Walter J Lindner at Idea Exchange: ‘India is the only country with a good relationship with Putin & Zelenskyy… If we need big weight, it is the first choice’

I have to see it with my own eyes. I talked to many people, intellectuals and artists, BJP, AAP and Congress and rickshaw pullers and very rich people in the business sector. And the answers I got were diverse. Some were firm and supportive and some were very critical… So when I went to Nagpur to open a stretch of the Metro, which we financed, I said, let’s go to the headquarters and see what’s the atmosphere. What would be the reaction if I asked these questions? I could ask any question there, including ‘is this a Nazi organisation?’ As a German, I know what a Nazi organisation is.

The answers I got were satisfying to me in a way that at least I went out and said, I hope all the followers of RSS have such an opinion. I don’t know whether it is a true answer or whether they knew what I wanted to hear. But I left the place not with a horrific impression. I thought if these answers are the truth, there’s something positive in it…There was no criticism in Germany. There was criticism in one sector of social media, which tried to create a campaign. But if you are objective, it makes a lot of sense.

Afterwards, there were other ambassadors who went to get their own impression. I don’t know what kind of diplomacy these critics would find ideal; perhaps I sit at my desk and read reports, and talk to other ambassadors. How do you get the real feel, the DNA of a country then?

SHUBHAJIT Roy: You came to India for the first time in 1977, and then you were the ambassador from 2019-2022. What are the key markers in India’s development journey that the West should learn from?

In 1977, the population of India was half: about 600 million. The whole world has modernised during that time. But still, in a country with 7,000 years of history, 40 years is nothing. There might be modern cars. You don’t see any elephants on the streets. But if you want to see the real India, you still find it everywhere. If you go to Varanasi, it is still the same Varanasi that you have had for thousands of years. So there are truths, rituals, spirituality and characteristics of the Indian mentality which are always here. That’s why there has been a lot of change but also not too much change.

On ‘If India is becoming a sham democracy’ | I was often asked ‘isn’t India moving towards a dictatorship?’ and ‘doesn’t the PM diminish room for minorities?’ I tell everyone, hear both sides, see the difficulties and then make up your mind

Let’s start with digitalisation. You leapfrog telephone lines, end up with everyone having a cellphone and doing financial transactions with it. In Germany and in many European countries we are still lagging behind. You have done a great job in the last 10-15 years. You are a globalised country with an Indian diaspora in almost every country of the world. You have a young population and are eager to advance. And this comes from many things but also from the caste system. You have to be the best. It starts from kindergarten, goes upto high school. Because only this guarantees that you are getting out of the average. And this eagerness to be the best is something which we in the West have forgotten. We have been complacent.

You will overtake Germany as the third biggest economy very soon. And you have this sense of achievement, which is also something which has to do with not being afraid of not being successful. If you have 10 startups and eight are not successful, but maybe the two are. So you fall down, you get up, then the eighth time it’s working. This is a spirit which is observed everywhere in India and which is also the explanation why you find so many CEOs in the world, who are Indians. There are many more things from jugaad to cultural diversity which we can learn from India.

Shubhajit Roy: How do you read this rise of the Right in German politics?

The rise of the Right is not only in Germany. Superficially, one could just say, don’t worry, it is just 20 per cent, and we will make sure that the Democratic parties continue their rule, and we just have to explain our politics better. If you dig deeper, it has to do with a few different factors. One is the insecurity and uncertainty this world brings. You have wars out there, economic decline because of steel and oil prices, and then all these factors, which lead to job loss. There is digitalisation… They take away our jobs. There is an influx of migration. We lose our jobs.

But we take in so many migrants. In these times of uncertainty, one tends to lean on simple solutions and say, this is black and white. Listen to someone who says, vote for us and we will make sure this is not happening anymore. In the globalised world, with all the challenges, no party and no political direction can promise this.

This is nonsense. But this is one of the reasons for the rise of the Right wing. In the German elections, the topics were economic situation and migration. And both are connected. I think it is a difficult time where people look for orientation, not only on the Right wing side, but the whole nation. Don’t let the world be ruled just by those people who are shouting loudest, but you need skilled people doing this.

Shubhajit Roy: Germany has seen a rise in Indian professionals in the last five years. Will the internal debate on migration hurt this upward trajectory?

No, I don’t think so, because people are aware that you have to differentiate. You have three different kinds of migrations of foreigners. One is illegal migration. Then there is legal migration through asylum seekers. We have a very tough asylum law which grants people, who are politically persecuted, the Right to come. Then we have students and then you have skilled workers. When we look for a win-win situation and look for nurses in Kerala, they come and find jobs in Germany and we are happy that we have them because we need nurses in our hospitals. But, of course, the Right wing and others forget this differentiation and put everyone in one bag, which is nonsense. There are a lot of Indians in Germany and they are happy. You have to find structures on how to shape migration by quota. Otherwise, it is chaotic. Germany didn’t want to talk too much about it. That’s why the Right-wing parties came up.

Shubhajit Roy: What is your take on Trump administration’s policy on mass deportations? Will other countries like Germany take a cue from this?

If you are an illegal migrant in Germany and committing crimes, then you have to go back. We have flights going back, let’s say to Afghanistan or Syria. Whether you do it in a military plane or a civil plane, this has to be done. With Trump, we have already seen that he is postponing the taxes for a month and has got 10,000 soldiers of the Mexican army to protect the border against illegal migration. I do not know whether this is the new style of radical announcements and then settling for less or whether this is a new policy. We will see. Nobody knows.

P Vaidyanathan Iyer: You’ve spoken about Russia’s attack on Ukraine and how the Indian government reacted to it. Now that we are tackling a completely new set of challenges: the war itself is not over, the Israel-Palestine conflict and now the Trump era, how do you see India’s role in this fractious world?

I was one of the first to criticise Putin for this unacceptable breach of international law and lying to the international community. I had also heard different viewpoints of Indian interests towards Russia, which had supported India in 1971, when East Pakistan became Bangladesh, and through various resolutions in the Security Council. So it is your friend, and also a provider of weaponry and many other things. And this gave me food for thought: what we in the West think that everyone should think about this war, it is not the case in India and, as I found out later, in Brazil and in South Africa too. Now for you, the Ukraine war is a European war.

On indian interest towards Russia | You have a different relationship with the Russians. There is the dependency on oil… But if a country invading another is accepted, then what do you do if your neighbours do the same?

It’s something close to our citizens. That’s why we are engaged and that’s why we are against this brutal attack. But for someone who lives further away, it’s a different point of view. Also, you’re not a member of NATO, you’re not a member of the post-Cold War dealings when the Berlin Wall came down. So I can understand that this is far away for you… you have a different historic relationship with the Russians, stemming from Nehru’s times, the dependency on oil, the repercussions of the sanctions are felt in India because you would have to pay higher prices for oil.

We have ours and we should always try among friends to convince the other side. Mainly because there is one point which might be convincing for the Indian interest: if this breach of international law — of some country invading the other country is accepted internationally, then what do you do in the future if any of your neighbours do the same?

The Europeans are now taking India’s perception into account a bit more because many countries have been through the G20 presidency of India, and a lot of international leaders talked about Ukraine with PM Modi. So now they are more aware of the Indian position. One of India’s big strengths is that it has not been a part of a military bloc. It is a member of the Quad, BRICS, G20, the UN, so it has its weight, and the weight doesn’t come from the tanks, it comes from the politics it does. It’s the only country in the world with a good relationship with Putin and with Zelenskyy, with Netanyahu and Abbas, the Palestinians, with Kamala Harris, Biden and Trump. I am not saying India is there to moderate, but if we are anywhere in the world in need of a big weight in a country, India is the first choice. European politicians should take India more into consideration for the solution of future problems in the world.

Aakash joshi: We are becoming insular in India in terms of ideas in the name of decolonisation. Are there things that India can still learn from the West?

Nothing is a one-way road. I wrote what the West should learn from India because that is what I can say. If I say what India should learn from Germany, I would be very post-colonial. That book has to be written by an Indian diplomat. There are of course things which you could learn.

Vandita mishra: The general claim that the BJP-led dispensation makes is that India is punching above its weight now in a way that it did not do earlier. Do you agree with that assessment? What are the reasons? Is it only to do with leadership or do you think a set of structural changes in the world environment have made that possible?

India is not punching above its weight. If you go back the last 10-15 years, I wouldn’t restrict it to the beginning of Modi 1.0. But maybe even before that, during Indira Gandhi’s time, when she made the forum, the Non-Aligned Movement, and she was following Castro, she moved India more into the perspective of global leaders. But since the last 15 years, it is undeniable that India has moved up in visibility. It is debatable whether it’s always the same person who shows up or because they made a lot of reforms in Modi 1.0 which opened India for investors.

Whatever the reasons are, in all of these meetings — G7, G20, BRICS, Quad, which are American-dominated — India is very active in all these Bretton Woods institutions. So it is out and it is there. I don’t underestimate the photo ops. Because they are just a result of two hour talks before. So even if it is symbolic then it shows that India is heard in all these places wherever you have a meeting: Western dominated, Eastern dominated, India is there and you will see when there are negotiations in Ukraine or even on the Middle East, India will be present. So this is the policy of securing India’s interests. Any politician from the Congress would have to do the same because you have already reached a stage where you can’t think of a world without India. The biggest blunder is still that it is not in the Security Council.