It is somewhat arbitrary to divide a vigorous relationship like the one between India and the Soviet Union into distinct periods. For one thing, the dominating theme of one period flows into the next and, for another, each side inevitably regards different dates as turning points. Even so, the exercise can be useful. Indeed, it may even be necessary for clarifying issues and separating the still important ones from those which might have lost some of their earlier import.
From the Indian viewpoint, it is possible to divide the last 22 years of friendship with the Soviet Union broadly into four periods – 1954-59, 1959-62, 1962-71 and 1971 onwards.
The developments that lent extraordinary importance to 1954 for both New Delhi and Moscow are well-known and need not be detailed here. Briefly, the year witnessed the conclusion of the US- Pakistan mutual security pact whereby the former decided to arm the latter and of the Baghdad pact whereby Britain, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and Turkey joined together, with the United States in the background, to contain the alleged Soviet threat.
These twin developments, symbolising as they did America’s effort to encircle the Soviet Union and establish its hegemony in Asia, produced a community of interests between New Delhi and Moscow because the former was not only as opposed to the general thrust of US policy as the latter but was also directly concerned over Washington’s military assistance to Pakistan.
Non-Starter
The Baghdad pact turned out to be a non-starter. Such promise as it held out for the West petered out with the military coup in Iraq in 1958 and repudiation of the pact by the new regime. Similarly, the US-Pakistan mutual security pact did not prove to be the barrier it was feared to be in the path of reasonably friendly relations between India and America. President Eisenhower reversed the general line towards the policy of non-alignment and visited India in December 1959 with the avowed object of removing misgivings regarding the US attitude towards this country.
Despite the agreement on wider aspects of international relations, the perception of the community of interests between India and the Soviet Union could, therefore, have been diluted after 1958-59. But in addition to the fact that Moscow was already assisting New Delhi in establishing basic and heavy industries, which it regarded vital for the country’s economic development, and that Mr. Khrushchev had befriended President Nasser with whom Mr. Nehru had already established close personal ties, a new factor came into play with the steady deterioration in Sino-Indian relations in the wake of the revolt in Lhasa in March 1959; the flight of the Dalai Lama and thousands of other Tibetans into this country and the repudiation by Mr. Chou En-lai of what Mr. Nehru believed to be a clear commitment on the part of the former to accept the McMahon line as the frontier between India and China.
Thus as far as India is concerned, its perception of the threat from Pakistan merged with that of the new danger from China. In neither case did New Delhi look to and depend on Moscow for military assistance. But it needed political support from the Soviet Union to offset the US and western pressure on Pakistan’s behalf regarding Kashmir, and it required the Kremlin’s neutrality in order to be able to cope with the problem arising out of the border dispute with China. Moscow, on its part, did not wholly trust the Chinese despite the common ideology – differences between them had begun to surface in 1956 – and it needed India’s general support in its bid to weaken western influence in the critically important region of West Asia.
Dimension
The Indo-Soviet relationship acquired a new dimension in 1962 when Moscow first agreed to sell New Delhi a MIG-21 squadron and then openly came down on its side in the Sino-Indian border conflict. These were significant developments on any reckoning. For, it was the first time that the Kremlin openly sided with a non-communist country against a communist nation and the MIG deal marked the beginning of a process whereby the Soviet Union became India’s principal supplier of sophisticated weapons.
The period between the Chinese attack on India in October-November 1962 and the Indo-Pakistan war in December 1971 covers almost a whole decade and witnessed several significant developments, the most significant among them being the establishment of the Aid India consortium under the auspices of the World Bank, the final US rejection of India’s request for sophisticated military hardware in 1964, New Delhi’s decision to turn to Moscow for comparable supplies, the Indo-Pakistan war in September 1965 resulting in the defeat of Islamabad’s plan to seize Kashmir by force, the US embargo on military supplies to Pakistan and India, the successful mediation by Mr. Kosygin resulting in the Tashkent accord in January 1966, the Soviet move to cultivate Islamabad by supplying military hardware to it as well, massive US grain supplies to India in 1966 and 1967, the unleashing of brutal suppression by the Pakistan army in what is now Bangladesh in March 1971, leading to the flight of nearly 10 million destitute refugees into this country and the Indo-Soviet treaty of August 9, 1971.
The remarkable thing about this period is that despite the very substantial US and western assistance to India, on the one hand, and the Soviet supply of a limited amount of military hardware to Pakistan, on the other, Indo-Soviet relations continued to prosper. But there can also be no question that December 1971 marked the end of a phase in Indo-Soviet ties as well.
This point is easily grasped if two points are appreciated. First, with the break-up of Pakistan ended the security threat to India which began with the US decision to arm the former in 1954 and which was aggravated after 1959 when Islamabad and Peking began to function as virtual allies against this country. Since after 1962 the Chinese, too, depended on Pakistan to harass India, the war in December 1971 settled that aspect of the security problem as well. China’s willingness to reciprocate the Indian initiative in sending a full-fledged ambassador to Peking is at least partly an acknowledgement of this new reality. It has, of course, made anti-India noises as on the issue of Sikkim’s merger with the union and it has been steadfast in its support for Pakistan. But the general drift of its policy has evidently been different. Unlike before, it has favoured normal relations between New Delhi and Islamabad and possibly advised Mr. Bhutto accordingly.
Secondly, by 1971 the United States was committed not only to withdraw from Indo-China but also to befriend Peking and thereby terminate the policy of “containing” China and dominating Asia that began with the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950. Thus whatever other irritations, one major cause of Indo-US misunderstanding ended around the same time as the security threats to this country substantially decreased.
Friendship
India and the Soviet Union have inevitably concluded that in future their friendship will depend primarily on the magnitude and depth of their economic co-operation. This awareness was reflected in their discussions at the time of Mr. Brezhnev’s visit to New Delhi in November 1973 and it has been reflected in talks during Mrs. Gandhi’s trip to Moscow last week.
This is neither to say that this is a new realisation – Indo-Soviet friendship in fact began with Mr. Khrushchev’s offer to build the Bhilai steel plant in 1955 – nor to suggest that the fact of agreement on wider issues like opposition to foreign bases in the Indian Ocean has lost its importance. But India’s preoccupations are largely domestic today and if its relations with China and Pakistan become normal as New Delhi hopefully expects, it will wish to concentrate on its internal problems whose solution depends above all on rapid economic growth. As such it will expect the Kremlin to measure up to its expectations on the twin question of the quantum and terms of assistance and related issues like the volume of trade and transfer of technology.
The Times of India, 16 June 1976