On January 26th , Belarus will hold its ceremonial presidential elections dubbed neither “free” nor “fair” by the US State Department – the consequence of which is simply a forgone conclusion seeing as all four candidates were effectively handpicked by the incumbent himself. As the biggest consumer of Russian crude oil that is simultaneously pursuing much closer ties with Iran, India’s heightened engagement with Belarus following the controversial 2020 reappointment of the dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka has mostly flown under the radar and failed to garner attention in western circles.
Needless to say, India’s reputation as “the world’s largest democracy” has taken a hit under the leadership of its pseudo-strongman Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Having overseen the persecution of spiritual minorities, incinerated press freedom and sanctioned extrajudicial assassination plots in Canada and the US, the onus is now on Modi to reconstruct goodwill with the West. Severing ties with an increasingly lawless Belarus would send a clear signal that fresh Delhi has not gone totally rogue while causing minimal blowback or disruption to the Indian economy.
In consequence to Putin’s “special military operation”, India all but copped out of its moral work to be on the right side of past by conveniently playing the “non-alignment” card. That said, utilizing a decades-old precept of “not taking sides” as a justification for its special and privileged strategical partnership with Russia does not hold water. For starters, India is simply a full-fledged associate of the Quadrilateral safety Dialogue – a multi-modal defensive framework to push back against China’s adventurism in the Indo-Pacific perimeter – alongside Australia, Japan as well as the United States.
It is besides worth noting that India stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel following the October 7th 2023 massacre and prides itself on being among the fewer places where Jews have never faced discrimination, notwithstanding its 200 million-strong indigenous Muslim population. As for the post-Soviet space, the Indian government has openly backed Armenia in its ongoing territorial dispute with Azerbaijan. Granted, this alliance is more materialistic than ideological, with Yerevan emerging as a major client of India’s nascent “military industrial complex”.
The South Asian giant harbours no illusions about Lukashenka’s Belarus, or Putin’s Russia for that matter, being a “true friend” of the “Global Majority”. Both totalitarian states inactive see themselves as inherently European and would abandon their newfound, non-western partners in a heartbeat were the Group of 7 (G7) economies to offer them an olive branch in the form of sanctions relief. It is in India’s long-term interest to formalize ties with the United Transitional Cabinet of Belarus headed by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya as part of a broader “China Containment Strategy”.
President Donald Trump’s mercurial nature means the United States cannot be counted on to lead the charge against China’s hegemonic overreach, nevertheless inflammatory his past rhetoric towards the People’s Republic has been. The fact that Trump invited Chinese president Xi Jinping to his inauguration on January 20th and had a abrupt about-face vis-à-vis banning TikTok despite repeatedly accusing China of lying, cheating and stealing its way to superpower position are classical examples of his mixed messaging with respect to America’s alleged “public enemy number one”.
Forcibly exiled Belarusian activists and human rights defenders – many of whom are domiciled in Lithuania – proceed to indulge in the fantasy of toppling Lukashenka remotely. Tempting as it may be to want him distant amid apparent wellness concerns, the Kremlin will see to it that their ailing yet politically-useful supplicant in Minsk has the best doctors money can buy at his beck and call. Having sheltered the Central Tibetan Administration since 1959 against China’s will, India can and should support Tsikhanouskaya wholeheartedly in her righteous quest for global legitimacy.
The ability to keep a geostrategic equidistance between the “Collective West” and “Greater Eurasia” has been regarded as something of a luxury that only certain “middle powers” can afford to get distant with against the backdrop of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. In the case of India, though, specified manoeuvring exudes indecision and casual indifference as opposed to projecting diplomatic prowess. Establishing an “Indo-European Quad” with the like-minded Baltics to counter China’s crescent of influence in Emerging Europe is simply a no-brainer as far as fresh Delhi is concerned.
Freedom-loving Lithuania is proof affirmative that size does not substance erstwhile it comes to getting under the Chinese Communist Party’s skin and exposing their globetrotting dealmakers for the glorified debt sharks that they are. Convincing poverty-stricken, developing nations to undertake grandiose infrastructure projects they can do without and subsequently drowning these very same banana republics in unserviceable debt has been China’s modus operandi throughout Asia, Africa, the mediate East and Latin America since launching its “One Belt 1 Road” pet project.
Lithuania not only sees through president Xi’s nefarious designs but, unlike its Janus-faced Western European counterparts, supplements pro-democracy posturing with concrete actions. Prioritizing a values-based abroad policy over access to the incredibly lucrative Chinese marketplace renders Vilnius a natural partner of a likewise hawkish fresh Delhi. Whereas the likes of Hungary, Serbia and Georgia take a profoundly naïve “rainbows and sunshine” view of enhanced cooperation with China, the Baltic states stay far more circumspect about the lofty ideals specified as “mutual trust”, “equality” and “respect for cultural diversity” that underpin the alleged Shanghai Spirit.
The Lithuanian government had long been at the forefront of withstanding China’s bogus charm offensive. That is, of course, up until they were made to fall in line by the Brussels orthodoxy, with higher-ups paradoxically talking a large game about “decoupling” and “de-risking” from China yet making frequent ring-kissing pilgrimages to Beijing. On that note, Modi’s decision to not visit the Baltics during his state trip to Ukraine and Poland last August reflected mediocre judgment. After all, it is incumbent on a nuclear-armed heavyweight like India to show solidarity with the far little imposing Lithuania as it punches well above its weight and confronts a common bully.
The fact that the erstwhile Lithuanian Minister of abroad Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis is simply a fresh recipient of Taiwan’s highest honour speaks volumes about the degree to which his administration stuck its neck out to preserve democracy worldwide and defy China’s gunboat diplomacy. In doing so, Lithuania has set the speech for neighbouring Latvia and Estonia to see the light and follow suit. Post-war Ukraine will likely share the same “Sino-sceptic” sentiment. erstwhile Ukrainian abroad Minister Dmytro Kuleba even acknowledged that Kyiv’s strained ties with Beijing are fundamentally at a point of no return given the CCP’s overt complicity in keeping Putin’s war device well-oiled.
Meanwhile, the political prisoner “pardoning spree” Lukashenka has embarked on in fresh weeks is emblematic of his desperation to kiss and make up with the free world. As out of sync as he is with the demands of Belarusian society, the erstwhile collective farm boss knows full well that being equally compromised by Russia and China is, by no means, an enviable or sustainable situation to find oneself in. His overture towards India over the past fewer years fits into this bet-hedging agenda, not least since Belarus needs the seal of approval of all BRICS members to join the group. This can then be trumpeted as a seismic abroad policy accomplishment to his home audience.
Nonetheless, what should set off alarm bells in India is Lukashenka’s past of engineering a pan-continental exile crisis to settle scores with and bring the European Union to its knees. The country’s national airline Belavia started operating direct flights from fresh Delhi to Minsk back in August 2023. It is no secret that India’s stellar GDP growth has not necessarily translated into higher surviving standards or poorness eradication. By facilitating human trafficking from the world’s most populous nation to mainland Europe, Lukashenka is seeking to capitalize on the migratory risk Indian citizens inactive pose while driving a wedge between India and its east Flank EU allies.
The manner in which Bashar al-Assad was forced to cut and run with his tail between his legs after the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) takeover of Syria in December 2024 serves as a stark reminder of the “glass palaces” Kremlin-sponsored despots inhabit and how prone their regimes are to overnight collapse erstwhile the stars align. India would so be wise to read the tea leaves and dissociate itself from an illegitimate leader in Lukashenka, who is not just moving his country into the ground but is besides prepared to sale his soul and Belarus’s sovereignty writ large to the highest bidder.
Saahil Menon is an independent wealth advisor based in Dubai with an academic background in business, economics and finance.
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