If Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had gone to India six months from now instead of March 11 and 12, he could have celebrated the 10th anniversary of his first visit to New Delhi, which he made as Russian president in October 2000.
During that visit, Russia and India signed a declaration of strategic partnership and the so-called Putin-Vajpayee plan, a series of other agreements named after the Russian president and the Indian prime minister at the time. This was the start of a new relationship between the two countries, after total failure in the 1990s.
And now Prime Minister Putin is reaping what President Putin sowed ten years ago. This time around Russia may net $10 billion, for which India will benefit appropriately. The visit will focus primarily on cooperation in nuclear energy, notably the construction of two reactors for the Kudankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu, which will supplement the two previously agreed upon reactors expected to begin operation in 2010. Other Russian nuclear projects include six generators for a nuclear plant in Haripur in West Bengal and, venturing into the realm of the incomprehensible to non-specialists, joint thorium fuel cycle nuclear power projects, a fast-neutron reactor, etc.
Russia and India are also expected to come up with a final price for modernizing the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov and sign other military and civilian contracts for a fifth-generation fighter, a military transport aircraft, and so on.
The two countries have been discussing these joint projects for a long time. In early December 2009, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came to Russia for a meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev, which led to an astonishing Russian-Indian nuclear cooperation agreement that exceeded the expectations of everyone, including those involved in the negotiations.
This visit by Mr. Putin is simply the next step in carrying out these agreements. For example, the Kudankulam contract is expected to be signed in April or May, and agreements on other projects will follow. However, this process takes time and is not always easy. For example, it could be held up by delays on the first two generators at the Kudankulam nuclear plant.
This is the result of a chain of events started by Vladimir Putin and Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2000. And when you consider all that has happened in that time, the current situation is certainly striking. In fact, nothing is small or insignificant when it comes to India. Perhaps the country's cosmic destiny is to open a gate to other worlds, or, in the case of international relations, a new future.
This is what happened to Russia ten years ago. It bought "a ticket to the India of Spirit," as an early 20th century Russian poet wrote when describing his spiritual quest. Thanks to its experience with India, Russia has become aware of its place in the world, even if only economically.
The purpose of the agreements signed by Russia and India ten years ago was to find a new model for relations to replace the old system of the 1970s, when the Soviet Union exported oil and weapons to India for tea and coffee. The two countries also sought mutual support against common enemies and rivals, such as the United States and, at that point, China.
When Boris Yeltsin was president, Russian-Indian relations literally collapsed. Nevertheless, mistakes could not be undone and the past cannot be revisited, and so Russia and India underwent a series of reforms, effectively creating new elites and new economic models, if not entirely new societies. The two countries then had to rebuild their relations from the ground up, relying on the common understanding that two very large, globally important and historically friendly countries should be friendly, even if their friendship was carefully orchestrated.
Over the past ten years, India, Russia and the rest of the world have changed dramatically, and so the Putin-Vajpayee plan had to be adjusted more than once. As a result, what we have is not exactly what was planned, although the results are highly instructive.
Let us take the $10 billion contracts expected to be signed during this visit by Mr. Putin. This number represents the result of several years of agonizing trade relations, which began in the 1990s with an annual turnover of only a few billion dollars and have only recently increased.
The initial goal was to raise bilateral trade to $10 billion, and now some brave souls are even dreaming of $15 billion. But the anticipated $10 billion worth of contracts would be impossible without politics and major government involvement. In other words, we have returned to the precept we once abandoned: cooperation is impossible without special relations between countries.
This is not a bad thing in this case, because India is one of the few powers on which the future world order will depend. Therefore, because it is simply obligatory that we maintain friendly relations with New Delhi, we are fortunate that we chose this policy back in 2000.
The value of the past ten years is that they have revealed what type of economy is emerging in Russia and its place in the world. This economy is still too closely controlled by the state, although not as closely as in the 1990s. Moreover, India was one of the first partners that taught the new Russia to keep its word, supply spare parts on time, etc. We have not yet learned all the best business practices, but we are doing our best.
The current situation is not bad, but multifaceted in a good sense. Moreover, the two countries have significant business together. They are engaged in joint research in space exploration and biotechnology, and there are also mobile communications projects, the export of Russian trucks to India and aircraft manufacturing and repair.
I would say that trade between the two countries is no longer "simple." Moreover, the picture has been further enriched by the surprising success of Indian pharmaceuticals in Russia. Pharmaceuticals are currently the largest Indian exports to this country.
On the whole, Russian-Indian relations differs very much from that of India's relations with China, the United States or Europe, although trade with them is considerably larger than $10 billion, or even $15 billion.
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Kosyrev)
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
