the Global South anyhow as it is. Considering this, the true purpose behind The Hindu’s latest editorial was probably to lobby for India to take the West and Ukraine’s side against Russia.
Objectively speaking, their arguments in support of advancing this agenda are weak, and surprisingly so for an outlet of their repute. This makes one wonder whether their editorial wasn’t “organically” produced but ordered by someone to coincide with Dzhaparova’s trip or influenced in some other way by it. After all, it comes off as disjointed, forced, and weak. At the very least, it might be that their editorial team sympathizes with the US’ liberal-globalist worldview and wanted to show it after her trip.
In any case, the entire basis upon which their lobbying effort is predicated was debunked in the present piece, which proved that India is far from “passive” towards the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine. Delhi is already doing everything that it realistically can to support its interests and those of its partners across the Global South. What The Hindu’s editorial team wants, however, is for it to unilaterally sacrifice those interests in order to serve the US’ by taking its side against Russia in that conflict.