Biden officials bat for India

INTERNATIONAL DESK: The Biden administration is batting for India and its nuanced stand on the Russia-Ukraine imbroglio regardless of appreciable disquiet in Congress over New Delhi’s abstentions throughout UN votes that appeared to favor Moscow.

Following intense outreach and briefings by Indian diplomats to elucidate New Delhi’s compulsions for abstaining, a key Pentagon official instructed a Congressional listening to on Wednesday that the US recognises India has a “complicated history and relationship” with Russia, whereas expressing optimism over New Delhi finally weaning itself away from Moscow.

“The excellent news is that they’re in a multi-yr course of of diversifying their arms purchases away from Russia. That’s going to take a while, however they’re clearly dedicated to doing that, together with growing the indigenisation of their very own defence business,” Assistant Secretary of Defence for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, Ely Ratner, told members of the House Armed Services Committee.

“That’s something we should support. So, I think in terms of their relationship with Russia, the trend lines are moving in the right direction,” he added.

Ratner and other officials have been pressed in recent days by lawmakers, some of whom have clubbed India with China in describing them as being in the Russian camp.

Indian diplomats have been working overtime to brief lawmakers, think tanks, and the administration that New Delhi’s abstention is driven foremost by humanitarian considerations, including the need to extricate more than 20,000 of its nationals in Ukraine, and it does not constitute an unqualified support for Russia’s actions.

At least one lawmaker also challenged the general perception that it is Russia more than the United States that has backed India in times of crisis, pointing out that it is Washington, not Moscow, that has stood by New Delhi in its problems with China, both in recent times and going back to the 1962 war.

“Did Russia do anything to protect India when China was violating the Line of Actual Control, to your knowledge?” Ro Khanna, the Indian-American Democrat from California asked. “Not to my knowledge,” replied Ratner.

“I feel it’s apparent that the US would stand towards Chinese aggression on the Line of Actual Control way over Russia or Putin would, and that we actually must press India to not be as dependent on Russian defence and to be keen to sentence Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, similar to we might condemn Chinese aggression past the Line of Actual Control,” Khanna asserted.

Many within the US strategic group have argued in latest days that Moscow’s rising closeness to China is inimical to India’s pursuits, together with its dependence on Russian arms.

Republican lawmakers usually properly-inclined in the direction of India additionally piled on to New Delhi, with South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson describing India’s abstention as “shocking” and “unnatural.”

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s relationship should be with the United States, and not with a megalomaniac Putin… Both Democrats and Republicans are appalled that there would be abstention by the great country of India,” Wilson stated. (Times of India)