If one examines aspects of the Indo-US ‘Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP)’ - the 10-year Defence Framework signed by Pranab Mukherjee, speeches of leaders during PM Manmohan Singh’s visit to the US - all have invoked the rhetoric of ‘natural partnership’ and ‘shared concerns’ between the ‘two democracies’. Manmohan Singh’s speech claimed, ‘Democracies provide legitimate means for expressing dissent’. But stop a minute - did the US Government heed ‘dissent’ when it railroaded the anti-war protests and invaded Iraq ; when it pressurised a newspaper to retract a story exposing torture in Guantanamo Bay , or jailed a journalist who refused to reveal her sources for an anti-establishment story? But read on – our PM has a defence handy; he says ‘Terrorism exploits the freedom our open societies provide to destroy our freedoms.’ Decode this to read: Muslim immigrants in Britain and the US , as well as Muslims in India bite the hand that feeds them – and so we need our PATRIOTs and POTAs.
Is terrorism really the scourge of ‘open societies’? Or does it in fact harvest the seeds obligingly sown by imperialist aggression and State-sponsored racism and communalism? In India, the problem of terrorism has, till now been the result of unresolved domestic crises; does India really need to repeat Britain’s mistake and invite the ‘global’ variety on its soil by joining the US bandwagon in Iraq? In a Press Conference at the end of his visit, Manmohan Singh said in response to a question that the war on Iraq was a ‘mistake’; but, lest we interpret it as a critique of US’ continued occupation and plunder of Iraq, he hastened to qualify that this was a thing of the ‘past’ and now India was eager to assist the US in the task of ‘rebuilding’ Iraq. And sure enough, several elements in the Defence Framework add up to indicate the UPA Government’s readiness to help the US police Iraq and other ‘trouble spots’ in Asia – commitment to ‘multinational defence operations’; to ‘defeating religious extremism’; to ‘spreading democracy worldwide’; ‘peacekeeping’ in Asia and so on. In other words, for the US , India is a suitable candidate to be a tough cop in what Pranab Mukherjee calls a ‘dangerous neighbourhood’!
Indian leaders of both Congress and BJP consider it a mark of self-importance to talk of India ’s ‘shared strategic concerns’ with the US . But the question is: whose strategy? A report commissioned by the US Defence Department in 2002, titled ‘Indo-US Military Relations: Expectations and Perceptions’ outlines exactly how India fits into the US’ strategic requirements (see Liberation July 2003, ‘US Eying Military Bases in India’). In that report, senior Pentagon Officers speak of the need to have access to Indian bases so as to be ‘closer to areas of instability’. Also, in order to avoid the gaze of Indian public opinion, which is quick to see ‘colonialism through the back door’, they remark that the Navy may be a good place to begin, since the US Navy can conduct joint exercises conveniently ‘out of sight’ and without leaving any telltale ‘footprints…on the ground’ in India! By signing the Defence Framework, the UPA Govt. has clearly played into US hands.
The joint statement by Bush and Singh over nuclear cooperation seriously undermines Indian sovereignty. It not only commits India to a separation of its civilian and military nuclear establishments (something that will hike maintenance costs steeply); it also allows surveillance of the civilian nuclear programmes by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The US had all along dangled the carrot of a UNSC seat, but once India bit the bait, it has told India to ‘bide its time’! Before his US visit, the PM had retorted that ' India was not a client state', and despite US disapproval, India would go ahead with the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. But on US soil, the PM suddenly became aware of the 'risks' involved in this project!
On the question of economic policy, Manmohan Singh reassured that reforms were ‘durable and irreversible’, despite the Indian handicap of ‘democracy’ which has slowed its pace. He went on to announce the launch of a ‘second generation of India-US collaboration in agriculture’. He claimed that the first Green Revolution, (thanks to the ‘Agricultural Universities you helped establish’) in the 60s ‘lifted countless millions above poverty’. Quite a joke, given the recent revelation that Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State in 1971, had said that ‘What Indians need is a mass famine’! The first Green Revolution is now reaping its harvest of famine and suicides in India – and the second is further preparing to enslave Indian peasants to US MNCs.
On the eve of the PM’s visit to the US , CPI(M) GS Prakash Karat gave him some dos and don’ts. But he failed to demand scrapping of the ‘Defence Framework’, merely requesting that no ‘flesh and blood’ be put on it. However, as BR Raghavan points out, ‘even in its present form, (the Framework) gives the US enough scope for manoeuvre’. But inspite this infamous pact signed by the UPA, Karat still insists that in Manmohan Singh the Man, we have a PM of ‘unquestioned integrity and sincerity’ (thanks to whom) India ’s ‘prestige and stature’ was being restored. For a man of such integrity, surely, everything from the defence of colonialism to a tango with US imperialism can be forgiven!
- KK