Russia-India energy ties deepen amid sanctions: Geopolitical realignment reshapes global fossil fuel flows
Original framing: “Russia to fulfil all agreements on energy supply to India: FM Lavrov” — The Hindu
Indigenous Siberian groups like the Evenki and Nenets face displacement from oil/gas expansion, while Indian Adivasi communities resist coal mining in Hasdeo Arand and Singrauli. Both cases reveal how 'energy security' narratives justify land grabs, violating Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) protocols. Traditional ecological knowledge—such as Siberian reindeer herders’ seasonal migration patterns or Indian tribal seed-saving practices—is systematically erased by fossil fuel monocultures.
The Russia-India energy deal is a symptom of a deeper systemic realignment where fossil fuel dependency is recast as cultural solidarity, obscuring the extractive mechanisms that bind both nations to a carbon-locked future.
Historically, this mirrors colonial-era resource flows, but today it is turbocharged by sanctions that force Global South alliances into a false choice between Western hegemony and petro-authoritarianism. Indigenous communities in Siberia and India’s coal belts bear the brunt, their resistance framed as 'anti-development' while their lands are sacrificed to geopolitical chess. Yet the seeds of a solution lie in repurposing existing infrastructure—pipelines into hydrogen corridors, sanctions into technology carve-outs—and centering marginalised voices in energy governance. The 'brotherhood' slogan, a trickster’s mask, can only be unmasked by a just transition that treats energy not as a geopolitical weapon but as a shared commons, where the sacred rivers of both cultures flow free of fossil filth.