[Putin & Modi]

Sometimes developments come to such a pass and a situation emerges that, one senses, teeters on a consquential turn of events. The Russian President Vladimir Putin’s December 4-5 visit for the 23rd India-Russia Summit is one such event. In many ways, it is a make or break situation for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign policy. To its great demerit it early discarded his “India First” dictum, latching on, curiously, to Donald J Trump’s “America First” edicts, based on a complete and thorough misreading of the US President and American policy generally. It put a dunce’s cap on 30 years of Indian policy that espied premium and profit in edging closer to the US — a move begun by PV Narasimha Rao in the mid-1990s, and recommended by just about any and everybody prominent in the public opinion space at the time and since.

Among the policy influencers giving the lead was the late K. Subrahmanyam, ex-IAS, who held a special place in the Indian establishment, not least because he was virtually the institutional memory on national security matters whom, political leaders across the board, heeded. Unmoored from a Soviet Union that was falling apart by the hour, it was perhaps understandable that KS and others believed, as Narasimha Rao did, that India should close-in with America in the hope that doing so would benefit the country, help it to take giant economic and technological strides in the manner China did when assisted by the US.

The difference is China had Dengxiaoping India, unfortunately, had no comparable leadership. Modi promised much and delivered some, but consider how much more the country would have gained from a genuine unshackling of the private sector.

If the Nixon-Kissinger US policy raised China’s stock to an extent that it now rivals America, power-wise, this outcome has made Washington wary of repeating the same mistake with India. India will simply not be allowed to unilaterally mine the US for technology — one of the Modi government’s main reasons for intimate relations, nor will its exports enjoy the kind of sustained economic penetration Chinese industry was permitted. And almost every meaningful transaction will come with strings attached.

Thus, India was originally promised a total transfer of technology for the GE 404IN20 jet engine technology by Trump in his first term. He reversed it soon thereafter to Delhi’s chagrin, with the US President insisting Delhi buy these power plants. The demand is relatively huge — engines for as many as 352 Tejas light combat aircraft to be inducted into the Indian Air Force. In a 2021 deal, India contracted to pay $716 million for 99 engines. Only TWO engines were delivered as of September 2025! Undeterred, HAL signed a still bigger $1 billion deal for 113 jet engines. We can expect that the supply will be strung out and the Tejas bulk production delayed sporadically and in a manner to disrupt the smooth and steady induction into IAF and to periodically bring Delhi to its knees, as a means of extracting some concession or the other. In short, the Modi regime has made the success of the Tejas programme and IAF’s effectiveness hostage to passing American foreign policy interests.

In his second term, Trump has been especially harsh on Modi, believing that the Indian PM’s unwillingness to publicly acknowledge his fake role in ending Sindoor, cost him the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump’s bitterness led to his latest outburst a couple days back when he not only repeated his claim that it was the Indian PM who pleaded with him to restore peace with Pakistan, but — something new — that he had to threaten 350% tariffs on both countries to bring the military clash to a close!

Trump’s personal vendetta resulted in the imposition of 50% tariffs on Indian trade. And his threat to sanction Indian companies for importing Russian energy was activated just when he gave Kyiv a November 27 deadline to fall in line with his peace solution for Ukraine, or face an immediate cutoff of military aid and intelligence assistance! The timings of these two developments indicate that Russian energy imports by India was only an excuse for threatening US sanctions and increased tariffs — a punitive policy Trump had decided way back that Delhi would be subjected to no matter what, just so Modi was shown his place!

Except, Trump’s peace deal involves UKR President Volodymyr Zelensky agreeing to surrender all of the eastern region of Donbas to Russia that the two states have been bloodily fighting over for the past three years, and for Ukraine not to join NATO or even have an army! It is a warning to allies and partners alike that it is perilous for any country to have the US for an ally or partner, or rely on America for anything, least of all national security.

Yet, here was Defence Minister Rajnath Singh flying to Honolulu to sign on Oct 31 a 10-year framework for India-US defence partnership! Even as in the previous week, petroleum minister Hardip Puri, signed an accord for annual import of 2.2 million tonnes of liquified natural gas, declaring that this deal had nothing whatsoever to do with the Free Trade Agreement being negotiated, or the threat of US sanctions. The government agencies and private companies meanwhile moved to shutdown the Russian energy import channels! And the FTA negotiators from the commerce ministry too prepared to cede ground by incorporating provisions in it already offered the UK, EU, etc of opening Indian government procurement to international bidders, and to not require foreign tech companies to part with source codes or anything else that might remotely help India’s self-sufficiency drive in the military technology sector! And Delhi is on the point of surrendering the country’s digital sovereignty. The Modi government then showed just how much Trump means to his diplomacy, by having a rethink about the next G20 Summit just because Trump declined to attend it!

With Trump intentionally insulting and humiliating Modi any time a TV camera is near by, and his Administration missing no opportunity to hurt India’s economic and security interests, Modi and his government’s response has been startlingly submissive. There is so much holding back and ingratiating behaviour by the PM, his minions, and the Indian government, it is unbearable! It is as if Washington has done India no wrong, and even if it has, that it doesn’t really matter! It is an attitude that ulimately reflects on the country. To be so taken for granted reveals just what Trump thinks of India under Modi — not all that different, it appears, from how he perceives a pliant Pakistan under his favourite “Field Marshal”, Asim Munir!

If after 5 years of dealing with a wayward and impulsive Trump, who’s proved himself a consummate bully who will kick you in the nuts if you bend, Delhi keeps bending. May be even at this late date, Modi and Jaishankar and the rest of them could learn from Mira Nair’s spawn and New York city’s mayor-elect, Zoran Mamdani’s meeting in the White House with Trump. He won the elections in the face of Trump doing everything he could to defeat him. He held his own, talked back, and won praise from the US President, and had political analysts announce something known to all, except our MEA and Indian government, that Trump respects “strength and winners”. But, Modi and India are seen by Washington as neither strong nor as winners and is, perhaps, why the US President thinks that India can be reined in and jerked around at will to suit America’s purpose. Delhi to-date has, by its compliant posture and policies, only confirmed Trump-Washington’s view.

Why hasn’t Modi built on the political-economic understanding with Brazil and South Africa, by coupling the military cooperation aspects of IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa) which periodically has its navies in the southern oceans, stressing this unique “three continents” initiative in military-security terms? And why doesn’t he talk to Putin about joining IBSA which group I have elsewhere advocated as BRIS — BRICS minus China, which would seminally serve India’s security interests at the expense of China’s? Delhi has to begin seeing its external relations in their military aspects, and stop leaning on the US whose attitude is “what can you do for me?”, not what we can do together.

It is in this situation that Putin visits Delhi. Russia’s biggest concern is not NATO or Europe, but how to keep America and China at bay. India is Moscow’s high card, and Kremlin is leaving nothing to chance. Russian commentaries suggest Moscow is a bit shaken by Modi regime uncharacteristically wagging its tail around Trump, even as he kicks India around. Putin thinks that this is the time to draw India closer, and decided to restore the relationship by pulling out all the stops. The Russians are offering a genuine 5th-gen Su-57 stealth twin-engined Su-57 — the US F-35 equivalent — with absolute complete technology transfer — no ifs and buts, including the jet engine, AESA radar, and the weapons load at around @$60 million — about $10 million more than what an off-the-shelf buy’d cost. It’d be a far more economical bridge to an era of unmanned aerial warfare.

Indians, who have been under the impression that Russian combat aircraft and other military hardware are not the equal of the Western items, must take publicity campaigns and advertisements a little too seriously. In metallurgy and rugged construction Russia excels; the difference in electronics/avionics is “athara-bees” (18-20) — in operational terms this slight gap means nothing. The real difference as I have stated repeatedly are innumerable pleasure trips for everyone in the procurement loop to Paris and Istress versus those to Moscow and Irkutsk (the main Sukhoi factory site)!

The Russian terms compelled Dassault to up its game for 114 Rafale as MFA (medium fighter aircraft) in addition to the 36 already contracted for, and to propose its production in India to supply the supposed overflow of international demand unmet by its French manufacturing units. But, it is a transaction that involves transfer of only 60% of the technologies!!

Dassault has made clear it will not budge from its position of “No source codes” for the aircraft — so it is just the usual assembly-screwdrivering deal from imported Semi-Kocked Down/Completely Knocked Down kits — HAL’s specialty. And Paris’s attitude was reflected in Dassault’s rather angry response to the German company Thyssen-Krupp Marine’s willingness to onpass the diesel HDW 214 submarine technology, including source codes, to India for the navy’s Project 75i. Because source codes means affording India not just the ‘know how’ but also the ‘know why’, and Paris was mad as hell that Berlin was giving away the store. It is the sort of development by a fellow West European arms supplier France would do its damndest to dissuade, deter and prevent.

With Dassault and France treating India with such disdain, the real question is why does Modi’s Delhi and the IAF show the Frenchies so much respect — getting slapped in the face only to have the Indian government turn around and want more of the same? It is as if official India sees no other source for military products!

Then again, if not India, which sucker, would keep buying over-rated, over-priced military goods? Ah, yes, I forget — we have oodles of dollars, we are a trillion $ economy!!

In this respect, see how the US government and Western arms suppliers quickly rose up as one to charge China with waging a public opinion campaign to bad-talk Rafale and try and push its own JC-10 post-Sindoor. When the Rafale is, if not a bonafide dud, it is near enough to one in that it nowhere delivers the promised performance. Its supposedly fantastical Spectra avionics suite at the heart of the machine, was a manifest disaster. It failed to pick up, as was revealed in my first post at the time of Sindoor, not just the Pakistan Air Force JC-10, the Chinese PL-15E air-to-air missile it fired from a safe standoff range deep withing Pakistan, but also the Saab 2000 Erieye airborne early warning and control system loitering and cueing the PAF aircraft and missiles to Indian aircraft that were then targeted. So, when the Indian Rafale was brought down over Bhatinda, its pilot had no idea who downed his aircraft, and how.

In the charged milieu of contested narratives, the Tejas 1A’s going down at the Dubai Air Show will provide fodder for the very strong foreign lobby in the IAF — which has always made a monkey out of the Indian government and the country, and will use this incident to push the acquisition of more Rafale. At a stroke, it will kill the Tejas programme and its successor AMCA project as retired Air Marshals publicly canvas for this aircraft even as those serving whisper into ever-receptive ears that Tejas is desi maal, nothing as good as the French stuff, and push for the “safer” Rafale aircraft!

The unpalatable truth is this: It was again a hot-doggin’ pilot who was at fault. Abhinandan in a MiG-21 picked a fight with a Paki F-16 and got shot down over Pakistani territory, begetting us the military-diplomatic embarrassment in February 2019. In Dubai, the Tejas pilot, Wing Commander Namansh Syal — trying to show off to a captive audience, over-estimated his own aerobatic-combat flying skills and competence and, as likely happened, in his downward roll, got disoriented — which happens to the best of fliers, and came too close to the ground to pull up safely — it was NOT loss of power! It is a clear enough case of “controlled flight into terrain”. The machine — the Tejas LCA — is NOT at all to blame. One hopes the court of inquiry investigating this mishap will come to this obvious conclusion. The record of such in-Service inquiries in the past, however, does not inspire confidence that it will do other than blame the machine rather than own up to pilot error, and put the Tejas programme in danger.

The Modi government — defence Minister Rajnath Singh ji, please ensure that this accident is not used as an excuse by the IAF to sideline the Tejas 1A, 2, and AMCA in any way — as the service may be inclined to do and as, in fact, it has done in the past. The Dr Raj Mahindra-designed HF-71/72 — successor to the Marut HF-24, was run right off the drawing board and into the trash bin in the 1970s by the IAF brass, just so the Jaguar — an Anglo-French plane could be purchased — a decision that sank the budding indigenous aerospace industry like a stone. Ironically, the Jaguar was far less steady in low level flight than the HF-24 it replaced. Indeed, in a straight contest the HF-72 would have beaten the Jaguar hands down.

More Rafales in the fleet is a bad option and should be ditched along with the ridiculous deal for producing the 1970s vintage M-88 jet engine that only a brain-addled combo of HAL-DRDO-IAF-Defence Ministry could have preferred over the Kaveri jet engine project that the private sector tandem of L&T and Godrej Aerospace had offered to takeover — which was negatived. This is how local defence industry gets (dis)incentivised by Modi’s atmnirbharta policy.

In any case, more Rafales would be disastrously wrong for two main reasons that the Modi government better ponder seriously. Firstly, because Rafale is only a 4.5 gen combat aircraft, just like the Tejas, when what the Russians are offering is a fully 5th-generation Su-57 and, as a 2-for-1 deal, also the single-engined Su-75. The two-seat configuration that IAF insisted on for the Su-57 (then labelled T-50) when the proposal for collaboration to jointly produce this aircraft was first mooted 15-20 years ago, is what is available to the IAF. And secondly, turning down this offer would signal Moscow that India is not interested in getting close to Russia or in retaining its “strategically autonomous role” in world politics, and that it will bandwagon with America — a proven high-technology Scrooge, whatever the cost. The occasional buys of S-400s and such, won’t convince Putin otherwise. India will then face the music of being frozen by Washington into a third rate power bereft of choices and without the latitude to stand up for itself, and being played by the US. This is what Trump has done to all of America’s allies of long standing — and Delhi wants to join this disillusioned crowd?

In contrast, the Russians assisted us in the most sensitive technology programme — the nuclear-powered ballistic missile firing submarine, and has never quailed from handing over the latest, most advanced tech, while the US makes a song and dance about parting with even 1970s technology, and cannot be expected to do any better in the future. Washington, for instance, is rethinking giving Australian Navy its Virginia class nuclear powered attack submarines. Australia! — part of AUKUS (Australia-UK-US), a revived Anglosaxon confederacy! In 1971, the Soviet Union offered the Tu-22 Backfire longrange high altitude strategic bomber the IAF led by PC Lal and the Government by Indira Gandhi lacking strategic sense, rejected. Now there are people in high places convincing themselves and Modi that Trump and his successors in office can be relied on to hand over remotely first-rate tech. What foolishness is this?!

The IAF Chief of Staff, Air Chief Marshal Aman Preet Singh is personally in a difficult spot, for another reason. He is reportedly in the running along with the more dyed-in-saffron army chief, General Upendra Dwivedi, to replace General Anil Chauhan as Chief of Defence Staff next year, with an additional 3 years of service tagged on. One false step, or a decision that is seen as going awry, will tank his chances. And the potential false step/flawed decision may pertain to the Su-57 or Rafale issue.