Modi’s visit to Ukraine wasn’t just about appeasing Western powers after his Moscow visit. It was also about speaking as a credible voice of the global South, the poor nations that suffer when richer ones fight.
Narendra Modi’s foray into a war zone in the heart of Europe was a bold and risky diplomatic mission. The visit (21-24 August) represented a new posture in Indian diplomacy that went beyond studied neutrality, to pro-active peacemaking in a global conflict. The geopolitical balancing act was important, given that India has strong equities in both the warring camps, the US and Russia. Both these global powers are critical to India’s strategic, security, energy and technology needs. And a multi-pronged engagement with all major powers is central to India’s current foreign policy doctrine. But Modi’s visit went beyond geopolitical balancing, to serve multiple other important objectives. For one, it marked India’s willingness to focus on a region which has remained a low priority for Indian diplomacy: central Europe. Tellingly, it took a European war to push Modi to make this visit to the warzone: the first in 45 years by an Indian PM to Poland and the first ever to independent Ukraine.
Polishing Ties
Modi’s first stop in Poland effectively helped India increase its footprint in central Europe. Modi’s predecessors had encountered a different Poland—a Soviet satellite following Moscow’s lead. When Nehru (1955), Indira (1967), and Morarji (1979) visited, Poland was drawing sustenance from a command economy known for wheat, potatoes, steel and coal. But the country’s transformation began with the ‘Solidarity’ trade union movement, led by Lech Walesa in the 1980s, catalysing the collapse of communism. The Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991 extinguished the Warsaw security pact , as also the Comecon, the communist bloc’s attempt at creating its own EU.
Poland rapidly turned to capitalism and democracy, as it signed up for ‘shock therapy’ reforms, executed a successful privatisation program and demonstrated that it was the miracle economy of Europe, rising from the rubble of the communist empire, just as Germany had risen from the ash heap of the second world war half a century earlier. Poland joined NATO in 1999 and the EU in 2004, emerging as a beacon of New Europe and a major EU fund beneficiary, picking up close to 250 billion euros of support in the last two decades.
While it refused to adopt the euro as its currency, Poland made good use of the EU largesse to modernise its industry and upgrade its infrastructure, morphing into a developed economy with per capita income at 80% of the EU average, a role model for neighbouring Ukraine. Today, Poland is a vocal critic of Putin’s Russia, and a key player in the European Union.
India had much to discuss with Viksit Poland. Mutual investments in food processing, defence, energy and IT figured in Modi’s conversation with Donald Tusk, the former President of the European Council, and current head of Poland’s liberal coalition government.
An emotional connect between the people has remained a legacy of history and provided a feel-good factor in the relationship. Poland still remembers the kindness of the ‘good Maharaja’ of Jamnagar and the ruler of Kohlapur, who gave refuge to over 6000 Polish women and children escaping the ravages of World War II in the 1940s. Contemporary ties are reflected in Poland’s love for yoga, Indian cinema, and its contributions to Indology, with traditions of over a century of translating Indian literature ranging from Kalidasa to contemporary poetry.
In 2022, Poland had helped in the evacuation of a bulk of the 18,000 Indian students caught in the crossfire of the Ukraine war. Modi expressed gratitude for this help. Also, two Polish mountaineers last year plucked out and saved an Indian climber, Anurag Maloo, who had fallen into a crevice in the Himalayas. Poland was perhaps repaying the karmic debt of the acts of generosity of the kind maharajas, and this mutual goodwill informed the public narrative of the exchanges.
With Modi’s visit, the relationship was elevated to a level of ‘strategic’ partnership, a diplomatic nod to the fact that it has been a trouble-free relationship with much positivity and reasonable political, defence and economic convergence of interests. A social security agreement promoting mobility of workers was finalised, and Modi took the opportunity to lay down India’s position on Europe’s latest war: that India would encourage both sides to try dialogue and diplomacy.
Peace a la Kyiv
Poland is more than just the face of New Europe; it is NATO’s eastern frontline, a crucial supply link in Ukraine’s war effort. Poland is referred to at times as the ‘51st state’, given its eager proximity to the US. Hosting over 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees and batting for Ukraine, Poland also served as Modi’s springboard to land in Kyiv to meet President Zelenskyy. Given that the airspace was shut thanks to the war, Modi got into a bullet-proof Polish train, ‘Rail Force One’, to chug for ten hours each way from the Polish trans-Carpathian province of Rzeszow to Kyiv. The trip was reminiscent of another risk for peace: Modi’s goodwill visit to Lahore in 2015, when he ventured into a Pakistani chopper to attend a wedding in the family of then PM Nawaz Sharif.
The meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv was not Modi’s first experience with wartime diplomacy—his visit to Moscow in July took place amidst active conflict. Mercifully, this time around, Modi did not have to improvise his talking points to deal with the horrors of a bombing of a hospital in Kyiv, as he had to when in Moscow.
But this time around, India’s PM had stepped into a conflict zone where the ongoing war had dangerously escalated, with Ukraine having launched a ‘surprise invasion’ of Russia’s Kursk region in the previous fortnight and the Russians moving forward steadily in Ukraine’s Donetsk. There was a clear and present danger of the conflict escalating even in the seven hours the Indian delegation spent in Kyiv. Air raid sirens had gone off the night before their arrival. Both sides in the 30-month war seemed to be busy creating territorial buffers to strengthen their negotiating positions in any future peace talks.
While it was no doubt an objective, Modi’s visit was more than just a geopolitical balancing act to appease Western partners following an engagement with Russia. Despite the chasm in their positions and no love lost between their leaders, both Russia and Ukraine were willing to discuss the conflict with Modi, at a time few other global leaders may enjoy similar trust on both sides. Of course, the UN has been standing aloof as a passive observer, its Security Council paralysed by big power vetoes.
Fresh from hosting a global summit in Delhi, Modi would be seen globally as a credible ‘voice of the Global South,’ emphasizing the deleterious impacts of this conflict on global food, energy and health security. Modi’s proposed ‘global development compact’ in the South, could perhaps now be supplemented by a ‘peace compact’: strong advocacy against wars that rich nations fight, and poor ones suffer.
Realpolitik?
For India, this proactive peace posture was not just soppy moralpolitik from the land of Buddha and Gandhi, but realpolitik, serving multiple pragmatic objectives: creating diplomatic space for India’s multi-vector global engagement, which gives it greater room to engage fruitfully both with the US and Russia; bolstering India’s reputation as a responsible peace-seeking rising power, distinguished from its northern neighbour; mitigating risks of derailment from conflict to its own economic trajectory; and strengthening its leadership of the Global South, by acting as their voice.
It is also important for Indian diplomacy not to remain boxed in by the multiple woes of South Asia, but to have a global vision and to be able to defend its wider interests. Domestic critics would continuously point to the need to prioritise domestic challenges or those emanating in India’s neighbourhood- from China, Pakistan or Bangladesh. But India’s diplomacy, that of an aspiring major power, should now have the expanded bandwidth to deal with local, regional and global issues, all at the same time. Modi was not just checking the box but taking his mission seriously. He was accompanied by his top foreign policy and security team, including the external affairs minister, national security advisor and foreign secretary.
Both sides, Modi counselled in Kyiv, would need to sit together and look for ways out of this crisis. He assured Ukraine that he personally, ‘as a friend’, and India would be ready to play an ‘active role in any attempt to move towards peace’. The two sides even worked out an India- Ukraine joint statement. This was surprising, given the vast gulf in their views on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Zelenskyy may have railed against Putin in private, but he saved his public diatribe against Russia’s leader for a post-visit press conference, where he accused Putin of bad faith and worse. India did underline its commitment to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, important for India given the historical and recent territorial incursions by traditional rivals China and Pakistan. Underlining these principles, while at the same time not joining western sanctions or condemning Russia’s war, has been a consistent position for India over the last decade, at least since Russia seized Crimea in 2014.
In the statement of 23 August, India also ‘reiterated the need for sincere and practical engagement between all stakeholders to develop innovative solutions that will have broad acceptability and contribute towards early restoration of peace’. This essentially implied that in India’s view, no peace process could be meaningful without having Russia on the table, unlike in the Swiss – Ukrainian ‘peace summit’ in the Swiss town of Burgenstock, where India participated at the official level but did not sign off on the summit communique.
India sensibly did not pull out a ‘peace plan’ for Ukraine, like those proposed by Switzerland, China, or Turkiye. But the signal was clear: that India would be willing to play any peace-making role the warring parties may ask it to. For the moment, India has provided a reasoned prod to Zelenskyy towards dialogue, while recognizing that the war could escalate before it concludes. India has also hinted at humanitarian aid to Ukraine and support for its post-war reconstruction. India’s move to engage with Ukraine was likely discussed in advance with Russia and other key stakeholders in the US and Europe.
Three key takeaways can be drawn from this episode of India’s diplomacy in Europe. One, India has adopted a more proactive and less risk-averse posture of peace diplomacy that goes beyond classical neutrality, signalling willingness to get involved in active peace-making. It is perhaps for the first time an Indian PM has visited an active warzone in a foreign war. Modi has given this approach a branding, suggesting that India was never neutral, but was taking the side of peace.
Two, India has already initiated that peace-making, apprising both warring parties of each other’s concerns. Zelenskyy would have been briefed privately on Modi’s July conversation on the war with Putin. Equally, the Russians will no doubt get a detailed readout of Modi’s exchange with Zelenskyy. This itself can be a confidence building measure in a war situation. India would have enough time to develop proposals for a peace process, if it comes to that.
Three, some time in the happier future, India could conceivably provide a neutral platform for a peace dialogue to all stakeholders. In other words, India could host a global peace summit for this war. The timing would be hard to predict; the endgame of the conflict may have to await the US elections in November. A Trump presidency on current reckoning could hasten the war’s end even more. But regardless of a Trump or Harris White House, India is now firmly a key stakeholder in the peace process.
An anxious world would hope that the Ukraine conflict does not trigger another world war in Europe, or worse, a nuclear conflagration. If it heads instead to resolution, it remains unclear whether the endgame in Ukraine will come as a ceasefire within a year, a ‘frozen’ conflict for years, or a negotiated peace settlement. While India has consistently encouraged diplomacy to resolve conflict, some domestic critics argue that stepping into war zones with angry belligerents is too risky and that India should not have succumbed to western pressure to send Modi through a ‘loyalty test’. But the geopolitical tightrope will be even tougher to walk as the conflict deepens. The longer the war rages, the harder it would be for India not to annoy either side: Modi’s hug of Putin faced flak in some quarters just as his embrace of Zelenskyy will in others.
History also suggests that failure is never a black mark for the peacemaker, the conflict resolution journey is littered with challenges and futile attempts. If India’s friendly nudge for diplomacy enters the calculations of Europe’s warring leaders, the risk for peace would have been worth it.
(An earlier version of this commentary was published in the Times of India on 22 August as ‘Peace a la Kyiv’.)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ajay Bisaria is a corporate strategic advisor and Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, was India’s ambassador in Poland, Pakistan and Canada.
