I would disagree with you... Most of the things and cooperation that happened were before India switched sides.
The standoff on Syria may also trigger shifts in Russia's relations with its two main strategic partners, India and China. The crisis has strengthened the strategic alliance of Russia and China. The veto the two countries used twice in four months was unprecedented in the recent history of the Security Council. Both refused to join the Friends of Syria meeting in Tunis and denounced attempts by outside forces to impose solutions on Syria. In his foreign policy manifesto Mr. Putin predicted that Russia's partnership with China will keep going stronger, and welcomed China's “ever more confident” voice in the world.
By contrast, India and Russia found themselves on different sides of the barricade. India's decision to side with the West raised eyebrows in the Kremlin. As recently as October, India stood with Russia and China in the U.N. Security Council as they opposed a one-sided censure of the Syrian government. New Delhi reasonably argued that violence in Syria came from two sides and the government was fighting an armed insurgency.
However, on February 4, India turned around and voted for a similar resolution that again addressed the demand to end violence to only the Syrian government. At the same time New Delhi said that, like Russia and China, it supported “a Syrian-led inclusive political process.” How can one be in favour of an “inclusive political process,” Russians wondered, while backing a resolution that supports the ouster of President Assad as a precondition for launching such a process?
A day before India sent a high-ranking diplomat to the Friends of Syria meet, senior Indian and Russian diplomats held annual foreign policy consultations in New Delhi. Disagreement over Syria was apparently so serious that a Russian Foreign Ministry communiqué on the talks did not even mention that the Middle East was discussed.
‘India's stand surprising'
“India's stand on Syria came as a surprise to the Kremlin,” says Prof. Andrei Volodin of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Diplomatic Academy. He thinks it is shortsighted on the part of India to cast its lot with the U.S., whose global power is declining, and with conservative Gulf monarchies, which are historically doomed. But he admits that India's Syria stand falls into a trend.
“Some upper echelons in the Ministry of External Affairs, alarmed by China's fast rise and backed by the U.S. Indian community and a corporate lobby, are trying to impose a foreign policy course on the country's leadership that goes against India's long-term interests,” the Russian scholar who closely follows India's political scene told The Hindu . Prof. Volodin sees this trend as part of an ongoing struggle in the Indian elite between advocates and opponents of the foreign policy tradition of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, a struggle aggravated by a general decline in the level of strategic thinking in the Indian foreign policy establishment.
“India's stand on Syria betrays the same lack of strategic foresight as its recent decision to buy in a tender a 20th century fighter plane for 21st century tasks at a time when a fifth-generation platform that India is jointly developing with Russia is in the pipeline.”
Five years ago, Mr. Putin, then President, placed India along with Russia and China in an exclusive club of world powers that “can afford the luxury of genuine sovereignty”. As he prepares to reclaim presidency, Mr. Putin has again invoked the issue of sovereignty in foreign policy.
“Everything we do will be based on our own interests and goals, not on decisions other countries impose on us … Russia has practically always had the privilege of pursuing an independent foreign policy and this is how it will be in the future,” Mr. Putin wrote in his election manifesto.
“Syria has put to the test the ability of countries to take sovereign decisions,” says Prof. Volodin. “Russia and China have passed the test; India, unfortunately, has not.”
The cold wind from Russia - The Hindu
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