New Delhi: “I will not tell India what to do,” British foreign secretary Liz Truss said at an event in New Delhi following a meeting with Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar. So far so proper. But she certainly let it be known what she thinks India should do. At diplomatic meetings the differences between the two counts for little.

Beneath the official bonhomie of the usual kind, the flurry of visits over recent days threw up conflicting positions over Ukraine between India and Britain, and the US, more sharply than over any issue over a generation now. Those differences did not need whisperings out of the meeting rooms to show up. They rose to the surface in black and white, officially.

The pointer to conflicting positions between India and Britain was clear from the official statements from both countries ahead of the meeting between their foreign ministers. A note from the United Kingdom government spelt out clearly that Ukraine was top of the agenda as expected. Truss would be in India “as part of a wider diplomatic push following Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine last month,” the UK government said in its statement.

Truss was set to stress to India that “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underlines the importance of democracies working closer together to deter aggressors, reduce vulnerability to coercion and strengthen global security.” Which is to say that the Indian ambivalence on the invasion, and its consistent refusal to join condemnation in the United Nations and outside was distancing it from the world of western democracies opposing the invasion.

She said: “Deeper ties between Britain and India will boost security in the Indo-Pacific and globally, and create jobs and opportunities in both countries. This matters even more in the context of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and underlines the need for free democracies to work closer together in areas like defence, trade and cyber security. India is an economic and tech powerhouse, the world’s largest democracy and a great friend of Britain, and I want to build an even closer relationship between our two nations.” Hints of caution, if not outright warning, were clear.

India’s Ministry for External Affairs did not mention Ukraine at all. “Ms. Truss will hold bilateral consultations with External Affairs Minister, Dr S. Jaishankar on bilateral, regional and global issues of mutual interest,” the MEA said. “The visit will also serve to further deepen our partnership across various sectors such as trade & investment, science, technology & innovation, defence & security, climate cooperation, education and digital communications.”

The official Indian move to play down Ukraine as an area of stark differences stood out yet more starkly in the 482-word MEA statement where a single line on Ukraine was buried into its seventh of nine points: “On Ukraine, India reiterated that the immediate cessation of violence and return to dialogue and diplomacy is the key to long term peace in the region.” The rest of the note was long rambling about a review of the India-UK Roadmap 2030, FTA talks, a migration and mobility agreement and the like.

India was pointing to the metaphorical ‘half-full’ part of the glass that seemed more than half-full so far as the Indian listing goes, but less than half full by far so far as weightage goes. At this time Ukraine was really all the British were keen on. The stated Indian position was India’s way of telling the British what it thought the British should be doing.

Kiss of death

If a balancing game was intended to keep Western support at least partially in place, the kiss of death from Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov could hardly have helped. “I believe that Indian foreign policies are characterised by independence and the concentration on real national legitimate interests,” he told ANI news agency.

Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in New Delhi on April 1. The two leaders discussed bilateral cooperation and developments in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iran, Indo-Pacific, ASEAN and the Indian sub-continent. Image Source: @DrSJaishankar via Twitter

“The same policy is based in the Russian Federation,” Lavrov said in his near simultaneous visit. “This makes us, as big countries, good friends and loyal partners.” What India did not need at this moment was praise from a Russian minister that India and Russia are alike in relation to the war in Ukraine.

India’s subtlety is not without reason, and it has no doubt good reasons for taking the stand it has—which is to not take a clear stand. But the position of the US and now Europe on such matters was put simply by former US president George Bush over the Iraq war: If you’re not with us, you’re against us. India will have a hard time talking its way out of its present position if all this does now tend well for Putin.

— London Eye is a weekly column by CNBC-TV18’s Sanjay Suri, which gives a peek at business-as-unusual from London and around.

Read his other columns

(Edited by : Ajay Vaishnav)