'Would you rather we switch off our economy,' Indian envoy asks, defending buying oil from Russia

LONDON: Indian high commissioner to the UK Vikram Doraiswami has defended India buying oil from Russia and its close relationship with Moscow, saying to a British journalist: “Do you want us to switch off our economy?”

Doraiswami was speaking to Times Radio when asked by its political editor, Kate McCann, whether he felt comfortable with the “closeness” of New Delhi’s relationship with President Putin.

“We have a relationship that is based on a number of metrics — one of these is our long-standing security relationship that goes back to an era in which some of our Western partners wouldn’t sell us weapons, but would sell them to countries in our neighbourhood which used them only to attack us,” Doraiswami replied.

“Second, we have an energy relationship today which is the result of everybody else buying energy from sources that we used to earlier buy from, so we have been displaced out of the energy market, largely, and the costs have gone up. We are the third-largest consumer of energy in the world and we import over 80% of our product. What would you have us do? Switch off our economy?”

“Thirdly, we also see around us relationships that other countries maintain for their own convenience with countries that are a source of difficulty for us. Do we ask you to come up with the litmus test of loyalty,” he said.

McCann pressed whether India should be accepting Russian oil, pointing out that Nayara’s Vadinar refinery in Gujarat had recently been sanctioned by the EU for refining Russian crude.

“We are the fourth-largest refiner of energy in the world and a number of countries in Europe buy refined oil from us, which ought to tell you something, and also many of our European partners are continuing to buy rare earth and other energy products, not oil perhaps, from the same countries that they are refusing to let us buy from. You wouldn’t think that seems a little odd,” Doraiswami said.

McCann asked whether PM Narendra Modi would be willing to discuss with Putin ending the war in Ukraine.

“Our consistent position, as our PM has repeatedly said, is that this isn’t an era of war. He has made that point to the president of Russia and the president of Ukraine. We are very keen for this terrible conflict to stop, as we are keen for conflicts across the world to stop,” Doraiswami said.

McCann also probed about a “new pact between India, Russia and China”, asking: “Do you feel comfortable with those relationships, because the leaders of those countries are roundly condemned by others in Europe?”

Doraiswami denied there was ever any such pact and said there had just been a “trilateral meeting format” which had not happened in a long time. “It was a format in which we had our leadership coordinate across a range of security-related issues,” he said.

“We are neighbours of China, and China is a neighbour of Russia. It is reasonable that we coordinate our security interests,” he said.