Why trade relations of india with soviet bloc had broken down in 1991?
Answers
With all the attention being paid this month to the fall of the Berlin Wall, I’ve found myself thinking of how much India has changed over the last 20 years. Most of the media coverage has, quite understandably, focused on Europe. But the tremors from Communism’s collapse were felt far beyond the immediate battlegrounds of the Cold War.
The breakup of the Soviet Union had a profound impact on India. In many ways, it paved the way for a reinvention of the country: from a stultified, socialist economy to a more dynamic, capitalist one; from a foreign policy defined by suspicion of America to one defined by shared interests and even mutual affection; and from public attitudes that frowned on individualism, consumerism and ambition to a nation that today exalts those same qualities.
A founding member of the global non-aligned movement, India was never a Communist country. But it was far closer to the Soviet Union than to the United States throughout the Cold War, buying weapons on concessional terms, doing barter trade with the Eastern Bloc and receiving financial and technical aid for industrial and infrastructure projects.
I remember, from my childhood, the Soviet engineers and scientists who filled the bars in Pondicherry, seeking respite from the rigors of the power plant they were building up the road. I remember the dusty bookstores that stocked cheap Russian classics and the bottles of sparkling Russian wine my father used to buy from visiting sailors.
There were many reasons for the closeness between India and the Soviet Union, not least of which was a U.S. foreign policy that tilted decisively toward Pakistan. But the closeness was born, too, of genuine ideological affinity.