If you ask an Indian whether he/she wants to go to the US/Europe or to Russia for studies, tourism, or even to settle down, the answer is not hard to guess: It won’t be Russia. If you ask any Indian strategic thinker whether in the longer run the strategic partnership with Russia is more consequential than that with the US, the considered answer is likely to be “no”. Even within the government, I suppose the thinking would be that Russia is an important strategic partner but not as consequential as the US (militarily) or Europeans (economically) over a longer horizon.

And yet, Indians in general have a perplexingly positive attitude towards Russia, a country they are unlikely to visit as tourists, workers, students, migrants, or engage with for trade. It is as if Russia has left an indelible mark on India’s strategic and popular consciousness. What explains this?

There are, to my mind, four reasons for this. The first reason, of course, is history. Indians continue to gratefully remember Russia as having stood by India in 1971, and as a steady defence supplier thereafter. Even prior to Independence — when India was still colonised by the UK, and the US or other western countries did nothing about it — there was far more support from the erstwhile USSR for the anti-colonial struggle.

Second, India’s positive view of Russia is also attitudinal. In contrast to the abiding feeling in New Delhi that the US or the West miss no opportunity to castigate or........

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