The death of an Indian student in the Russian shelling of the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on March 1 and the injuring of another a few days later in the capital, Kyiv, has triggered waves of panic in India. Some 20,000 Indian students are in Ukraine and while the Indian government has managed to evacuate several thousands of those stranded in this war-torn country over the past week, a large number remain there.
Several Indians stranded in Ukraine shared their ordeal in the war-zone with The Diplomat. Kharkiv, which is located just 40 kilometers from the Russian border, is witnessing relentless bombardment. Locals and foreigners alike have been sheltering in underground parking lots, basements, and subway stations to escape the aerial bombing of the town.
Around a thousand Indian students are in Sumy, a town that is 48 kilometers from Ukraine’s border with Russia. Stuck in bunkers and underground bomb shelters for over nine days now, they are constantly hearing bombs going off, firing and sirens, they said.
Tensions have been running high since December, when Russia began amassing over 150,000 troops along its border with Ukraine. It was increasingly evident that Moscow was planning to invade Ukraine. Yet, India did not act early enough to rescue its large number of nationals in the country.
Although the Indian Embassy in Ukraine began preparing for evacuation of its nationals in late January – on the 25th it called on Indian nationals in the country to fill in online forms providing details of their location and place of residence in India among other things – it was only on February 15 that it began issuing advisories asking Indians to avoid non-essential visits and stays in Ukraine.
Families of the stranded students are wondering why India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) delayed in issuing advisories. Did it misjudge the situation in Ukraine? Could the government have begun evacuations earlier given the large number of people in Ukraine?
Many students did not act on the advisories. They told The Diplomat that prices of flight tickets to get back home had soared by then, forcing them to remain in Ukraine.
In addition to its delayed issue of advisories, the Narendra Modi government is being criticized for its evacuation efforts, which seem focused on Ukraine’s western borders with Poland, Hungary, Romania and even Slovakia, rather than those stuck in eastern Ukraine, which is bearing the brunt of the Russian attack. Indians stranded in the volatile towns of Sumy, Mykolaiv, and Kharkiv still see no relief.
While evacuation from war zones is not easy, India’s focus on relatively peaceful western Ukraine makes little sense. It is evacuating citizens from Chernivtsi, a city that has barely seen any violence and which is around 20 kilometers from Romania, but is yet to start evacuations from heavily bombarded Kharkiv.
It is not that India doesn’t have experience in evacuating its people. It has managed evacuations from war zones on a far larger scale in the past.
In 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Indian government evacuated nearly 200,000 Indians stranded there over the course of two months. More recently in 2015, India undertook Operation Raahat to rescue thousands of Indians and hundreds of people from other countries at the height of the conflict between the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels. More recently, it launched Operation Devi Shakti to evacuate its nationals from Afghanistan soon after the Taliban captured power there.
It has acted swiftly to evacuate its citizens from countries hit by natural disasters, too. In April 2015, when a major earthquake shook Nepal it launched Operation Maitri to evacuate its nationals and support the Nepali government in rescue and relief operations. More recently in 2020, it launched Operation Vande Bharat to bring home its nationals stranded in other countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Operation Ganga to bring home its nationals from Ukraine is a study in contrast. The effort seems patchy, poorly focused, and prioritized on political gains back home.
Laxman Aggarwal, 23, is back home in Mathura in Uttar Pradesh after enduring two weeks of anxiety in Ukraine. He and his friends, who were stuck in Lviv in western Ukraine, made two attempts to reach the Shehnyi-Medyka border near Poland. In the first attempt, Aggarwal was turned back by the Ukrainian authorities. In his second attempt, he was allowed into Poland after three days. “This flight from Poland was not what we needed,” Aggarwal told The Diplomat, adding that flying people from Poland is “hassle-free.”
“We should have been lifted from our various locations,” he argued, pointing out that “the real challenge was to reach Poland or other neighboring countries.” This was a “risk to our lives,” he said.
Parents of students still in Ukraine are anxious and feel helpless. The Indian Embassy has also not made any contact with students in Sumy.
As distressing is the government’s preoccupation with scoring propaganda points at home. It has sent ministers to oversee evacuation efforts from Ukraine’s neighboring countries. This seems aimed at ensuring that ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politicians are seen to be leading the evacuation and rescuing Indian nationals.
Several ministers have even gone to Indian airports to greet returning students. Jitendra Singh, junior minister for Science and Technology, was seen welcoming students at Delhi airport, giving each a rose as they exited their flight, even as nationalist slogans “Vande Mataram” (I praise the motherland) and “Bharat mata ki jai” (victory to Mother India) rent the air. Videos of evacuating officials raising slogans praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi have also been circulating.
Analysts are criticizing the BJP government for using the suffering of students in a war situation for political ends. BJP supporters have hit back by holding the students responsible for their plight. They are criticizing the students for not heeding the government’s advisories to leave Ukraine. Prime Minister Modi has blamed previous governments for the large number of Indian students going abroad to pursue medical education.
Meanwhile, several opposition politicians have pointed out that evacuation of nationals from a warzone is the duty of a government, and not a “favor” that the BJP under Modi is bestowing on the people.