Russia-Ukraine War: How Religion & Nationalism Shape Putin’s Stance

As the war in Ukraine gets tougher, bloodier, and messier, and as American pressure increases on India to move away from Russia and become a part of the American camp, India’s neutrality becomes a difficult one to hold. Choosing one of the two sides is not going to help either. It is possible for India to hold on to the position it has now taken, squeezing in a bit here, and wiggling out there. And it can tumble along without making its position clear. But at the end of the day, India may have to think out its stance, both in government and outside. It is not enough to blame America and NATO’s double standards while paying lip service to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

There are serious issues of international politics underlying the war in Ukraine, raising several questions about international relations. There are at least four issues that are bobbing up and down. The first is about alliances, based on both economic and security concerns. One of the issues that provoked the war in Ukraine has to do with NATO. The second is about friendly regimes in the neighbourhood. Russia perceives the government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to be anti-Russia and, therefore, a threat to Russia. The third issue is that of nationalism, and the fourth is religion. The last two are explicit ideological factors in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stance over Ukraine. We in India have not talked about these things with sufficient honesty and clarity.

The Role of Alliances

It was felt after the 1991 economic reforms that India must get out of its straitjacket of non-alignment, and that with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the proven failure of the socialist model of the economy, India must not only embrace the market economy but also the Western liberal democratic values. There was a greater emphasis on the market economy rather than on liberal democratic values. It meant that India should move out of the Soviet sphere of influence and move into the American sphere of influence.

That is why, the formation of the Quad, comprising the US, India, Japan, and Australia, was cheered as a necessary counter to an aggressive China. But passing over in silence the imperatives of liberal democratic values at home and abroad has meant that we are not intellectually inclined to debate political ideas.

There is, however, a pressing need to discuss the role of alliances in international relations. Alliances, especially those based on security, presume that smaller countries need to partner up with the powerful ones to protect their sovereignty and territorial integrity. One of the concerns that impel Ukraine to join NATO, apart from the desire of Western countries to expand their footprint, is that of protecting itself from a big neighbour like Russia.

If Ukraine could deal with Russian speakers in the east and the issue of Russia’s access to the Black Sea through Crimea, the problem perhaps would have been less complicated than it is now.

But it required the norms of international relations to be in place, and they needed to be invoked at every critical stage.

Why Religion Is a Political Issue

Secondly, the desire of Russia and the US that there should be friendly regimes in the neighbourhood remains a prickly question. It is indeed an advantage to have a friendly government in the neighbourhood, but it should be left to the people of the neighbouring country to choose the government they want. India has learnt to live with unfriendly governments in Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives.

There is a temptation in the Indian ruling classes to have a friendly government in the neighbourhood, but it has been checked by circumstances on the ground, especially in Nepal and Sri Lanka. Regime change should be seen as a disruptive factor in international politics, which should be shunned.

Nationalism and religion come in a tangled form in national and international issues. It is not necessary or even polite to ignore it anymore. The thrust of Putin’s Ukraine policy turns on nationalism and religion. In West Asia, Africa and Europe, religion is a bone of contention from Lebanon to Nigeria to France. In most cases, nationalism is identified with majority religion, and national loyalty and religious affiliation become symbols of majoritarian tyranny.

India, in the last few years, has been on edge on the issue of nationalism and religion, where Hinduism is dangerously intertwined with nationalism, and minority religions are pushed into the anti-national corner. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its vocal apologists are sure to deny the charge even as they indulge in it with certain impunity, while the liberals and the few leftists still around continue to refuse to accept that religion is indeed a political issue, however explosive and dissonant. We must confront the problems that arise from it rather than deny that it has any legitimacy.

It does not make sense to tell the BJP to give up its religious politics and to accept secular consensus as it has been defined in many of the Western democracies. The fact is that the secular consensus lies in tatters in the West and elsewhere.

Snap Out of the Denial

Religion will remain a factor in the public arena, including politics, and there must be fair competition among them all as there is between the many non-religious political ideologies.

It seems that in Ukraine and Russia, despite the common basis of the Orthodox Church and the shared Russian language, there are differences and conflicts of interest based on regional development.

Ukraine as a region is moving in a different direction compared to Russia. And the followers of the Orthodox Church in Russia and Ukraine are standing with their respective national states. Russia remains a Slavic nation despite its many internal variations in the Arctic and Siberia, the European and the Eurasian parts.

This is as good a time as any to start a conversation about these issues, and this is one way of getting out of many of our dogmatic positions.

(The writer is a New Delhi-based political journalist. He tweets @ParsaJr. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)