‘Still wiping the egg off my face,’ Shashi Tharoor’s candid take on India’s stance on Russia at the Raisina Dialogue 2025. Watch to know more!
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00:00Yes, I'm still wiping the egg off my face.
00:02Clearly, the policy has meant that India has actually a prime minister who can hardbook
00:07the president of Ukraine and the president of Moscow two weeks apart and be accepted
00:12in both places.
00:13Given the state of play right now with Russia and Ukraine and this conflict and President
00:20Trump's position, are you glad that India took the position it did when it carried on
00:25buying Russian oil and gas, for example?
00:28Yes, I'm still wiping the egg off my face because I was the one person in the parliamentary
00:33debate who actually criticized the Indian position at the time, back in February 22.
00:39On the well-worn grounds, and Espen will understand because he and I talked about all this in
00:43my UN days, that there was a violation of the UN Charter, that there had been a violation
00:49of the principle of inviolability of borders, of the sovereignty of a member state, namely
00:54Ukraine.
00:55And we stood for the admissibility of the use of force to settle international disputes.
00:59And all of those principles, I said, had been violated by one party and we should have condemned
01:04it.
01:05Well, a couple of years later, three years later, it does look like I'm the one with
01:09the egg on my face because clearly, the policy has meant that India has actually a prime
01:14minister who can hardbook the president of Ukraine and the president of Moscow two weeks
01:18apart and be accepted in both places.
01:21And therefore, India is in a position where it can make a difference to a lasting peace
01:28if it was so required in ways that very few countries would be able to.
01:33And it's partially, I mean, again, going back to some of the things that Stephen Harper
01:36and Espen said, distance helps.
01:39The fact that we're not in Europe and we're not directly one way or the other threatened
01:43or benefiting from any change in territorial borders, for example, that helps.
01:49The fact that the two parties seem to be ready to agree to peace.
01:53The fact that there would presumably be some very serious international backing for an
01:57international peacekeeping venture.
01:59I mean, all of those things have to be borne in mind before you answer the question that
02:04you just asked, Yalda.
02:06As an Indian government person making such a decision, those considerations would really
02:11have to be uppermost before they say yes or no.
02:15But I can see it entirely possible that in these circumstances, India would say yes.
02:20Remember, India's got a quarter of a million peacekeepers in its history around the world.
02:25It's participated in God knows, 49 peacekeeping missions, I think, in its history.
02:29So this is a country with an extensive record of having gone out to places far removed from
02:35India's direct interest in order to serve the cause of peace.
02:39So why not?