India in last 70 years during many international conflicts not only stuck to strategic autonomy but it also stood for values without taking sides.
It did not make nuclear weapons despite being capable of it and despite its neighbors going nuclear because it felt nuclear weapons were dangerous for humanity. It firmly stood for nuclear disarmament. Finally when pushed to a corner by the powers it turned nuclear, but the powers never reacted to in the manner they reacted to Iran and Iraq. Because they felt that India is a responsible power and it stood for Values all these years.
It stood firmly against Apartheid and boycotted South Africa for many decades and also stood for Palestinians state hood. It went in for a war when Pakistani army was causing atrocities on innocent civilians of East Pakistan, dropped food for Srilankan Tamils who were fighting for Sri lankans fighting for their democratic rights in NE Region of Srilanka.
Times When Values were Compromised ;
Once when Chinese captured Tibet and it suffered.
And second time was when USSR, in 1979 moved its powerful army into Afghanistan, it could capture the land but could not subjugate its people. India once again stood with USSR.
The end result was USSR got disintegrated and India suffered immensely because of the rise in fundamentalism in the subcontinent.
One is free to derive lessons from it.
Ukraine Crisis provides Opportunity To Take a Moral Stand.
Once again Ukrainian crisis has divided the world into two groups ; one with Russia and the other with Ukraine.
The longer the war continues the difficult it will become for Russia and it will then surely unleash all its military power to save itself from embarrassment. This will cause more destruction and more deaths of civilians.
Russia's powerful army may capture whole of Ukraine, like it captured Afghanistan but can it govern without the local support. ; like it happened in Afghanistan it may happen again , Russia may get a real boot on its back side by the people and this time Putin may be ousted as a disgraced leader and its people may suffer immense miseries due to the economic sanctions.
If India at that point of time changes its stance, it would be too late and too little.
Statesmanship
A Statesman focuses on Values, he has the wisdom, has long term vision for his people, his country and the world, he thinks Big and thinks about the Humanity whereas Petty Politicians think short term .
India a year ago opposed China’s intrusions in Ladakh, PM of India called them as Expansionists and harped on the necessity to respect each other’s Territorial integrity and sovereignty, India joined Quad in order to ensure that we have a rule based Indo- Pacific region. This was the main objective of Quad and has been spelt out categorically.
The Indian foreign minister when reminded of this objective recently quipped that this objective was specifically for Indo-Pacific region.
Its astonishing, How could he think of such a response ;,
Does that mean that these Values do not hold good for rest of the world and India has no concern with what happens in rest of the world.
What kind of support would we expect from rest of the world incase a few years from now we face threat from China. Remember China threat has not gone as yet.
On what grounds would we be appealing to the world community then?
What would happen in case in future China and resurgent Pakistan demand execution of UN resolution on Kashmir or jointly carry out a military operation against India?.
On what grounds would we be appealing to the world community then?
Will a poor and pauper Russia be in a position to extend help to India against China?
India has its own numerous problems with its neighbours as far as territory is concerned and it should avoid tying itself up in knots by taking unprincipled stance, which may become difficult to untangle.
Yes , there is always some kind of balance that has to be struck between values and real politics but when situation deteriorates and there is confusion galore it is always better to STAND FOR VALUES rather than real politics because real politics devoid of values will tie yourself up.
May be, those in power think that time has still not come to take a VALUE BASED STANCE and it is quite possible that India may not be able to hold on to this stance any longer. or may be it is just waiting for its citizens to be out of danger.