More Indian Immigration To Russia Would Be Mutually Beneficial

Maintaining the integrity of India’s balancing act in the New Cold War, which would be greatly advanced by the diaspora-driven scaling of bilateral trade with Russia, could go a long way towards managing the Sino-Indo security dilemma. This grand strategic goal aligns with all three BRICS countries’ interests, hence the urgency with which Russia is pursuing this.  

Russian Ambassador to India Denis Alipov told the Russian-Indian Business Forum on Wednesday that his country wants to encourage more immigration from India, with the Economic Times reporting that he even “drew a comparison with the large population of Indian immigrants in Western nations.” Furthermore, the outlet cited unnamed sources to report that the two parties are seeking to put in place a Social Security Agreement for facilitating this.

It would be mutually beneficial if more Indians immigrated to Russia since this would further strengthen their already close people-to-people ties, not to mention the multidimensional economic opportunities that could be unlocked by this. Russia recently unveiled a golden visa program for attracting higher-end immigrants, which will likely appeal to Indian businessmen and merchants, who can then help develop the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) and the Vladivostok-Chennai Maritime Corridor (VCMC).  

This will in turn enable India to scale up its exports to Russia and thus achieve its reported goal of expanding them by a factor of five. It’ll of course take time to do so, but the Indian diaspora in Russia could play a leading role in this respect exactly as they’ve already done in expanding ties between their homeland and the Western countries where many of them reside. Ambassador Alipov likely had this in mind when he drew his earlier mentioned comparison.

Tangible dividends could be reaped in the immediate future if Russia successfully attracts Indian tech experts to replace those of its own that left for abroad in protest of its ongoing special operation in Ukraine. India is a global tech leader so it therefore follows that its associated professionals are world-class, which can give Russia a competitive edge in this industry if enough of them come there to more effectively develop it.

In the grand strategic sense, the diaspora-driven growth of bilateral trade would tie these two partners closer together than ever before at this crucial moment in International Relations. The impending trifurcation of the world system into the US-led West’s Golden Billion, the Sino-Russo Entente, and the informally Indian-led Global South is leading to Delhi promulgating a dual-triangulation policy between the first two de facto New Cold War blocs wherein relations with Moscow play a crucial balancing role.

India is rapidly expanding its military ties with the US in order to enhance its deterrence capabilities vis-à-vis China, with whom it’s embroiled in an escalating rivalry that’ll likely remain in place across the rest of the decade. Despite these dynamics, it’s inaccurate to describe India as the US’ “ally” against China since Delhi refuses to sacrifice its hard-earned strategic autonomy by becoming Washington’s largest-ever vassal state, nor will India ever let the US divide-and-rule it and China.

By comprehensively expanding its full-spectrum relations with its decades-long Russian strategic partner at the same time as it’s expanding its military ones with the US, India is able to comparatively reduce China’s threat assessment of the second-mentioned policy and discredit claims that it’s the US’ proxy. If there was any truth to that twisted interpretation of its ties with that country, then India wouldn’t ever have so blatantly defied the US’ demands to distance itself from Russia over the past year.

While China would prefer for India to not have such close military ties with the US, it should at least take some consolation in the fact that India is much closer in all respects with Russia, which is China’s fellow Entente partner. The planned scaling of their bilateral trade, which could be immensely accelerated by the Indian diaspora and especially in the event that they focus on the tech industry, will bring those two closer than ever before and thus hopefully further assuage China’s suspicions of India’s intentions.

It's this outcome that stands to be the most significant consequence of Russia’s newfound plans to encourage more immigration from India. Maintaining the integrity of India’s balancing act in the New Cold War, which would be greatly advanced by the diaspora-driven scaling of bilateral trade with Russia, could go a long way towards managing the Sino-Indo security dilemma. This grand strategic goal aligns with all three BRICS countries’ interests, hence the urgency with which Russia is pursuing this.