There are diplomatic greetings, and then there are political statements dressed up as greetings. Narendra Modi’s warm, almost celebratory welcome to Vladimir Putin in India falls squarely into the latter category. It was not merely a bilateral meeting, nor a harmless courtesy between two world leaders. It was a pointed message, one that underscored how profoundly the West has miscalculated its ability to isolate Russia, and how confidently India now navigates a world where old alliances matter less than strategic advantage.
For all the talk in Western capitals about turning Russia into a pariah after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the images from Delhi told a starkly different story. Here was Putin, smiling and unembarrassed, strolling beside Modi like a man who had not been sanctioned, denounced, or economically strangled by half the world. And here was Modi, offering not neutrality but visible warmth an embrace that was less about friendship and more about strategic signalling.
This scene did not emerge overnight. It has been building for two years, fueled by one of the great geopolitical paradoxes of our time: sanctions intended to cripple Russia ended up recalibrating global energy flows in ways that strengthened Moscow’s hand, and India wasted no time capitalising on the opportunity. As Europe recoiled from Russian oil, India bought record amounts of it, cheap, abundant, and too economically irresistible to refuse. What began as a transactional bargain transformed into an indispensable lifeline for Russia’s war-strained economy. Today, Russia is India’s largest oil supplier, and that alone gives Moscow leverage the West underestimated.
But the deeper question, the one that Modi’s warm welcome forces us to confront is what India wants from this relationship, and how far Modi is willing to go to forge a partnership with Putin that is neither temporary nor superficial.
India likes to present itself as a champion of multipolarity, a nation that rejects the notion of falling neatly into any geopolitical category. Not Western-aligned, not Eastern-dependent, but instead proudly sovereign, charting its own course. In practice, however, Modi’s approach has tilted closer to a strategic embrace of strongman diplomacy. He sees value in Putin not just as an energy supplier, but as a counterweight to Western pressure, a partner in defence procurement, and a symbol of defiance against what he perceives as global “double standards.” In this context, Modi’s welcome to Putin becomes more than optics, it becomes ideology.
It is also deeply personal. Both leaders share a preference for centralised power, a command-and-control style of governance, and a suspicion of liberal critics who question their democratic credentials. They are, in many ways, leaders shaped by parallel instincts, even if their political systems differ. This makes cooperation easier, smoother, and less entangled in the moral considerations that often complicate Western alliances.
The West, on the other hand, finds itself stuck in a contradictory position. It wants India as a democratic partner and counterbalance to China, yet it recoils from Modi’s openness with Putin. It expects India to condemn Russia’s invasion, yet continues to court New Delhi for economic and strategic reasons. India, aware of this imbalance, uses it to extract maximum advantage while giving little away. Modi understands that the West needs India more than India needs the West and Putin understands this too.
But perhaps the most significant, and troubling, question is what the growing closeness between Modi and Putin means for global power dynamics. Two leaders with an affinity for authoritarian governance, commanding enormous populations and vast strategic resources, are edging closer in a moment when global power is fragmenting. That is not an alliance to take lightly.
How far could this go? Modi will not sign away India’s independence, nor will he jeopardize its ties with the United States, his government is far too pragmatic for that. But he may very well offer Putin more diplomatic cover, more economic cooperation, and more symbolic validation than any Western strategist predicted. And each time he does, it chips away at the ideological narrative Western governments constructed about Russia’s supposed “isolation.”
Putin is not isolated. He is adapting. And with partners like India, he is doing far more than surviving, he is stabilizing.
This, ultimately, is the message embedded in Modi’s welcome: the world is no longer shaped by Western condemnation, nor by Western definitions of legitimacy. It is shaped by interest, opportunity and power, three currencies Modi and Putin wield with increasing confidence.
The question the West must now ask is not why Modi welcomed Putin so warmly, but why it believed that he wouldn’t.
No comments:
Post a Comment