Russia’s Top Diplomat In Delhi Praised India’s Rising Role In Global Affairs

As the saying goes, “a rising tide lifts all boats”, and India’s newfound role in International Relations is mutually beneficial for the entire Global South of which it’s a part and envisages leading. This means that Russia’s support of India’s rapid rise to global prominence didn’t just help those two Great Powers, but also the entire developing world, especially since Delhi rightly believes that it has the responsibility to promote its peers’ causes in multilateral fora like the G20 and UN.

Russian Ambassador to India Denis Alipov praised his host’s rising role in global affairs in the interview that he gave to RT on the occasion of Russian Diplomats’ Day last week. Its publication on Wednesday follows the interview that he gave TASS just a few days prior where he explained why US meddling will never weaken Russian-Indian ties. His latest media engagement can therefore be considered complementary to his prior one and part of Moscow’s new campaign to promote bilateral relations.

The Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership has never been more important for International Relations than it is today. They’re closely coordinating their policies to accelerate the global systemic transition’s evolution towards tripolarity, which is moving everything away from the Sino-American bi-multipolar superpower duopoly that hitherto defined the world order up until last year’s events. This joint goal is aimed at facilitating the aforesaid transition’s final form of more complex multipolarity (“multiplexity”).

India’s newfound role as a globally significant Great Power, which was recently recognized by the New York Times, is one of the most impactful black swans to emerge from the sequence of events catalyzed by Russia’s ongoing special operation in Ukraine and the US-led West’s reaction to it. Accordingly, it’s crucial for observers to fully understand the strategic dynamics at play in order to better forecast the influence that Delhi is poised to exert over International Relations across the coming future.

Ambassador Alipov’s latest interview with RT helps put everything into its proper context. Here are the most relevant excerpts that’ll then be analyzed in order to explain India’s rising role in global affairs:

“Russia and the majority of likeminded countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America stand for an equal multipolar world arrangement based on the central role of the UN and international law. BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa] and the SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization] agenda is very much focused on that, as reflected by a growing number of new candidates aspiring to join these associations.

Importantly, the current Indian G20 presidency is a case in point. India is resisting the attempts to politicize this crucial forum and puts forward the role of developing countries, which are suffering the most from the energy and food crises and supply chain disruptions caused by the Western unilateral sanctions.

Throughout the 75 years of diplomatic relations, India retained a special focus in Russian foreign policy that is evident in proud landmarks in industry, science, defense, energy, nuclear power, space, and humanitarian ties. Our cooperation has always been mutually beneficial and complementary. We have no political differences but a common desire to further deepen and diversify our partnership, which got special and privileged status in 2010.

Obviously, India’s role in regional and global affairs is on the rise as Russia has put emphasis on its partners in the East and Global South. The epicenter of world politics and economic development has clearly shifted eastwards and this will facilitate a more equal and balanced dispensation of power. Russia, being itself a nation of the East and the Pacific, is set together with India to take a major part in that process.”

As can be seen, India is indispensable to the jointly BRICS- & SCO-led Global South’s collective efforts to make International Relations more democratic, equal, just, and predictable.

By aspiring to lead this group of developing countries through its recent Voice Of Global South Summit together with the priority focus being placed upon them throughout the course of its G20 chairmanship, India has finally come to exert influence over global affairs commensurate with its size. The privileged role that it affords Russia in its grand strategic calculations thus means that Moscow is one of the partners with whom Delhi envisages helping it transform International Relations.

Their close economic, energy, and military ties – all of which have been unprecedentedly scaled up over the past year in proud defiance of US pressure upon India to dump Russia – resulted in turbocharging this South Asian Great Power’s rise as a globally significant player. That outcome in turn had the effect of facilitating the earlier mentioned systemic transition’s evolution towards tripolarity ahead of its final form of “multiplexity”, whenever the latter ultimately enters into being, which could still be some time.

As the saying goes, “a rising tide lifts all boats”, and India’s newfound role in International Relations is mutually beneficial for the entire Global South of which it’s a part and envisages leading as explained. This means that Russia’s support of India’s rapid rise to global prominence didn’t just help those two Great Powers, but also the entire developing world, especially since Delhi rightly believes that it has the responsibility to promote its peers’ causes in multilateral fora like the G20 and UN.

By doing so, India is complementing Russia’s goal of helping African countries strengthen their position in the emerging Multipolar World Order, albeit doing so in its own way. Whereas Moscow is advancing this through its military-driven “Democratic Security” outreaches, the details of which are beyond the scope of the present analysis but can be read more about here and here, Delhi is doing so in a purely economic and political way that doesn’t risk inadvertently offending the US-led West’s Golden Billion.

India is masterfully balancing between that de facto New Cold War bloc and the Global South in order to maintain its status as the kingmaker in their worldwide competition over the direction of the global systemic transition. This contrasts with the geostrategically partisan role that Russia was forced by circumstances beyond its control into playing despite its prior attempts to strike a similar such balance wherein it’s now actively leading the Global Revolutionary Movement against US-led unipolarity.

While Russia directly confronts the West across Africa and is prone to employing military means for helping its partners there fully complete their decolonization processes, India is only indirectly eroding the West’s influence via the gradual and non-hostile means of trade, investment, and dialogue. These approaches clearly complement one another, with India’s being given more gravitas nowadays as a result of Russia comprehensively supporting its rapid rise in global affairs over the past year.

This insight into the grand strategic interplay between Russia and India amidst the global systemic transition provides additional context to the details about their ties that was shared by Ambassador Alipov in his latest interview with RT. Simply put, Russia and India play complementary roles in accelerating the emerging Multipolar World Order, with their strategic partnership ‘s shared goal of facilitating the Global South’s rise as a third pole of influence literally changing the course of history.