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India's friend heads Russia at its most critical hour

Introducing a team of eminent scholars of the Indian academic world to Aliyev, secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party in the early eighties in Baku, academician Yevgeni Primakov remarked, ''You are meeting a rising star of the Soviet Union.''

Such a forecast during those days of strict control by the USSR central committee over any pronouncements by Soviet leaders would have led to the fall of the 'soothsayer'.

Kremlin watchers in the Baku hall were amazed at the audacity of the director of the Oriental Institute of Moscow -- Primakov. But as the Azerbaijanian party chief, who was also holding the post of non-voting member of the politburo, only smiled at Primakov's remark, it was clear that the academician belonged to a circle very close to the Kremlin power corridors.

Few months later Aliyev moved to Moscow as a full-fledged member of the politburo, confirming the forecast made by Primakov.

The Indian delegation, which included the late Prof Rashiduddin of JNU, Prof V P Dutt of Delhi University and foreign policy expert Bhabani Sengupta, was on a study tour of the USSR, and Primakov accompanied it to all the places it visited.

The job could have been performed by even a senior interpreter but Primakov set aside protocol considerations and for ten days continued his uninterrupted dialogue with the Indian guests.

That 'tour guide' is now the prime minister of Russia.

It was for his infatuation with Indology that Primakov had made himself a part of the Indian delegation, explained a senior Russian scholar later.

Primakov succeeded legendary revolutionary and Central Asian scholar Babajan Gafurov as the head of the Institute for Oriental Studies. He is said to have converted it into a centre for Indology. What is oriental studies without Indology, Primakov used to say, dismissing objections to the move by his colleagues.

During his tenure as director of the institute, he had once arranged a meeting of his scholars with the then Indian envoy Inder Kumar Gujral and Pakistani envoy Sahibzada Yakub Khan to discuss existing issues in the Indian subcontinent.

Essentially a man of the academic world, the new Russian prime minister never liked to be in the limelight and 'appeared' only when his services were called for.

During one of the visits of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi to Moscow, foreign policy experts of the two countries prepared a draft paper, which the then Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze described as 'listless'. He told bureaucrats that he would be reprimanded by Mikhail Gorbachev and so would be the Indian specialists by their leader for preparing such a draft.

Primakov was then summoned to do the needful and after burning the midnight oil he handed over quite a sensational draft to the Kremlin. Whether that draft became the basis of the joint statement is not known, but it bore testimony to the versatility of the Indologist, though by then he had moved to the all-encompassing Soviet Institute for World Economy and International Affairs as its director.

He kept a low profile till he was suddenly made the country's foreign minister in 1996 and one of his first task on getting to the post was a visit to New Delhi. Some time later he issued an unequivocal statement that Russia, China and India were important strategic allies and partners. This was a total reversal of Russia's 1990 stand when the then foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev had dismissed India as just another Third World country.

After he took over, Primakov ensured that the Indo-Russian ties were put back on the old pedestal. Arms deals were revived with a bang, trade relations picked up momentum and the two nations once more began working together to overcome the pressure from powers assuming the role of global policemen.

Recently, at Geneva, he tried to prevent 'anti-India' forces from ganging up over the economic sanctions issue, saying that such measures against a big country like India would not yield the desired results. Though the West imposed 'tough sanctions' on New Delhi, their impact was softened a bit by Russia's refusal to either join or support the move.

It is believed that President Boris Yeltsin was about to buckle under US threats of sanctions against Russia if it provided cryogenic engine technology to India, and it was the Kremlin trouble-shooter, ie, Primakov, who devised a compromise formula under which Moscow supplied ready-made space engines in place of the cryogenic technology.

The place Primakov gives to India could be gauged from what he once told an Indian correspondent who was seeking an appointment for an interview with him in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. ''Why be so formal, Indians do not need to request me for a meeting, they are always welcome.''

However, it has to be seen how Primakov manages his new tough and thankless assignment, which the Russian daily Izvestia describes as an 'electric chair', as the country is going through its worst economic crisis since the Soviet collapse.

Whether he is able 'absorb' the 'power shock' or not, one thing is certain: he has, as of now, the support of all sections of the Russian political spectrum, barring that of the liberal democratic party of the ultra nationalist Zhirinovsky.

UNI

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