PM Modi’s 2-day visit to Moscow at the invitation of Russian President Putin to attend the 22nd India-Russia Annual Summit has been drawing a lot of “concerns” and statements from Western nations who have been claiming for over 2 years that Russia has been ‘isolated’ and everyone in the world should shun anything Russian.
India has steadfastly refused to bow down to Western demand and has continued its time-tested bilateral ties with Russia, expertly navigating the tight geopolitical rope of diplomacy in a multipolar world. However, the Western nations and their ‘experts’, including politicians and commentators, used to the centuries of the colonial mindset that expects the Global South to follow their orders, are still reeling from the invisible blow.
That a country can have its own independent foreign policy and foreign policy is not about just obeying orders from NATO or the White House, is apparently still news to many.
British broadcaster Piers Morgan reacted to the news of PM Modi receiving the Order of St Andrew, Russia’s highest civilian honour, saying, “Shame on you, Narendra Modi”, followed by thumbs-down signs. Notably, the award was bestowed on PM Modi in the year 2019, but he received it physically during the recent visit.
Shame on you @narendramodi 👎👎👎 https://t.co/jGgFgTSPZf
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) July 10, 2024
The British broadcaster, curiously, does not feel ashamed at his own country still importing billions of dollars worth of natural gas from Russia while pretending to impose sanctions on it.
A recent article in Skynews revealed that Europe has paid Russia over 10 billion dollars so far for Liquefied Natural Gas or LNG. Though the Nordstream pipelines somehow mysteriously blew up, minimising the flow of pipeline gas from Russia to Europe, the LNG tankers cruising from Russian ports to European terminals never stopped. Not just that, one of the largest LNG tankers that carry the Russian gas, the Yakov Gakkel, is even owned by a British company.
So basically, while shaming and whining and coping when any world leader talks to Putin, the Western nations have themselves preserved their self-interests quite smoothly, and have been paying billions to the same “war machine” they claim India should break ties with.
Morgan here is not alone in sharing the hollow virtue signaling. The cope is apparently widespread among US intellectuals.
US-based foreign affairs columnist and professor Derek Grossman hasn’t stopped expressing his sadness and profound disappointment at the Indian PM meeting the leader of one of India’s most trusted allies. For some strange reason, he has been expecting India to abandon its own national interests, jeopardise its energy security and military needs, and join the Western bandwagon of blind sanctions against Russia.
The US government has also acknowledged that they have ‘concerns’ with India’s ties with Russia but added that they continue to regard India as a strategic partner. The US and the West in general, through unofficial voices, their media narrative, and statements, have been trying a lot to nudge India away from Russia, at least join in symbolically in the form of condemning statements and criticism against Russia. But the Indian government channels have been avoiding this trap. Indian ministers, EAM Jaishankar, FM Sitharaman, and Petroleum minister Puri have time and again reminded Western media that India won’t do hollow virtue signaling at the cost of its national and strategic interests.
In December 2023, EAM Jaishankar stated, “India-Russia relations are the only constant in global politics. There is a high degree of trust.”
The world has been multipolar for a long time now, it is only the colonial mindset of the Western powers that refuse to see it. A cartoon in the Chinese government mouthpiece Global Times on PM Modi’s Russia visit captured the essence of the American, rather the West’s myopic expectations and behaviour.
The hypocrisy of the West’s virtue signaling to India over ties with Russia
Throughout their blame games and attempts to shame, European nations had continued to pay Russia billions of dollars for energy imports. While expecting Asian powers like India, Saudi Arabia, and China to cut down their ties with Russia, they have been keen on saving their own energy interests. They have also been supplying weapons to Ukraine, basically fuelling the war from both sides. The age of Western hegemony over nations is over. The multipolar world is here to stay and no matter how much shaming and condemning the Western ‘experts’ do, rising global powers will pursue their foreign policy independently, not as per orders from the White House.
