Where India Stands In World Today

 Harkishan Singh Surjeet

HARDLY had the ink on Indo-Israel joint statement, signed by Atal Behari Vajpayee and Ariel Sharon on September 10, dried when disturbing news came from the Middle East. One news item said the Zionist government was planning to expel the PLO chief Yasser Arafat from Israeli territory which, needless to say, includes the Palestinians’ own land. Then, a senior member of the Likud government was reported saying that assassinating Arafat could be a method of solving the Middle East problem. Given the deadly enmity the Zionists harbour for Arafat, more attempts on his life are not ruled out.

This demonstrates how hollow were the pious wishes expressed by Vajpayee at the banquet given to Sharon, about an early end to violence in and return of peace to the area. One will note that, at the banquet, Vajpayee meticulously refrained from making any reference to the Palestinian demand for an independent homeland, not to talk of reiterating India’s support to Palestinian cause. And this despite the wide recognition of the fact that peace cannot return to the region unless Israel gives up its expansionist drive and agrees to setting up a Palestinian state.

One cannot miss the basic point involved here. When George Bush outlined his “roadmap” for West Asia in the third week of May, it was, as we then noted (see People’s Democracy, June 1), highly flawed and inclined in favour of the Zionists. Yet, it did talk of the need of creating a Palestinian state for the sake of ensuring a lasting peace in the region. [It is another thing that the so-called “roadmap” was an exercise in hypocrisy from the very beginning. Today, while the Israeli state terrorism against hapless Palestinians continues unabated, Bush seems to have himself given a silent burial to his “roadmap.”] But the Vajpayee government has gone one step ahead of its masters abroad; it has stopped even talking of creation of a Palestinian state in accordance with various UN resolutions. Not only that, if the Indo-Israel statement talks of terrorism in the Middle East context, this amounts to dubbing the struggle being waged and sacrifices made by Palestinian freedom fighters as terrorism, which is in itself highly abhorrent.  

CRUCIAL POINT

THIS brings us to the crucial point as to where this regime has brought us. It has conveniently forgotten that it is the United Nations that sanctioned the creation of a separate Palestinian state and, therefore, India under Vajpayee stands guilty of ignoring the world body itself on the issue by practically withdrawing support from the Palestinian demand. 

Yet, no perceptive observer will be surprised over what the regime is doing. The case of Iraq is worth recalling. When Bush launched his annexationist war against Iraq, the BJP led regime refused to condemn it; in the end it only “deplored” the action and that too after a lot of public pressure. Then it began to think in terms of sending Indian troops to Iraq for policing job, in order to get a few crumbs from the spoils of war. Finally, under the pressure of public opinion, the regime had to refuse sending troops to Iraq and took the plea that India can send troops to Iraq only as part of a multilateral force under UN command. It perhaps forgot that, in today’s circumstances, even a UN force to Iraq cannot but legitimise the US-UK occupation of that unfortunate country. In the end, the Indian government announced from the rooftop that it would not send troops to Iraq even as part of a UN force.

But this announcement in itself signifies an insidious move. As some political commentators have noted, the announcement is but a move to bring a bit of pressure upon the Bush administration that it must dump Pakistan and adopt India as its watchman in the subcontinent. The ostensible plea is that Americans must bring pressure upon the Musharraf regime to stop promoting cross-border terrorism in India. There is no doubt that this cross-border terrorism is a scourge and needs to be eliminated, but the fact is that, after Vajpayee’s welcome announcement in May this year, his government has done precious little to follow it up and solve the pending problems bilaterally. In its stead, it only hopes that Americans will solve these problems for our sake. This amounts to giving the US imperialists a chance to step up their intervention in the subcontinent --- something which all the regimes so far in India had avoided. 

It appears the BJP leaders have not yet come out of their illusion about the US intentions. Or, are they willingly helping in furthering the US imperialists’ geo-strategic objectives in the subcontinent and the world? In fact, there is every reason to doubt the BJP’s sincerity in this regard. On the question of Iraq itself, for example, nobody is in a position to definitely say what is cooking up behind the back of the people. True, the India visit of US assistant secretary of state, Ms Christina Rocca, immediately after the Sharon visit, went largely unnoticed. But it did show that the US has not yet given up hope about persuading India to send its troops to Iraq, in order to withdraw its own soldiers from the fireline. In this regard the Vajpayee regime will have to clarify whether it has given the Americans any such indication.

The sum and substance of the argument is that whatever the Vajpayee regime did at the time of Sharon visit was part of the US move to forge a US-Israel-India axis --- in accordance with the US plan to establish its hegemony over the world. Earlier, the same Vajpayee regime withdrew recognition from the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic in order to placate Morocco, a US stooge. And now comes a stage when India has stopped supporting the Palestinian people’s just cause for a homeland.   

Truly, as the CPI(M) has noted more than once, India had never witnessed such a servile pro-imperialist regime since independence.

QUESTION OF UNIPOLARITY

THE question is: is all this inevitable? The question is significant as some penpushers are seeking to impress that India does not have much of an option in view of the present unipolarity of the world. The argument is facile, to say the least.

There is no doubt that the demise of the USSR some 12 years ago has created an excruciating situation for the whole of mankind and given the imperialist camp, led by the US, a temporary advantage in the global balance of powers. This is what we mean by the present day unipolarity of the world. In such a situation, all the countries, including the existing socialist countries, are trying to make whatever adjustments they think to be necessary in order to cope with the situation. Even the necessity of some compromises here and there cannot be ruled out. But to make adjustments or minor compromises is one thing; to capitulate before the world gendarme and surrender the nation’s interests, as the BJP led regime is doing, is a totally different thing.

The effects of this capitulation are there for all to see. Today, the economic policies being pursued by the Vajpayee government are such that our people are at the receiving end; it is the foreign and indigenous capital that is their main beneficiary, at the cost of common people. Being pursued at the behest of imperialist-controlled financial institutions, these policies are ruining our peasantry, killing jobs in droves and leading to gradual deindustrialisation of the country. The suicide committed by several hundred farmers and the starvation deaths all over the country are only a dramatic expression of the crisis that is engulfing the whole Indian nation today. 

To reiterate, it is not making some adjustments here and there. What the BJP led regime is doing is out and out capitulation before imperialism, a sacrifice of our national interests at the altar of monopoly capital.

Moreover, the proponents of the “no alternative” theory also forget that pro-imperialism has been running in the blood of the saffron brigade from the very first day. As we know, the Jan Sangh, the BJP’s predecessor, had been a vocal opponent of our time-tested foreign policy of non-alignment from the beginning. Even when the world was not unipolar, it was for siding with the US and had been a vocal, though lone, supporter of Zionism. One will recall that Vajpayee had been the only Indian leader to visit Israel as state guest in 1968 and that Moshe Dayan came to India on a secret visit and was entertained during Vajpayee’s tenure as foreign minister. In sum, what the BJP led government is doing is not due to the compulsions of the situation. On the contrary, the BJP is only pursuing the line that it always wanted to pursue, even though it is to the detriment of our nation’s interest and its standing in world arena.

THE WAY OUT

BUT will the Indian people tolerate it? For about 190 years, from 1757 to 1947, our people suffered the pangs of slavery and made innumerable sacrifices to win independence from the British domination. That is the reason the Indian people have always been supporting the cause of national liberation the world over. India played a leading role in the liberation of Indonesia and many other Asian and African countries. Its firm stand against apartheid in South Africa remains a golden chapter in world history. We were the most vocal opponent of the arms race and supporter of total disarmament. We resolutely fought imperialist depredations in various parts of the globe. We were among the founders of the non-aligned movement and contributed our best to make it a powerful voice of the newly liberated countries. And this is what earned us immense prestige in the world, making us a major player in the world forums.

And then comes a party that never played a role in our national liberation movement; if anything, it only sided with the British and helped them by inciting people to fight one another on communal lines. It is therefore not surprising that this party has no love lost for the freedom of other peoples, as its stand on the Palestine question unambiguously shows. 

Yet it will be wrong to think that the present global situation is going to last forever. The forces of peace and progress, independence and democracy are asserting themselves, now haltingly, now forcefully. The present correlation of forces is definitely causing them difficulties, but it cannot halt their march.

The situation is changing. The difficulties of the people the world over are mounting. And this is getting reflected in the world arena in numerous ways. From Seattle to Doha, massive protests greeted the meetings of the IMF-World Bank and of the WTO. And now comes the defeat of imperialist powers at Cancun. Here, protest took place not only on the sidelines, but within the meeting itself. The self-sacrifice of a Korean peasant on the sideline of the Cancun meeting did not go in vain. His suicide did show how deeply the common people are agitated all over.

The outcome at Cancun also proves that if only the developing countries come to cooperate, they can well turn the table on imperialist powers. There is no need to remain in any illusion that the latter will take their defeat lying down. They will seek to devise new methods to strengthen their stranglehold over the world people. But it is certain that, given political will, their machinations can well be defeated. It is heartening that, for once, even if under the pressure of public opinion at home, the government of India --- along with China, Brazil and other countries --- played a positive role at Cancun. This initiative needs to be strengthened. Mutual cooperation between India, China, Russia and other countries can go a long way in subverting the imperialist designs and ending the present day unipolarity of the world.