India Table of Contents

Despite the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the relationship between India and Russia
remains one of considerable importance to both countries. Since the early 1950s, New Delhi and
Moscow had built friendly relations on the basis of realpolitik. India's nonalignment enabled it to
accept Soviet support in areas of strategic congruence, as in disputes with Pakistan and China,
without subscribing to Soviet global policies or proposals for Asian collective security. Close
and cooperative ties were forged in particular in the sectors of Indian industrial development and
defense production and purchases. But the relationship was circumscribed by wide differences in
domestic and social systems and the absence of substantial people-to-people contact--in contrast
to India's relations with the United States (see United States, this ch.).
Ties between India and the Soviet Union initially were distant. Nehru had expressed admiration
for the Soviet Union's rapid economic transformation, but the Soviet Union regarded India as a
"tool of Anglo-American imperialism." After Josef Stalin's death in 1953, the Soviet Union
expressed its hopes for "friendly cooperation" with India. This aim was prompted by the Soviet
decision to broaden its international contacts and to cultivate the nonaligned and newly
independent countries of Asia and Africa. Nehru's state visit to the Soviet Union in June 1955
was the first of its kind for an Indian prime minister. It was followed by the trip of Premier
Nikolai Bulganin and General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev to India in November and December
1955. The Soviet leaders endorsed the entire range of Indian foreign policy based on the Panch
Shila and supported India's position against Pakistan on Kashmir. The Soviet Union also
supported India's position vis--vis Portugal on Goa, which was territorially integrated into India
as a union territory by the Indian armed forces in December 1961 (it became a state in May
1987).
The Soviet Union and some East European countries offered India new avenues of trade and
economic assistance. By 1965 the Soviet Union was the second largest national contributor to
India's development. These new arrangements contributed to India's emergence as a significant
industrial power through the construction of plants to produce steel, heavy machinery and
equipment, machine tools, and precision instruments, and to generate power and extract and
refine petroleum. Soviet investment was in India's public-sector industry, which the World Bank
(see Glossary) and Western industrial powers had been unwilling to assist until spurred by Soviet
competition. Soviet aid was extended on the basis of long-term, government-to-government
programs, which covered successive phases of technical training for Indians, supply of raw
materials, progressive use of Indian inputs, and markets for finished products. Bilateral
arrangements were made in nonconvertible national currencies, helping to conserve India's
scarce foreign exchange. Thus the Soviet contribution to Indian economic development was
generally regarded by foreign and domestic observers as positive (see Foreign Economic
Relations, ch. 6).
Nehru obtained a Soviet commitment to neutrality on the India-China border dispute and war of
1962. During the India-Pakistan war of 1965, the Soviet Union acted with the United States in
the UN Security Council to bring about a cease-fire. Soviet premier Aleksei N. Kosygin went
further by offering his good offices for a negotiated settlement, which took place at Tashkent on
January 10, 1966. Until 1969 the Soviet Union took an evenhanded position in South Asia and
supplied a limited quantity of arms to Pakistan in 1968. From 1959 India had accepted Soviet
offers of military sales. Indian acquisition of Soviet military equipment was important because
purchases were made against deferred rupee payments, a major concession to India's chronic
shortage of foreign exchange. Simultaneous provisions were made for licensed manufacture and
modification in India, one criterion of self-reliant defense on which India placed increasing
emphasis. In addition, Soviet sales were made without any demands for restricted deployment,
adjustments in Indian policies toward other countries, adherence to Soviet global policies, or
acceptance of Soviet military advisers. In this way, Indian national autonomy was not
compromised.
The most intimate phase in relations between India and the Soviet Union was the period between
1971 and 1976: its highlight was the twenty-year Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation
of August 1971. Articles 8, 9, and 10 of the treaty committed the parties "to abstain from
providing any assistance to any third party that engages in armed conflict with the other" and "in
the event of either party being subjected to an attack or threat thereof . . . to immediately enter
into mutual consultations." India benefited at the time because the Soviet Union came to support
the Indian position on Bangladesh and because the treaty acted as a deterrent to China. New
Delhi also received accelerated shipments of Soviet military equipment in the last quarter of
1971. The first state visit of Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev to India in November 1973 was
conducted with tremendous fanfare and stressed the theme of economic cooperation. By the late
1970s, the Soviet Union was India's largest trading partner.
The friendship treaty notwithstanding, Indira Gandhi did not alter important principles of Indian
foreign policy. She made it clear that the Soviet Union would not receive any special privileges--
much less naval base rights--in Indian ports, despite the major Soviet contribution to the
construction of shipbuilding and ship-repair facilities at Bombay on the west coast and at
Vishakhapatnam on the east coast. India's advocacy of the Indian Ocean as a zone of peace was
directed against aggrandizement of the Soviet naval presence as much as that of other
extraregional powers. By repeatedly emphasizing the nonexclusive nature of its friendship with
the Soviet Union, India kept open the way for normalizing relations with China and improving
ties with the West.
After the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, Indian diplomats avoided condemnatory language
and resolutions as useless Cold War exercises that could only antagonize the Soviet Union and
postpone political settlement. They called instead for withdrawal of all foreign troops and
negotiation among concerned parties. In meetings with Soviet leaders in New Delhi in 1980 and
in Moscow in 1982, Indira Gandhi privately pressed harder for the withdrawal of Soviet troops
and for the restoration of Afghanistan's traditional nonalignment and independence.
Rajiv Gandhi journeyed to the Soviet Union in 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1989, and Soviet president
Mikhail S. Gorbachev traveled to India in 1986 and 1988. These visits and those of other high
officials evoked effusive references to the "exemplary" (in Gorbachev's term) friendship between
the two countries and also achieved the conclusion of agreements to expand economic, cultural,
and scientific and technological cooperation. In 1985 and 1986, and again in 1988, both nations
signed pacts to boost bilateral trade and provide Soviet investment and technical assistance for
Indian industrial, telecommunications, and transportation projects. In 1985 and 1988, the Soviet
Union also extended to India credits of 1 billion rubles and 3 billion rubles, respectively (a total
of about US$2.4 billion), for the purchase of Soviet machinery and goods. Protocols for
scientific cooperation, signed in 1985 and 1987, provided the framework for joint research and
projects in space science and such high-technology areas as biotechnology, computers, and
lasers. The flow of advanced Soviet military equipment also continued in the mid- and late 1980s
(see The Air Force, ch. 10).
When the Soviet Union disintegrated, India was faced with the difficult task of reorienting its
external affairs and forging relations with the fifteen Soviet successor states, of which Russia
was the most important (see Central Asia, this ch.). In 1993 New Delhi and Moscow worked to
redefine their relationship according to post-Cold War realities. During the January 1993 visit of
Russian president Boris Yeltsin to India, the two countries signed agreements that signaled a new
emphasis on economic cooperation in bilateral relations. The 1971 treaty was replaced with the
new Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, which dropped security clauses that in the Cold War
were directed against the United States and China. Yeltsin stated that Russia would deliver
cryogenic engines and space technology for India's space program under a US$350 million deal
between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Russian space agency,
Glavkosmos, despite the imposition of sanctions on both organizations by the United States. In
addition, Yeltsin expressed strong support for India's stand on Kashmir. A defense cooperation
accord aimed at ensuring the continued supply of Russian arms and spare parts to satisfy the
requirements of India's military and at promoting the joint production of defense equipment.
Bilateral trade, which had fallen drastically during the 1990-92 period, was expected to revive
following the resolution of the dispute over New Delhi's debt to Moscow and the May 1992
decision to abandon the 1978 rupee-ruble trade agreement in favor of the use of hard currency.
Pressure from the United States, which believed the engines and technology could be diverted to
ballistic missile development, led the Russians to cancel most of the deal in July 1993. Russia
did, however, supply rockets to help India to develop the technology to launch geostationary
satellites, and, with cryogenic engine plans already in hand, the ISRO was determined to produce
its own engines by 1997 (see Space and Nuclear Programs, ch. 10).
Despite Yeltsin's call for a realignment of Russia, India, and China to balance the West, Russia
shares interests with the developed countries on nuclear proliferation issues. In November 1991,
Moscow voted for a Pakistani-sponsored UN resolution calling for the establishment of a South
Asian nuclear-free zone. Russia urged India to support the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons and decided in March 1992 to apply "full-scope safeguards" to future nuclear
supply agreements. Russia also shares interests with the United States in cooling antagonisms
between India and Pakistan, particularly with regard to Kashmir, thus making it unlikely that
India could count on Russia in a future dispute with Pakistan.
Rao reciprocated Yeltsin's visit in July 1994. The two leaders signed declarations assuring
international and bilateral goodwill and continuation of Russian arms and military equipment
exports to India. Rao's Moscow visit lacked the controversy that characterized his May 1994 visit
to the United States and was deemed an important success because of the various accords, one of
which restored the sale of cryogenic engines to India.
Bilateral relations between India and Russia improved as a result of eight agreements signed in
December 1994. The agreements cover military and technical cooperation from 1995 to 2000,
merchant shipping, and promotion and mutual protection of investments, trade, and outer space
cooperation. Political observers saw the visit of Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin
that occasioned the signing of the eight agreements as a sign of a return to the earlier course of
warm relations between New Delhi and Moscow. In March 1995, India and Russia signed
agreements aimed at suppressing illegal weapons smuggling and drug trafficking. And when
Russian nationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky visited India in March 1995, he declared that he
would give India large supplies of arms and military hardware if he were elected president of
Russia.
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