Is Russia still our friend? Poll

[SajeevJino]

Complete BS you write. How old are you? I graduated when riots were happening all around India and there were no jobs even for best graduates.

He is a DOCTOR. get your fact right, and don't think you have a Super Knowledge

 

[LETHALFORCE]

@sgarg

No doubt British left india a disaster but by india moving to an exclusive nam/ russian
Camp made india miss a lot of opportunities with other countries(western). It isolated
India for decades. Look at how early Chinese opened up even being a communist country
and progress they made.

 

[pmaitra]

Russia still is a friend. How many countries are India having a joint development programme for developing 5th gen fighters with? You think such strategic projects are possible without them being our friends? What I am talking against is the illogical stand that Russia cant have its own priorities. If people here can be fine with US supplying Pak with F16 while advocating US vassalage over India, then there is no reason why we should not be friends with Russia, just because they sell some outdated weapons to Pak.

And I dont think people here actually understand the magnitude of the problem caused by USSR being a "friend" of India. Why do you think Indian GDP growth went from bad to worse from 1947 to 1990s? Increasingly bad socialist policies supported by USSR. While their intentions might have been pure, what they caused us was more harm than good and you have to measure someone's worth with what they did and not what their intentions were. Imagine an India which had a free market and was in the US camp(If we had been in the US camp, then Pak would have been in russian camp and that would have been a different story altogether) during coldwar days instead of being socialist and being in USSR camp, we would be having the living standards of Japan, only ten times larger

I think I told you, this is not about ideology.

Power corrupts with time. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The USSR had a single party system. All the power was with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. There was no opposition. There was no checks and balances.

India never followed this system. India has a multi-party democracy. Do you see why I am so happy that recently, despite there being no opposition in Lok Sabha, the Rajya Sabha has blocked at least one bill? That is called checks and balances.

Whatever economic policies a country follows, in case of India, India had every thing in place where the people of India got to decide who was elected, unlike the USSR.

Your claims that the USSR kept India poor is unfounded. It is we who should take responsibility for our failures, and pat ourselves on our back for our achievements.

 

[sgarg]

Various Obstacles Confront Russia's T-50 Project | Defense: Aviation International News

So what did India do in the meantime. What is India's contribution as an "equal" "partner"? Did India ramp up composites production?? Did India install precision machines needed for high quality aircraft parts? India keeps ON WAITING FOR OTHERS to do everything than cribs about delays.

The problem is very clear - HAL is simply incompetent. HAL turnover is STAGNANT for the last three years. It is facing serious difficulties in every single program where significant value addition is needed. This is the reason HAL loves projects like British Hawk, where kits are imported and HAL is needed only for assembly. HAL is the BIGGEST risk to development of aviation industry in India.

 

[sob]

Complete BS you write. How old are you? I graduated when riots were happening all around India and there were no jobs even for best graduates.

You simply have no idea of reality.

India NEVER adopted USSR's system of government or economic policies. India never joined Warsaw pact. You write as if USSR forces marched in India and made India a vassal.

India chose its own course and failed due to ITS OWN SHORTCOMINGS.

Let us leave personal comments out of this.

 

[sob]

Complete BS you write. How old are you? I graduated when riots were happening all around India and there were no jobs even for best graduates.

You simply have no idea of reality.

India NEVER adopted USSR's system of government or economic policies. India never joined Warsaw pact. You write as if USSR forces marched in India and made India a vassal.

India chose its own course and failed due to ITS OWN SHORTCOMINGS.

Just to remind you. Pt. Nehru embraced Soviet economic systems. To refresh you, Planning Commission, 5 Year Plans and many more were all taken from the Russian system, with lot of success initially.

 

[pmaitra]

A lot of the world trade happens across the oceans. The US has the primary control of international sea lanes with its superior naval force. The Russian Navy was never as good. However, Russia has its advantage over the US in the land forces. The Russian land forces are superior and the US was never as good.

Now, with Russia and PRC coming together, along with several other players under the SCO, Eurasian Union, and with a possibility of Europe being able to trade with these blocs, we will see a reduction of the importance of the sea trade routes as a lot of Eurasian Trade will happen over land (the New Silk Route, for example).

PRC is going to become the de facto successor of the US as far as economic superpower status is concerned.

In view of these, should India remain friends with Russia?

On a side note, a major strategic disadvantage of India is that it is cut off from Central Asia. What India needs to focus on is the disintegration of Pakistan and India physically connecting with Central Asia. A de facto border along the Wakhan Corridor is what India needs at the minimum. The fact that Pakistan has control over that region makes Pakistan tremendously important.

India missed a few opportunities, but all is not lost yet. We need to wait for the right time and right place. In the meanwhile, India should remain friends with all, but ally with none. Military alliances will bring India no benefit.

A good general knows when to fight a battle and when to retreat.

 

[Khagesh]

China will rely on the northern route+overland routes+trans pacific routes for its trade and India will rely on IOR routes for all its trade. And neither China nor India will be able to play hanky panky with the other's access to sea routes.

But it is true the almost the whole of Asia will revolve around the evolving Russo-China axis. One controls oil (Russian and CA) and the other controls production and finance.

 

[Zebra]

@Casper, so you consider me Russian representative. Well thank you. Hope somebody in Putin's administration is reading your posts.

OK tell me how did USA match Russia? Well consider this -
95% of Indian tanks are Russian origin
Bulk of Indian artillery is Russian origin
Bulk of India's frigates and destroyers are either Russian origin or use Russian weapons
Most of India's fighter aircraft are Russian origin

What did USA offer so far to MATCH Russian contribution - some overpriced transports.

What happened in USSR is no longer relevant as USSR is dead. Americans are not far behind in deaths. Read about wars and pogroms in USA. Ignorance can be cured by reading.

Yes it is true that USA has caused more deaths overseas than in USA itself.

Sir, what are there in my posts?

Its open for all and its free too. Let them also enjoy.

Anyway, they need India more then India need them.

 

[sgarg]

@sgarg

No doubt British left india a disaster but by india moving to an exclusive nam/ russian
Camp made india miss a lot of opportunities with other countries(western). It isolated
India for decades. Look at how early Chinese opened up even being a communist country
and progress they made.

The communist countries like Russia and China at least produced quantity if not quality. India produced neither quantity nor quality.
Indian economy was slow to take off as the base was not there. Base of industrial society is health, education, and infrastructure. In addition, India suffered from feudal culture and a number of societal ills.

Despite these problems, economy of India averaged 3% annual growth in the first four decades of independence - the so called Hindu rate of growth. This was followed by fast 7% growth in nineties after opening up of the economy.

The watershed event was not US orientation BUT opening of the economy (reduction in license-permit raj). India has a remarkable amount of human resources which are quite attractive to large Western companies. So opening up of India played up natural human advantage of India.

It was not NAM that was the problem. The problem clearly was license-permit raj which shackled development of local industry.

 

[sgarg]

Just to remind you. Pt. Nehru embraced Soviet economic systems. To refresh you, Planning Commission, 5 Year Plans and many more were all taken from the Russian system, with lot of success initially.

It actually made sense as there was not much private capital. Pt Nehru might have taken some aspects of the Soviet system which he felt were suitable for India. In retrospect I feel central planning was a good thing as it tried to distribute economic growth to all regions of India thus contributed to national unity.

There is a role of central planning even today - for example in infrastructure. Where it went wrong was they overdid the role of government and completely stifled private industry with license-permit raj (plus corruption).

 

[sgarg]

PRC is going to become the de facto successor of the US as far as economic superpower status is concerned.

The issue for India is that China and Russia are dominant powers in Asia. USA may be a superpower today with oversized influence in all parts of the globe, but it is clear USA is over-extended. USA has been suffering a trade imbalance of 6% of GDP for decades now.
It is better for India to have a balanced foreign policy rather than leaning towards a specific bloc.
As for military goods, I think imports from Russia will continue simply because of good value proposition. I doubt there is any ideology component to Russia trade anymore. It is mostly economics.

 

[Zebra]

Yes, India did not support so called "Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan" (In reality it was essentially an anti-terrorist op by the Soviets, to clear American funded and armed terrorists who had liquidated the legitimate Afghan govt. )

So India not supporting the Afghan op only adds strength to the argument that India wasn't a Soviet vassal.
But even today in this age (Ukraine civil war) you'll see that euro nations (like france and a whole bunch of 'em) and other nations like Japan (which went against russia in spite of strengthening relations and russia's assurance to solve kuril island disputes) will vote (in world forums) and act just as told by Uncle Sam. This is vassalhood. :thumb:

Is this vassalhood?

Watch video @ 1:37.

www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=8aG7iOyWd0w

The deal was about Russian oil fields and it was in between Russia and India.

Looks like US company don't listen to vassal state and here that state is Russia bcz oil fields are in Russia.

Can't Russia solve it by them selves!

The question is why matter reached in US.

OR

Vassalhood...!....?

 

[Ray]

True that the communist countries like Russia and China at least produced quantity if not quality.

India could not do so because everything was in the hands of the Govt.

Where private industry was allowed to function, even with leashes, it flourished to some extent. Take the TMB trucks or Tata Steel.

 

[indiatester]

Much of the russian naval yards remained opened for years thru indian orders.
Latest example Gorshokov deal.

Agreed, but we benefited too. But when USSR helped us, they really didn't have to.

 

[Samar Rathi]

Russia still is a friend. How many countries are India having a joint development programme for developing 5th gen fighters with? You think such strategic projects are possible without them being our friends? What I am talking against is the illogical stand that Russia cant have its own priorities. If people here can be fine with US supplying Pak with F16 while advocating US vassalage over India, then there is no reason why we should not be friends with Russia, just because they sell some outdated weapons to Pak.

And I dont think people here actually understand the magnitude of the problem caused by USSR being a "friend" of India. Why do you think Indian GDP growth went from bad to worse from 1947 to 1990s? Increasingly bad socialist policies supported by USSR. While their intentions might have been pure, what they caused us was more harm than good and you have to measure someone's worth with what they did and not what their intentions were. Imagine an India which had a free market and was in the US camp(If we had been in the US camp, then Pak would have been in russian camp and that would have been a different story altogether) during coldwar days instead of being socialist and being in USSR camp, we would be having the living standards of Japan, only ten times larger

first of all we could also be part of f35 program but we didn't choose to and russian also need our money for their T50 project where lots of complain coming from not sharing full technologies while we are partner in RnD.

Now USSR didn't enforce socialism on us but Nehru chose socialism. It's like same saying USA forced democracy on us while we chose that too or Govt at that time. So whole point of blaming russian for our own wrong decisions is out of my head thinking. Your funny as Iran was in USA camp before 1979 so what they achieved?

What Philippines/Pakistani achieved ? No one can help you if you are not willing to help yourself and please don't compare india with japan as japan was the most industrialized country in 20th century start while india was nowhere to found.

you can't compare apple with oranges.

 

[sgarg]

On a philosophical and cultural level, Russia is closer to india compared to western Europe. Geographically Russia is much closer. Soon direct overland trade between Russia and india will become possible as rail lines reach from China to india. Do we want to think forward or brood over what we could not achieve? Asia is rising and soon east and west will be balanced in GDP. An Asian orientation will help india develop much faster.

 

[sgarg]

We have already missed the USA bus. The right time to board this bus was in 1950s. Now it is too late. I believe india will never ride with america due to civilizational differences.

 

[Peter]

Also, many people miss an important part of how ToT works - people working on a project will absorb the tech they are working on. This is the whole reasoning behind the Make In India campaign.

For example, my cousin works for a US company which designs software for banks in US. But since he worked in that project, now he can design such software himself and this is a kind of ToT. This is also how Kawasaki-bajaj has now become Bajaj alone and this is how Hero -Honda has spawned its own Hero brand. Defence sector will be no different

So techs will come as we manufacture them here and we will become self reliant in the long run . The ToT with US will be of similiar kind, that is absorbtive kind.

Speaking of techs people often forget that a lot of the so called modern inventions came from the the West(mainly USA). Today the Internet and availability of the pc to the masses can be directly attributed to the American inventors and entrepreneurs. If America had been indeed too shrewd with its technology they could have denied this to us. In fact one of the reasons why the US surged ahead of the USSR in the late Cold War period is because the USSR lagged behind in computer technology.

 

[Peter]

I cant find the actual link I read here in DFI. But here is what the police are saying and so are the maoist leaders who surrender. With so much wealth being created due to capitalism, there is not enough youths to wallow in the brainwashing filth taught by the socialists:thumb:

Chhattisgarh Maoist attacks a sign of nervousness as recruitment falls

In Bengal the current Maoists are mostly goons and criminals on a run from the law. Even during the CPM rule when a few of these Maoists were caught they confessed that they were there only to escape from the police. Some of them acknowledged that they had never known what Maoism actually stood for and had only joined the rebels so that they will not be arrested for their petty crimes. As for the current Naxal threat, it has disappeared after Mamata came to power here. There is an accusation that the maoists have joined the ranks of TMC but I will not elaborate on that issue and derail the thread further.