When Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, it will be an opportune moment in bilateral ties. And while one is not a soothsayer, it is more than possible that they will reminisce on an event that took place 55 years ago, and set the trajectory of bilateral relations between India and the Soviet Union first, and later the Russian Federation, its inheritor state.
August is a significant month in the history of the subcontinent. India and Pakistan won freedom, and the Partition occurred in 1947. Then East Pakistan's Mukti Bahini brigade launched Operation Jackpot against Pakistani forces in August 1971.
However, the most enduring post-1947 "August phenomenon" in the subcontinent may well be the signing of the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation on August 5, 1971, between India and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Treaty went on to play a pivotal role not only in bilateral relations but also in the history of the subcontinent itself.
As former Russian Ambassador to India Nikolai Kudashyev writes in an article commemorating the 50th anniversary of the pact, "The Treaty was an integral part of the range of events, which had divided the history of South Asia into before and after - the third war between India and Pakistan, the creation of Bangladesh..."
A Blueprint For A Defence Cooperation Pact
Indeed, this pact was indispensable in the success of India's 1971 war with Pakistan and in the liberation of its eastern wing, which was seeing a genocide and ethnic cleansing of Bengalis at the hands of the Pakistani Army, allied with Islamist forces spearheaded by the Jamaat e Islami. Along with the valor and courage of the Indian Army, fine diplomacy by India, and the decisiveness of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her Cabinet, a major role in the liberation of Bangladesh was played by the Soviet Union. And it was the 1971 treaty that provided the institutional framework for it.
While this was not a defence cooperation pact, it did open up the potential and formed the framework for that. A crucial clause, which prescribed that if either country was attacked, the other would consult to "remove such threat" and "take appropriate effective measures to ensure peace and the security of their countries", became a deterrent for China and the US, preventing them from intervening in Pakistan's support.
After all, Pakistan was not the only country India was fighting in 1971. It was being armed by the US, Jordan, Turkey, and Iran, under Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. It was the Soviet military support that, to a large extent, allowed India to take on Pakistan. When the UN wanted to send observers from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to both sides of India's borders with East Pakistan - something that would have exposed the Mukti Bahini - Soviet diplomats in the UN thwarted the move.
When The 7th Fleet Arrived
On the other hand, for the people of West Bengal, as well as for Bengalis on the other side of the border, at least then, the treaty had a different resonance. The sailing of the American 7th fleet led by the world's largest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise, into the Bay of Bengal in December 1971 is what remains etched in Bengali memory. Soviet intelligence further found a British naval group also moving into India's territorial waters in the West. The Soviets responded by dispatching their nuclear-armed flotilla, the 10th Operative Battle Group (Pacific Fleet) from Vladivostok.
After the war began, the Soviet veto in the Security Council gave enough time to Indian troops to move to Dhaka and force Pakistani troops to surrender. The rest is history.
This Soviet support for India had a direct impact on the decisive battle in the eastern war theatre between India and Pakistan. It also helped stem the genocide of the Bengali people unleashed by Pakistan's Operation Searchlight in the month of March that year.
So consequential was the treaty in 1971 for all three countries - India, the USSR, and Bangladesh - that it became the template for the Indo-Bangladesh Friendship pact, signed a year later in 1972.
How The Treaty Shaped Things To Come
But if this was one aspect of the 1972 Indo-Soviet Treaty, the other is that it anchored bilateral ties, which have grown exponentially since then. In spite of the many changes that both sides underwent, the relationship between India and Russia 55 years later continues to have that assuring and enduring quality about it - in a way that India does not have with any other country, even the one it helped liberate in 1971.
What makes the 1971 treaty significant in Indian history is the fact that it was the first and till now probably the only agreement of its kind that India signed with a superpower, in the backdrop of the Cold War, and under its self-declared policy of non-alignment.
The treaty laid the foundation for a Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership that India and Russia currently share, which ranges from defence cooperation to energy security, from the arts to space. In fact, it may not be inaccurate to state that in spite of the many friendships and partnerships India has acquired on the way, Russia remains our most trusted friend in the UN Security Council. That can be gauged from the fact that the Soviet Union, now Russia, has always followed the Shimla Agreement of 1972, aligning its position on the Kashmir issue with India. The Russian Federation continues to view it as strictly a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan.
In turn, India, too, continues to be a loyal friend and partner.
As Modi and Putin meet fifty-five years after the Indo-Soviet Friendship Treaty was signed, the enduring nature of the two nations' partnership should serve as an example for the rest of the international community in these fraught times.
(The author is a senior journalist)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
