The Northern Forum is not a body that maybe particularly well known in India, not least because its secretariat is in rather obscure Yakutia, a region more than 4000-km from Moscow where winter temperatures dip as low as -60 Celsius.
That makes Yakutia as Arctic as it can get, and explains why the Northern Forum is headquartered there. It is a platform dedicated to helping the “people of the north” (those living in Arctic regions) develop themselves through business and other partnerships.
The one in Yakutia works with other Northern Forum platforms in Iceland, in Alaska, Finland and South Korea and the outreach to India titled Uniting North & South for Sustainable Development in the Arctic, is a first, largely because although it is a non-Arctic country, India has been involved in Arctic research for decades and even mans a permanent station there called Himadri.
The outreach is also driven by geopolitics. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Feb 2022 has seen it being frozen out of the Arctic Council, the intergovernmental body for Arctic cooperation.
The irony is more than 50% of Russia’s landmass is in the Arctic, making it the biggest Arctic member state. But the other Arctic member states reject any role for Russia in the council and so it is looking outside this charmed circle to leverage its position.
“The Arctic offers crucial opportunities for major players who are ready to make meaningful investments in developing its potential,” Russia’s Ambassador Denis Alipov said at the Northern Forum’s outreach session hosted by the Vivekananda International Foundation in Delhi on Thursday.
But he warned that the “metrics of international interaction in this area is becoming more complex. Russia is opposed to the introduction of confrontational agendas into the Arctic, instead it has consistently articulated an enduring international security architecture in the region.”
“The militarization of the Arctic is concerning,” he underscored, alluding to NATO’s maneuvers in the region that are seen as undermining security. Also, European efforts to impose their own rules of the game that are “inimical to the security of the region”.
Russia is incensed over what it says is NATO militarizing the Svalbard archipelago, when the 1920 Treaty expressly prohibits the use of the area for any military purpose.
Russia has old settlements there and the concern in Moscow is if Svalbard continues down the militarization path, it may well result in the expulsion of the ethnic Russian population. That could be the trigger for confrontation and Russia has more armed forces in the Arctic than any other state.
But the focus was on more benign issues: Russia’s desire to collaborate with India, which it sees as a stabilizing actor in the Arctic.
“We view India as a strategic partner in the joint development of the Arctic,” Alipov said and called for coordinated efforts in fighting climate change, in glacier and biodiversity studies.
“The Polar regions are becoming more critical,” acknowledged Dr Ravichandran, Secretary Earth Sciences, who has been closely involved in India’s Arctic programmes. “All three poles are important in the global warming scenario, all three poles, north, south and the Himalayas.”
India is also interested in how monsoon dynamics are influenced by Arctic weather patterns, more so the extreme rainfall experienced in August and September. Russian institutes in St Petersburg and Arkhangelsk are actively collaborating.
“We have mutual interests in Arctic minerals,” said Alipov, “rare earths, also Indian firms can join hands in projects promoted by Novatek, Russia’s independent gas producer, and Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer.”
With climate change and global warming leading to Arctic ice melt, there is renewed interest in the north-south route for commercial shipping.
Clearly, Russia has an interest in drawing more countries, especially the non-Arctic ones, into the frozen continent at a time when the West is seeking to isolate and limit its options. There are opportunities for India to build capacities, skills and expertise with Russian help even as it does the same with the West.
