On 21-22 August, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stayed in Poland. At the airport it was greeted by the Deputy abroad Minister Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski. This is not incompatible with the protocol, but given the rank of the guest and state he represented, and the sad state of Poland's relation with India, it was possible to make a motion that appreciated the visit of the Prime Minister of power, expressing his willingness to rise these relations to a higher level. Apparently, that will was lacking.
I even met in an online debate with the argument that Deputy Minister Bartoszewski was the best man for the function of welcoming Modi in Warsaw, due to the fact that he has British citizenship and knows English very well. The "Argument" in my opinion reflects the state of consciousness of many in Poland – the complex of the West and the mania of representing its attributes as a standard, as well as the misunderstanding of what they are for Hindus building their state on the foundation stone of dropping the British colonial rule.
I wrote about the sad state of relations with India, due to the fact that India's last visit to Poland took place in 1979! Since then, almost everything has changed in Poland and its global relations. For this reason, any commentators tried to describe Modi's visit as a fresh opening. Kurtuazily it was written on the account of the Indian Prime Minister on X. I approach this with a very average optimism, given that his stay in Warsaw was just a halt on the way to Kiev, to which, unlike through the Polish-Ukrainian border, he cannot get to. There is no uncertainty that it was the capital of Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelenski that were the main goal of the Indian Prime Minister, who wanted to balance his position after July, proceeding in a rather Cordial atmosphere and filled with the signing of respective papers of a bilateral visit to Moscow, where Modi hugged Vladimir Putin. However, the fact that the Indian authorities coordinated this visit with 70. The anniversary of diplomatic relations between our countries suggests that the state and prospects of these relations were taken into account in fresh Delhi.
Modi was taken in Warsaw by both president Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk, which should be considered positive. The Prime Minister of India besides met with Leszek Balcerowicz and representatives of the Indian diaspora in our country.
Modi laid a wreath at the monument of the Good Maharadza in Warsaw Ochota, commemorating Jama Saheb Digvijaysinhji, who in 1942 built a settlement for about a 1000 orphaned Polish children evacuated from the USSR along with the army of General Anders. He then placed a flower under the plaque on the Trolley Soldiers' Square, besides reminding of the care that Polish refugees from this wave received in India. Emphasis on common aspects in past can be seen as highlighting the importance of current relations. However, I would like to point out that those aspects which Prime Minister Modi referred to may be utilized to discuss the treatment of Indian immigrants by Poland.
The visit was summed up by signing a message by the Prime Ministers on the increase of Polish and Indian relations to the rank of strategical partnership. It is likely that the Polish side smuggled into the paper records of the United Nations Charter as a basis for resolving the conflict in Ukraine. The narration and terminology promoted by the U.S. and their camp were besides strictly utilized to describe the planet order they formed, that is, the ‘international order based on principles’, and as for the region where the guest came from, the ‘building of free, open and based on the principles of the Indo-Pacific region’. It is simply a phrase taken alive from the dictionary of American diplomacy (including the name of the region itself), which reflects the tendency of the Polish authorities, but as it turns out besides the approval of India, for entering into the communicative framework of Washington. Tusk was willing to put bilateral relations in the context of India's and the European Union's relations – "the 2 top democracies in the world". In addition, the paper states that the planet is already "multipolar" and suggests that it should be more "sustainable", which, according to my suspicions, may have been an initiative of the Indian side.
Intensification of common trade and investment, expansion of transport links has been declared, and sectors specified as food, communications, mining, energy and environmental protection have been highlighted. The importance of the arms and digital technologies sector has been highlighted separately. Under this first Poland unfortunately has little and little to offer the power which it buys, but besides starts producing advanced weapons. However, the battlefields of Ukraine indicate that we are not completely devoid of assets. Our chance is to participate in the modernization of Indian equipment of Soviet/Russian production. In terms of digital services, Poland and India are even the top competitors and in fact this situation needs political moderation. All of this, however, is in my opinion a song of the future due to the very limited production capacity of Polish armament plants. India, in the field of national security, places orders on a large scale.
A general declaration on the request to intensify contacts "at the highest level", yearly consultations or the extension of interparliamentary cooperation is simply an emphasis on how small content was so far in Poland's relations with the most populous country in the world, its 5th economy and 1 of the atomic powers. It has been established that by the end of the year, the Joint Committee on economical Cooperation will be organised, which will then meet with a low frequency of at least 2 meetings per 5 years. I am not convinced that this is adequate to revive our trade relations, which stay about 10 times smaller than with China with a clear negative balance – we import 4 times more from India than we sale to them.
During Modi's visit many politicians or journalists, in a message, or possibly imagination, in which India did not be a fewer days earlier, many assurances about the request to intensify relations with India. It seems that no of them are seriously asking themselves: why? I have not heard from politicians, journalists, analysts a convincing answer to specified a question.
Even this not-fortunate political visit showed that Poland acts towards the Asian power simply as a cog of the political device "West" and the transmission belt of its agenda. If it seems to anyone in Warsaw that actions to guarantee that India simply joins this expression “West”, which governs the imagination of Polish politicians, it can immediately return to doing nothing about relations with this country – it will be the same.
Although, of course, as part of the 2017 balance sheet, fresh Delhi activated itself in a format of strategical cooperation with the US, Japan and Australia (Quad). India chooses BRICS and SHOW due to the fact that they are looser, little institutionalized, ideologicalized and limiting the scope for manoeuvre than what the West proposes.
I have written more than erstwhile about how advanced a precedence India has relations with Russia and vice versa. India has become 1 of the primary factors of opposition to Western sanctions for Russia. Life adds to the fresh chapters of this story. Russian oil supplies to India averaged 2.1 million barrels per day in June this year, which is the highest level since June 2023. This represents a share of 45% of the Indian natural material marketplace – more than the full share of 5 leading arabian oil exporters. Russia's evidence share comes in the context of a decrease in average sales prices by about $6 per barrel compared to the erstwhile year. In the full first half of the year, Russia's share of the oil marketplace in India was around 37%, compared with 40% in the same period of the erstwhile year. According to the latest information for July this month, Russia's marketplace share was already 44 percent. Despite any decline India overtook China this period (the average import in July is 1.76 million barrels per day) as the largest importer of Russian oil in the world.
According to any sources, the West tolerates this due to the fact that it fears its societies besides much if there is simply a possible emergence in oil prices if sanctions are more restrictive. I don't truly believe in this explanation, due to the fact that this Russian oil trade with India has a second bottom. It contributes to respecting the function of the dollar as a global clearing currency. This trade is settled in currencies another than the dollar, mainly in Indian rupees. Since it is simply a currency of small importance outside India itself, in practice buying Russian oil, the Indians increase the liquidity of their banks (Russians keep the money earned there) or Russian request on their market, and in the position of possibly even their investment on the spot, as the head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lawrow spoke about a year ago at the G20 summit.
Of course, this level of interdependence causes India to have any jacks on Russia, though not as strong as China. For this reason, during his visit to Kiev Volodymyr Zelenski loudly advertised the merits of Indian diplomacy on the question of seeking a peace solution. Tusk in Warsaw expressed akin hopes. This would be a mediator more convenient for Ukraine, especially the US and their block than China. However, do India have adequate tools in their hand to bring conflicted parties to the table of talks at a time erstwhile both of them proceed to exercise religion and strive for an armed solution?
Are we ready to work with specified a partner? In his media commentary after the visit, the erstwhile head of Indian diplomacy Kanwal Sibal even went to question the relevance of Prime Minister's visits to Poland, characterized by him as a organization to the conflict with Russia. Sibal called Russia "a privileged strategical partner for decades who stood by India while under Western pressure".
India is presently following China's path. The second no longer care so much for investments in little innovative sectors with lower margins, they already have capital and technology. Now India can grow into another “factory of the world”. Modi straight encouraged Polish entrepreneurs to invest in sectors specified as food processing, digital technologies or green energy. But whether we are capable and ready to take advantage of this kind of option or alternatively we will stay in the sequences of the current improvement model, which, although it has brought us a immense increase in wealth in absolute numbers, was and is simply a model of dependent development. We are inactive more looking forward to investment than we are to. Polish elites have no thought of relations with India and no specified concept has appeared during Narendra Modi's fresh visit. That's why I'm not expecting a breakthrough.
