INDIA-RUSSIA COOPERATION IN BRICS, SCO & G-20

Abstract
This article is a modest endeavour to deal with various nuances of India-Russia Cooperation in BRICS, SCO & G20. It sets out by highlighting the foundation of bilateral Indo-Russian Relations on which their multilateral coordination is set up. This article, then, explicates India-Russia Cooperation in BRICS, drawing on empirical statistics and institutional understanding to tender policy prescriptions to Moscow and New Delhi in respect of their engagement in BRICS. Further, it delves into the evolution of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in the multilateral framework of relations, underscoring common concerns and recognising the institution’s importance via theoretical referencing and pragmatic appreciation of the developments in the Eurasian Region. This article then proceeds to comprehensively analyse the Indo-Russian engagement in G20 and seeks to postulate the role of the Indo-Russian cooperation in an increasingly fragmented world order. Finally, it closes with a philosophical premise to channelise the Indo-Russian cooperation.
Keywords: Indo-Russian relations, Multipolarity, Developing economies, BRICS, SCO and G20, Multilateral cooperation.

INTRODUCTION
“Look I have shed my blood for Russia”, observed India’s first Premier, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, in 1955, braving rose thorns that pricked his fingers as he made a lively tryst with the bouquets hurled at him by the warmed-up Soviet crowd, brimming with affection for Nehru’s arrival in Yalta. Albeit, the “time-tested Indo-Russian relations” got enshrined in the diplomatic lexicon when Mrs. Gandhi, the then Prime Minister inked the Treaty of Friendship with USSR in 1971, it was with such a spirit of brotherly bonhomie that the newly emancipated Bharat began cultivating an entente with Moscow in the 1950s, leaning on Russian logistical assistance for seminal industrial and developmental projects and hitching her ‘voyage of progress’ to the Soviet-style pedagogical wagon of planning, while gently severing her umbilical affiliation to English economic ‘isms’ yet steering clear through bipolar boiling of the international waters. Over the decades, a unique element of stability has underpinned the substratum of Indo-Russian ties, manifest in their ability to draw grand dawns from gloomy dusks, derailing the relationship, and in their rising to the rescue of each other.

THE INDO-RUSSIAN VECTOR ON MULTILATERAL AXIS                                                Braiding BRICS, SCO & G20 into the ‘Curve of Cooperation’                                                                                            
The vicissitudes of geopolitics have yet again yielded a chequered world order, necessitating enhanced synergy between South Block and Smolenskaya Square for not only shoring up their strategic stakes but also for buttressing developing nations’ march towards democratic development for these nations are sine qua non for fostering a multipolar world order, an objective that masses very dearly share with the mandarins across the Asian aisle from Moscow to New Delhi. The closer collegiality between Russia and India casts out an ever-exalted role for BRICS, SCO, & G20 to recast the global cupola and embolden the Indo-Russian impress over the geopolitical plane for all these institutions were contrived in the post-Soviet space, chiefly to promulgate stability while upending extant inequities permeating the world in that era and were therefore acquainted with the actualities of the post-Cold War phase, indicating that these multilateral bodies aligned with the ideological disposition of New Delhi and Moscow vis-à-vis global equations and induced the maturation of Indo-Russian bonding. What augmented the adhesive Indo-Russian dealings in these institutions, especially BRICS and SCO, lay at the turn of the 20th century, when Prime Minister Vajpeyee and President Putin inscribed their signatures on the “Declaration on the India-Russia Strategic Partnership” in October 2000, which ascribed institutional plinth to the relationship on which the edifice of bilateral parleys and multilateral synergy, was erected in the initial passage of 21st century. A robust Indo-Russia partnership weaves together the heart of BRICS, SCO & G20, for it voices and ministers to the concerns of the developing world, and a steadfast Indo-Russian collaboration spells out into pervasive progress profiting all developing economies, thereby championing pluriversal values as S Jaishankar, the Indian External Affairs Minister, observed at a conference hosted by the Russian International Affairs Council and the Indian Embassy in Moscow, “The era of multipolarity necessitates greater cooperation between our two nations.”  

Bolstering BRICS with the Indo-Russian Brick

Ever since its inception in 2009, BRICS has served as a potent catalyst for furthering Indo-Russian relations across varied realms, ranging from defence to the energy sector, and with the shifting sands in the geopolitical landscape, coupled with advancing ambits of developing polities, it has mutated into a robust non-Western financial institution, aiding developing economies to circumvent occidental economic precepts. New Development Bank and Contingent Reserve Arrangement are the two primary financial wings of the BRICS jet, founded in 2014 to effectively cushion the ‘shocks of turbulence’ convecting from the western space, thereby propelling the ascent of the Global South, as Dilma Rouseff, while chairing 10th annual meeting of the New Development Bank remarked, “Our Bank was established by the Global South for the Global South, with a governance structure based on substantive equality among members.”
In respect of where the comparative valuation of the BRICS stands, Prof. Herbert Wulf notes, “The gross national product of the BRICS is larger than that of the G7 countries”, however what is worth noting is that the fountainhead of BRICS’ blossoming sway on the international stage chiefly rests in the fiscal agency of India and Russia, along with China, for out of the 40% share of world GDP contributed by BRICS, India and Russia cumulatively subscribe around 12% (on a PPP basis).  
While cooperation between Moscow and New Delhi within the BRICS framework has registered an uptick, as evinced by the Chennai Vladivostok Maritime Corridor, the policy imperative over which New Delhi and Moscow ought to jointly meditate may be aptly defined as ‘bilateral economic advancement’ with the aim to augmenting the commercial competence of BRICS for the deeper Sangam between Volga and Ganga will nourish the BRICS’ bucket as never before. As Washington’s influence wanes in the oriental affairs, the BRICS is best posited on the transcontinental plane to nurse the necessities of the emerging economies, with its moorings well embedded in the Indo-Russian soil.  

The SCO Symphony: Amplifying the Indo-Russian Tune  

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is yet another multilateral vessel, braving the trying tides of the world sea, to which Moscow and New Delhi have fastened their policy anchors for  
discovering the confluence of sovereign shores, in other words, the ‘brimming beach of bright shells’. The SCO was initially established as the Shanghai Five in 1996, which later morphed into its present version with the inclusion of Uzbekistan in 2001. The strategic intent with which Russia chipped in to this body also partly echoes the regional security concerns of cross-border terrorism that goaded New Delhi into joining the SCO, as Nivedita Kapoor documents in her report, “At the establishment of the SCO in 2001, Russia, a founding member, was confronting terrorism and extremism, with the war in Chechnya raging. This made the SCO’s objectives of fighting terrorism, extremism, and separatism directly relevant to Russian interests.” At this juncture, laying accent on the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure and building consensus on the International North-South Transit Corridor are of paramount concern for policy-makers in both Moscow and New Delhi, so far as the stability and prosperity of Asia is concerned.  It should also be placed in the file that, notwithstanding protocol priorities, in 2009, when SCO used to be cocooned as an exclusive nucleus, Russia altered the format and invited India (then an Observer) to the core deliberations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, along with other countries like Iran and Mongolia, which is another milestone in the highway of Indo-Russian partnership in SCO.
The SCO, though, has been pivotal in reining in occidental overreach in the region, thereby fending for undeveloped economies, what must set alarm bells ringing in New Delhi and Moscow and up the ante of converging conscience of the two in the SCO is the ever-expanding, ‘Beijing’s belligerence’, for the Chinese cart has rapidly outpaced other Asian approaches and is attempting to foist its hegemony on the Eurasian affairs. Against this setting, Prof. Rajendra Kumar Pandey avers, “China tends to fill in the power vacuum created by the withdrawal of US-led powers and emerge as a dominant power. Therefore, both Russia and India, as they bear the duress of border tensions, must also cooperate through regional organisations like the SCO in checking the Chinese imperialism while navigating other domains”. Rest assured, the Indo-Russian sur will be the keynote in unravelling the multipolar melody through the SCO Svirel.  
    
Shifting the G20 Gear: Flattening Friction&Mobilising Momentum

To the world sharply abscised on parochial power principles, the G20, cemented by Moscow and New Delhi, can serve as the plaster band, bridging differences and acting as the jugular vein between the West and the developing world. The G20, founded in 1999, was principally a corollary of Atlantic ingenuity to integrate emerging non-Western economies into the heavyweight global financial web and reinforce the resilience of the world economy