Submission to the American might is a way to follow the path of Pakistan, which has blocked the avenues of democracy and development in the process
NON-ALIGNMENT has always been a core principle of India’s foreign policy; submitting neither to the US nor the Soviet Union, the two poles of the Cold War era. Pakistan was subservient to American designs right from the beginning and as Muslim communal politics o overtook its democratic polity, the role of the US ambassador, the clergy and the army became very apparent. Even today, fundamentalism in the name of religion dominates in Pakistan, with the army playing a very strong role. There have been military dictators one after the other, and the army has had a strong influence on its politics.
The recent lunch invitation of US President Donald Trump to Field Marshal Asim Munir at the White House tells a tale. While there are other components of Pakistan’s foreign policy, it was clearly marked by its pro-US orientation.
India had its own path of non-submission to superpowers. It carved out its path of all-round progress, taking the help of different countries in the development of technology, industries and education. One apparent example is the establishment of the five initial IITs, each with the help of different major countries.
India did not submit to the superpowers’ pressure, most exemplified on the eve of the formation of Bangladesh. Richard Nixon, then US President, sought to pressure India to keep off the affairs of East Pakistan when the Pakistan Army was wreaking havoc in East Pakistan, leading to a massive exodus of refugees into India. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi boldly refused to bow to the Nixon diktat.
Instead, Indira signed a ‘Treaty of Friendship’ with the Soviet Union and despite the presence of the US’ Seventh Fleet in the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Army intervened and helped Mukti Bahini to liberate East Pakistan from the clutches of West Pakistan. Islamabad was trying to exploit the gullible East Pakistanis and was trying to impose Urdu as their national language. The Bengali-speaking East Pakistan rebelled and not bowing to the US threats, India came to the rescue of the people of East Pakistan.
From 2014, there has been a gradual shift in Indian foreign policy, which is coming under the sway of the US and is developing close relations with Israel. Our traditional relations with Iran and Palestine are being sacrificed for the political orientation of the new regime.
In the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, there was a military action between Pakistan and India. While India claimed that the ceasefire was brought in due to mutual discussion and a request from the Pakistan side, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that his administration was instrumental in the ceasefire, using the threat of economic pressures.
So far, in India, Pakistan has always been projected as enemy number one. There were people-to-people interactions through the Pak-India forum, and valuable initiatives like ‘Aman ki Asha’ (Ray of Hope) between India’s national newspaper, The Times of India and Pakistan’s Daily Jang. Government-level blame games were always there. Kashmir remained a hot issue. Kashmiris kept suffering the fire of militants from across the border, and the presence of the Indian military in the civilian areas for a long time.
Now, it seems the stance of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) toward Pakistan is in for a makeover. Dattatray Hosabale, the number two in RSS, has said that doors of dialogue should be open between India and Pakistan. This is in complete contrast to their earlier stance: raising the Kashmir issue off and on and blaming Jawaharlal Nehru for his mishandling of the issue.
The turmoil in Kashmir continued. Atal Bihari Vajpayee indeed took a bus to Lahore to sort out matters. The stalemate continued even after the reciprocal visit to India by Pakistan’s then military ruler Pervez Musharraf. Now, the statement of Hosabale comes as a breath of fresh air. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat tries to link it with the idea of ‘Akhand Bharat’. As such, the earlier experiment of SAARC, a great effort towards regional cooperation between South Asian countries, was not much promoted by the BJP regime.
While Hosbale claims that this has been the RSS policy all through, the emphasis on keeping the doors of dialogue open now has a different flavour in the political ecology of India-Pakistan relations. Interestingly, Hosbale’s statement came after his recent US visit.
Several of those inside the corridors of power feel that such a statement at this juncture may not have come without the blessings and pressure from the US. There can be scepticism on the issue, but one definitive thing is that India’s subservience to the US is on the rise. This was confirmed recently: India quietly submitted to the US pressure of raising the tariff from 3% to 50% and then bringing it down to 18%. India, meekly following the directive of the US not to buy oil from Russia, was also part of the same series.
This got further confirmation from the statement, which was later withdrawn, by Ram Madhav, a prominent RSS-BJP leader. While talking in Washington’s Hudson Institute, he said that India had tried to work with the US by conceding to its demands for a hike in tariff and not buying oil from Russia. The gentleman went on to say, “Where exactly is India not doing enough to work with America?” He was prompt enough to withdraw it after severe criticism in many quarters. But the cat is out of the bag!
Right from the beginning, the RSS was pro-US to the extent of even supporting it in its invasion of Vietnam. Its earlier political progeny, Bharatiya Jansangh, was also against the cooperative model and public sector, which built the industrial structure of India. As Pakistan was under the umbrella of the US, it did not develop any substantive industrial, educational and research infrastructure.
The present Indian regime is focused more on identity issues, temples, cow-beef, rejection of Darwin’s theory and removal of the periodic table and at the same time promoting blind faith propounded by the babas of the ilk of Dhirendra Shastri, while playing second fiddle to the US!
This submission to the US might is a way to follow the path of Pakistan, which has blocked the avenues of democracy and development in the process.
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Ram Puniyani is an eminent author, activist and former professor of IIT Mumbai. The views expressed here are the author’s personal and Clarion India does not necessarily share or subscribe to them.
