It isn’t uncommon that what is grabbed by headline hunters from summit talks is mundane to stir serious watchers of international politics. This was evident a few minutes into the opening remarks session of the bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin of Russia on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in the Uzbek city of Samarkand. Before proceeding to the bilateral talks, the two leaders made the opening remarks in presence of the media.
Sections of the western press, as also the Indian media, latched onto Modi’s quip that “today’s is not an era of war”. They appeared keen to see the prime minister’s remark, made sitting beside Putin, as a subtle shift in India’s tightrope walk on Ukraine conflict, now nearing seven months. Some western commentators, however, went to the extent of dubbing the remark “public shaming’’ of the Russian president. In its mild as well as extreme form, the response is fraught with misreading between the lines, and wrong on many counts. There are three basic problems in the sweeping conclusions made about Modi’s statement.
