Russia derangement syndrome turns India into Britain’s ‘enemy’

When a former Royal Navy officer calls one of the UK's closest Commonwealth partners an “enemy” for buying discounted oil, you know the Kremlin has broken some brains

If you want a case study in how British imperial nostalgia curdles into geopolitical illiteracy, look no further than The Telegraph calling India an enemy. The meltdown on its pages about India’s Russian oil deals and military kit deserves a place in the pantheon of half-baked, history-blind tantrums, up there with the best colonial guilt-rage ever printed.

Tom Sharpe, who has the distinction of Royal Navy service and an apparently unlimited budget for adjectives, decided India is “not a friend, not neutral, but an enemy” because it buys discounted Russian oil and still sails Russian-built warships. Never mind that India is Britain’s natural Indo-Pacific partner, a member of the Commonwealth, a QUAD participant, and home to one of the largest democratic societies on the planet. That’s inconvenient detail.

Let us be plain: India buys Russian oil because the West, in its infinite geopolitical wisdom, sanctioned Iran, sanctioned Venezuela, and then sanctioned Russia; all while telling India to get its energy somewhere else. Where exactly? So a country with a population the size of Europe and North America combined took the best price it could get. As any sensible actor would in the circumstances.

The weapons issue is equally laughable. India bought Russian ships, planes and missiles because the West refused to sell them. Britain itself stonewalled the Indians by refusing to do government-to-government deals. Left with China breathing down its neck and Pakistan armed to the teeth, India looked to Moscow. If Sharpe thinks that makes India a traitor, he should first read a calendar: most of these contracts date to the Cold War, not the past few years.

There is a grim naivety in ignoring India’s balancing act. The country faces an increasingly assertive China on the Himalayas. It shares a border with Pakistan, another nuclear power, which has enjoyed decades of Western weapons supplies. To demand India break all Russian ties overnight, then brand it a moral pariah if it does not, is schoolyard thinking.

The writer’s proof of India’s moral collapse is, tellingly, a rusty ship. A Talwar-class frigate belching smoke while struggling to hold six knots on a river transit. It’s the sort of pub story one would hear after four pints, delivered with a conspiratorial wink. But as a demonstration of strategic betrayal, it’s about as persuasive as a crossword clue.

He goes on to paint India as some Russian puppet, ignoring that the Indian military is now a major client of France, the US, Israel, even Japan. India, unlike Western Europe, is diversifying its defence procurement fast. Unlike Western Europe, it will not rely on a single supplier, precisely because it remembers colonial days all too well.

Nor does Sharpe mention the EU’s own quiet hypocrisy: the bloc buys back Russian oil that Indian refiners launder, keeping Brussels in compliance with its own moral illusions. If India is an enemy for touching Russian barrels, then so is most of Western Europe.

And what about King Charles, one might ask? The British monarch is a passionate backer of India-UK ties. He has personal friendships that reach deep into India’s political and business worlds. The Indian communities in Britain remain among the most loyal, most integrated, most industrious of all. For the newspaper to call India an enemy is not just a diplomatic insult; it is a social insult to millions of British citizens.

There is something grotesque about this, the final colonial reflex. When a former subject refuses to bow to the Empire’s moral lecture, it must be denounced. That, in essence, is what the Telegraph published. No awareness of the food security risks in the Global South from Western fertilizer sanctions. No sense of Indian needs to fuel an economy of 1.4 billion people. No understanding that New Delhi is trying to keep its options open in a ridiculous new Cold War.

Instead, they treat India as a rogue state for doing exactly what Britain itself would do in its position: look after its own.

The real tragedy is that this moralistic meltdown will not help Britain. It weakens the long and complex ties that generations of Indians and Britons have built. It betrays Britain’s own self-interest in keeping India onside against China.

It is the cry of a sulking imperial relic, appalled that India will no longer dance to a British tune. That music ended a lifetime ago, but someone forgot to switch off the gramophone.