Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, a crest line has appeared within the international community. If the “Global North” stands up against Russia, most of the countries of the “Global South” have adopted a calculated neutrality, hinged on the defense of their own interests. But, according to Indian activist Kavita Krishnan, this discourse serves Moscow and authoritarian regimes more than the people.
When feminist activist Kavita Krishnan left her position in the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in September 2022, due to her differences of opinion on the war in Ukraine, her resounding resignation made the headlines in the Indian press.
Unsurprisingly, the 50-year-old is a recognized political and media figure in her country – she was even named in the BBC’s 100 Most Powerful Women list in 2014.
Kavita Krishnan is indeed swimming against the tide. In India, the policy of “calculated neutrality” adopted by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, on the war in Ukraine is consensual. Membership goes well beyond the circle of supporters of the Hindu supremacist government: leftist opponents and the media have followed suit. All argue that the conflict in Ukraine is a European issue and that India must put its own interests first. In the media, the editorial writers adhere to the Russian discourse according to which Moscow would have been “wronged” by NATO, in Ukraine.
This anti-Western discourse is thus shared by the entire Indian political field, with the notable exception of Kavita Krishnan who calls for standing alongside Ukraine. In recent years, the activist has also learned about the history of the country and its Soviet past, in particular about the great famine – or Holodomor, the genocide by hunger carried out in the country by Joseph Stalin in 1932-1933. .
This is why she is, she explains, “less willing to accept the usual discourse of the left and the progressives” on the question. “I naively thought that my party lacked knowledge, and for a long time I tried to fill their gaps, she laments. Ukraine suffered as much under Stalin as under Hitler, and you have to know this to understand why the “Ukraine is fighting right now. But I’ve been met with multiple resistances. They refuse to accept the idea that it is Ukraine that is currently resisting Russia, and that the conflict is not just about ‘ the West against the rest of the world.
A chasm between North and South
His departure from the Communist Party was carefully considered, but it was no less painful. “I found myself completely isolated when I had been in the party for almost 30 years, she confides. I really did not want to leave it. But I was pointing out the error of interpretation made by the Global South, and they didn’t want me to.”
Like the rift that grew between Kavita Krishnan and her party, the war in Ukraine has exposed fault lines within the international community. A year after the start of the conflict, a gulf has appeared between the countries of the “Global South”, this heterogeneous group of countries formerly called “underdeveloped” with a growing role on the international scene, and those of the “Global North”, another name of the West.
On the one hand, Western countries have closed ranks around Ukraine, overcoming their internal rivalries to unite in the face of aggression that contradicts the order in place since the end of the Second World War.
On the other hand, countries of the “global South”, in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America, have opted for a more ambiguous positioning.
The divisions became evident as early as March 2, 2022, when the UN voted for the first time to condemn the war in Ukraine.
If a resolution calling on the Kremlin to end its offensive was voted on by 141 countries, 35 states of the “global South”, historically linked to Moscow, including China, India, South Africa and Senegal abstained . A month later, the number of abstaining states soared again, despite the discovery of the Boutcha massacre. Fifty-eight countries, including Brazil, refused on April 7 to participate in the vote organized to exclude Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council.
A “neutrality” that benefits Russia
A year later, nothing has changed: while the world has just marked the first anniversary of the war in Ukraine, South Africa has organized military exercises on its soil alongside Russia and China.
The operation, which took place from February 17 to 27, illustrates the limits of “neutrality” and the defense of its own interests, which Pretoria continues to display. Because the experts show that this position, shared by many countries of the “global South”, is in fact beneficial to Russia.
“Russia benefits economically from the policies of New Delhi and Riyadh,” says former French ambassador to Syria Michel Duclos, special adviser at the Institut Montaigne.
On October 5, shortly after Joe Biden visited Riyadh to try to convince Saudi Arabia to increase its oil production to help Europe through the winter, OPEC members have decided on the contrary to reduce it.
“This decision has allowed some of the largest importers in the Global South to buy Russian oil at rock bottom prices, underlines Michel Duclos. And that helped Russia fund the war in Ukraine.”
The greatest powers of the South have thus benefited from the very low prices practiced by Russia to sell its oil and gas. China imported record levels, while India increased its imports 33 times.
“Multipolar” world against Western hegemony
“When we speak of ‘Global South’, we use a disputed category, but which is used by these countries to speak about themselves, which in my opinion must be respected, remarks Michel Duclos. We nevertheless see that in In the ‘Global South’, some countries are more important than others. Some have reached such an economic level that the West is no longer able to exert any pressure on them”.
This heterogeneous “global South” nevertheless finds its unity in the demand for a “multipolar” world order, in the face of the “unipolar hegemony” of the West. A speech echoing that put forward by Russia to justify the invasion of Ukraine, despite its complete contradiction with international law.
A few weeks before ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, on a trip to China, signed a declaration with Xi Jinping on the need to “advance multipolarity”. However, within the United Nations Security Council, it is France, the United States and the United Kingdom, countries of the “global North”, which support the inclusion of India and a permanent African representation, not Beijing or Moscow.
For his part, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, has been leading a frenetic charm operation since the beginning of the war.
From Pretoria to Khartoum, via Egypt, Mali and Ethiopia, he constantly invokes the “creation of a multipolar world order against “the hegemony of the West”. A “multipolarity” of despots
A seasoned left-wing activist, Kavita Krishnan is far from unaware of the multiple abuses committed by Western countries. But for her, the discourse on multipolarity has turned into a “rally cry of despots, who use it to present their war against democracy as a war against imperialism”.
In the multipolar order, she denounces, “Ukraine is not a ‘pole’. In South Asia, India is the emerging pole, not Nepal or Bangladesh. Multipolarity has always wanted to say multi-imperialisms now refers to a ‘multi-despotism’. In the multi-polar world, every despot is free to be.”
Nothing to do, therefore, according to her, between the neutrality displayed by the “Global South” and the non-aligned movement during the Cold War, these newly independent countries which, during this period, refused to be part of the logic of blocks. “Multipolarity is very different from non-alignment, insists Kavita Krishnan. It was a theory based on noble ideas, not on selfish, pragmatic and amoral interests.”
Faced with these differences that have come from afar, and appeared crudely since the start of the war, it is time for the North to react, affirms Michel Duclos for his part. “The North and the South no longer conceive of the world in the same way, explains the specialist. There is currently a war of influence, led by China and Russia, and many illiberal governments in the South are making their populations suffer. But the West has a window of opportunity to rebuild, with some countries of the ‘Global South’, a world order that respects the basic principles of the international system and human rights.”
From New Delhi, Kavita Krishnan has thus given herself the mission of transmitting the message, and is beginning to meet with some success. His essay, titled “Multipolarity, the Mantra of Authoritarianism”, has been translated into many languages and reprinted several times. The activist even recently received a call from a woman living in Kharkiv, who is trying to translate her text into Ukrainian.
“I feel full of humility and joy at the idea of a woman from Kharkiv translating what I have written, confides Kavita Krishnan. I am happy to build links, across the planet, with people who want a better and more equal world. In India, I tell my friends that if our colonizer crossed the sea, Moscow was just as colonial in Ukraine, stealing grain and starving the population. Ukrainians are fighting not to not be colonized again, and we must support them.”
Source: France24