:: Saturday, June 08, 2002 ::

Re India and Israel:

Vikash, I too have noticed the closer relationship between Israel and India over the last few years. While relations were normalised during the early 1990's with a Congress government at the centre: I think it is only with the BJP that ties have become much closer. It is interesting to notice that the rise of communalism and the closer relations with Israel coincided in the early 90's I am not suggest any causal link but it is interesting to note how the change has been simultaneous. As for the change in our Middle-East policy it is difficult to find one single cause: part of it is due to the old hangover of old Nehruvian idealism - Nehru's close links with Nasser in forming the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the subsequent relationships of many OIC countries in NAM may have played a role as did the usual rhetoric of standing up for the poorer side in a conflict. India’s anti-American stance also must have helped it identify with Palestinians as opposed to the US-backed Israelis. However, in the more cynical regime of Indira Gandhi another explanation is needed as foreign policy matters was primarily determined with an eye to India's own domestic interest (for Indira Gandhi this basically meant what was good for her own interest) hence the development of the Muslims as a "vote bank" for the Congress - the implicit bargain being that as long as Muslims voted for the Congress then the Congress would maintain a secular balance - one which was still characterised by Hindu dominance in most spheres of life but where there was a certain level of commitment to secular policies and where communal violence would not be tolerated. Whether this bargain actually worked or not is not something I will explore at the moment what is important is that it did play an important role in some areas of Congress policy - particularly in Bombay and Gujerat the Congress party machinery found it very convenient to turn a blind eye to Muslim gangs which controlled liquor and smuggling trades and grew to control the underworld - all in the name of "secularism"; when police/law and order forces did capture or crack down on these gangs under the banner of secularism and protecting minority rights the Congress governments of the states concerned applied pressure on the police to desist. In return the gangster got a relatively free hand and patronage while the Congress government acquired muscle for "overseeing" local lections and a source of liquid funds all the while posing as the saviours of the minority community. This did lead to a network of gangs, which indulged in all sorts of illicit activities between the Gulf region and the western Indian coast - one of the reasons why Bombay became such a hot point for the influx of black money into the economy. But the more general point is that this type of cynical vote bank politics meant that it was part of the Congress's electoral strategy to appear pro-Muslim this obviously had a obvious influence on its foreign policy. You correctly note that it was under the Janata regime that there was a perceptible swing towards Israel and the US - mainly because the member of the Janata coalition hated Indira Gandhi so much that they would reverse any policy of hers no matter what the field. But we should also note that the Jan Sangh - the precursor to the BJP was actually quite a large parliamentary party in the 1960's and 70's. In the 1960's they were the biggest opposition party in parliament after the communists and continued to be a major force in key states such as Uttar Pradesh - many members of the Janata coalition were also dual members of the Jan Sangh and you may recall that it was this issue which led to the fall of the government - if you remember your history there was a similar episode in the 1930's when Nehru insisted that Congress men could not be members of the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha (another precursor to the Jan Sangh) and this caused a crisis of conscience for many devote Hindutva types but Nehru forced the issue and made the party members choose between one organisation or another -given the recent history of how the Congress membership has sold out to the Hindu right what he should have done was forced them to resign instead and expel them form the party. However, this reflects what I outlined earlier about how foreign policy in India tends very closely to reflect the party makeup at the federal level.

The BJP I am sure would love some sort of Zionist-Hindutva alliance since both sides have the same exclusionary and violent agenda towards groups who they see as undermining their national identity. This also reflects some hard-nosed bargaining - in Shimon Peres's trip to India in 1993 there was a clear attempt to exchange Israeli support to India on Kashmir in return for Indian support for Israelis policies in the UN and other international forums; while organisations like the Overseas Friends of the BJP admire the power of the Jewish lobby in Washington and want to emulate its ability to influence policy on capitol hill. Moreover there is an unhealthy relationship between expatriates and extremism we have already seen it in the form of the Jewish community's support for Israeli policies by in large and on this I would deeply recommend Norman Finkelstein's excellent book called the Holocaust Industry; similarly the overwhelmingly upper caste, Hindu middle class émigré community in the US seems to be happy to fund a similar policy towards India. Lastly, there is a strategic element to this whole scenario as a BJP-led India wants to be more assertive - hence the Pokhran blasts and obviously sees Muslim Pakistan as its main enemy - to this end it is happy to cultivate any states who can help it in this cold war moreover following arms sanctions after the nuclear blasts in 1999 and during the Kargil conflict when India was in need of artillery shells and other equipment for its attempt to retake the heights - it could not get any supplies form its usual partners except for Israel and South Africa - both of which having enjoyed spells of pariah status in the past had an arms industry that could meet India's immediate needs. The lessons of this was not lost on the BJP government which was then keen to conduct even close relations with Israel - especially given the fact that with Kashmir and the West Bank both countries face the problem of Muslim majority areas which they are trying to control by pure military occupation. Given the increasingly anti-democratic and religious fundamentalist nature of both regimes this is not a development I think most sensible Indians can be too happy about.

Moreover, it seems more like a marriage of convenience. While the BJP takes various parts of the Hindutva ideology with differing degrees of seriousness - the Israeli should take note of the fascist elements of much of the Hindutva thought. Gowalkar one of the Gurus of the RSS was famous for his admiration of the "race purification" carried out by Hitler and Hitler's theories on the Aryan race, which he recorded in his work Our Nationhood - a sentiment echoed by several senior RSS leaders even today.. Hedegewar one of the principle lights behind the RSS movement also was a great admirer of the Nazi regime and travelled to Weimar Germany after the War where he indulged in all sorts of dubious posturing over the supposed Aryan purity of the Indian race. And Savarkar the father of Hindutva thought based much of his calls for a Hindu nation on an appeal to a nationalism of the blood as opposed to that of paper or thought and wanted an organic inherently Indian racial community - all these would make anyone who claims to be repulsed or outraged by the more severe leanings of crypto-fascist movements very wary - I am surprised that given the Israelis given their history have chosen to ignore this ugly side of Hindutva.

:: Conrad Barwa 9:57 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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India & Israel:

Wreckage of an Indian spy plane manufactured by Israel that was shot down Saturday, June 8, 2002, in the village of Dogran Kalan, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Lahore Pakistan. Pakistani jets shot down an unmanned Indian spy plane Friday near the tense border between the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals, the Pakistani air force said. (AP Photo/K.M.Chaudary)

The downing of India's unmanned spy plane by the Pakistani Air Force seems to have the potential to reignite regional tensions once again. India uses several of these Israeli built Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for intelligence gathering. The existence of these high tech devices in India's arsenal highlights the growing rapprochment between India and Israel that I believe deserves some commentary.

In many ways, Delhi's tilt toward Jerusalem is the hallmark of its shifting foreign policy in the post-Cold War. Once a staunch critic of Israel and Zionism, India is fast becoming an ally. (As a caveat I should add that the Janata goverment was pro-Israel long before the current shift and high level contacts with Israel date back to the Indo-China war). One could argue that as the voice of the muslim minority within India is marginalized, India's support for Muslims in the international arena has also diminished. In particular this has meant that India has been silent in its support for the Palestinian cause. India's foreign policy establishment no longer views the Israeli-Palestinian through a religious (or anti-colonial) lens.

I would not argue as many have done that India is moving from an idealistic "non-aligned" rhetoric to a pragmatic "realist" approach to foreign policy. Such an argument ignores the very pragmatic domestic and international issues involved in India's support for Arab issues during the Cold War, most notably the importance of maintaining a stable source of petroleum in an era of rising prices and the need to reflect the wishes of a significant Muslim population at home. What is happening is a tilt away from Arab/Muslim states and toward non-Arab and/or non-Muslim states in the Middle East region.

India's rapprochment with Israel since the early nineties may be seen as a part of a larger (albeit subtle) shift away from the Arab/Muslim states. India's tacit support for Iraq during the Gulf War for instance can be explained, at least in part, by India's desire to maintain strong relations with one of the only secular states in that region. Similarly, India has tried to maintain warm relations with Iran in international organizations as Iran represents an important source of raw materials/commerce as well as a counterforce to Pakistan. Iran's status as a non-Arab, non-Sunni culture is a major bonus in a strategy to exploit fissures within the Middle East. Thus, the rapprochment toward Israel may be seen as the coherent completion of a shift away from support for the Arab states.

Since the early nineties the cultural ties between India and Israel appear to be increasing. Israeli youth regularly take vacations in India (especially in Goa). Similarly, an increasing number of Indian students are attending classes in Israeli institutions of higher learning. At the core of the rapprochment is not culture however but the arms trade and similar strategic challenges. I believe that Israel's arms trade is based upon a desperate economic situation coupled with a massive oversupply of armaments from the US. Israel is shaping up to be one of the major international arms dealers and India is quite eager to diversify its sources of weaponry. This is not to argue that the relationship may not becomes more robust over time as India represents a major commercial market for Israel.

I wonder to what extent India's ties to Israel will also play sympathetically in the US. Indian animosity toward the US has only recently begun to thaw and the current War on Terrorism has again strained the relationship as the Bush administration chose to work once again with Pakistan. However, the long term seems to point to a triadic relationship between India, Israel, and the US. What will this mean for the Muslim population within India? What does a rapprochment with a militarized, religious republic like Israel mean for Indian secular democracy? Finally, will India's abandonment of the Palestianian cause and open support for Israel have any impact on the larger struggle? I don't have the answer to any of these questions, but I hope we can disscuss them as time and space warrant.

:: Vikash Yadav 9:41 AM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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We Want Peace:

Members of Pakistan India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy hold anti-war placards in Bombay, India, Monday, May 27, 2002. The forum urged the nuclear rivals' governments to avoid war. (AP Photo/Rajesh Nirgude)

:: Vikash Yadav 11:35 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Future of Kashmir:

The Kashmir situation now occupies centre stage, so I think it is worthwhile putting some of my thoughts down the subject. This is no place to go into the details of the Kashmir issue - indeed many have spun a career out of investigating, analysing and pronouncing on the same but as it casts such a long shadow over the future of Indo-Pak relations we must seriously address the situation. There are two immediate problems as I see it both of which have superficial yet belie deeper more pathological causes behind their exteriors. The first is the Pakistani involvement in Kashmir; this is something that India has unsuccessfully been trying to convince the world of for some time. Though it is difficult to put an exact date on these things, I would estimate that it would have been sometime in the mid-1990's that Pakistan started interfering with a heavy hand in the Valley and introduced its jihadi soldiers who brought a virulent form of fundamentalism in their struggle against the Indian security forces. This has led to many difficulties: a movement based on regional resistance to federal authority and which was couched in the idiom of a Kashmiriyat identity has now turned into one based at least part fundamentalist understandings of religion. The most popular militant outfit in the valley has been the JKLF which always wanted an independent Kashmir separate from both India and Pakistan: this strain of Kashmiri nationalism has been drowned out by the politics of religious fundamentalism. Understandably many Kashmiris, Muslim or not are not happy about the "jihadisation" of their conflict and this is part of the reason behind the assassination the moderate leader Lone, recently. It also has embittered India, which was incensed by the lack of attention given to the issue of Pakistani support for the militants before the events of September last year and the nuclearisation of the region. These two factors have added a volatile element to any confrontation over Kashmir. Unfortunately, the Indian stance while excessively idealistic has now become disillusioned with the dealings of the international community over Kashmir and had hardened New Delhi's approach to the state - the presence of a coalition dominated by a Hindu Fundamentalist party has hardly helped matters. The last element in this problem turns on the nature of Kashmir's significance for Pakistan - why exactly is it so important for Pakistan to acquire Kashmir? The answer to this question addresses in part the true nature of the unfinished business of partition: can Pakistan maintain it's identity as an Islamic state if a region predominantly Muslim on its borders chooses to remain within a Secular India. Jinnah's two-nation theory was already dealt a severe blow with the creation of Bangladesh, which proved that religion was not strong enough when confronted with ethnicity and culture as a basis for nation-making. Pakistani designs on Kashmir have a long history from the tribal invasion in 1948 to the attempt to cause an uprising by infiltration in the lead up to the 1965 war. Both cases show the real approach of Pakistan to the region: a reliance on covert aggressive manoeuvres designed to create a crisis which would facilitate a Pakistani annexation. This shows the unwillingness to consider the wishes of the Kashmiri people and also a basic distrust of the ultimate decision they may reach: of course one should not be surprised given the lack of respect for democracy within Pakistan itself. If Kashmir is indeed central to Pakistan’s self-perception as an Islamic state then it is difficult to see how short of major shifts within the nature of Pakistani society and polity, Pakistan's claim on Kashmir will be satisfied with anything less than full acquisition. But unless Pakistan accepts that it cannot acquire Kashmir by pure military diktat or without respecting the wishes of Kashmiris themselves then it will not be ready for a real solution. After all if Pakistan is unable to control the Mohajir population in Karachi, what hope would they have of controlling an entire province with a much larger potentially hostile population?

There is a complementary Indian problem: India has to accept that there can be no military solution to the Kashmir issue. The erosion of the legitimacy of the Indian state has reached a level where, a political solution must be part of any package that seeks to restore peace to the Valley. Given the relative support extended by most Kashmiris in the early years of accession to India, including the wholehearted support during the 1965 war when the native population refused to engage in any uprising despite Pakistani instigation has now been steadily lost. Arguably from the imprisonment of Sheikh Abdullah to the repeated rigging of elections this goodwill has slowly been deliberately run down over the years. One could argue that India should have held a transparent plebiscite in the years following the UN settlement when it had a high chance of winning. This chance has now been lost. The conduct of various governors such as Jagmohan who have followed the behest of the central government and interefered with the internal affairs of the state and the mounting incidents of abuse by the security forces can hardly have endeared the Kashmiris to the regime in New Delhi. India needs to realise the depth of disillusionment and address the genuine demands for democracy that the state deserves. I feel some amusement for the Indian state - after all they had rigged elections on a smaller but consistent level in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal and eleswhere before: intimidation of voters, misuse of government property and money for electioneering and capture of poll booths are endemic features of Indian democracy in much of the country - the political elite must have been surprised that the Kashmiris refused to stand for it and actually took up arms whereas elsewhere voters patiently put up with the corruption of the system, why did the Kashmiris become so aggrieved the great and the powerful in New Delhi must have wondered? What have we done to them that we haven't done to others? This answer lies partly in the ugly religious nature the separatist movement took on, arousing the slumbering monster of communal politics and the shaky nature of the state's accession to the Indian Union as well as the manipulations of Pakistan behind the wings - ever eager to foster unrest. But this is only a superficial reason - a deeper one I think points to the real failure of the Indian state in the region - namely the establishment of deep-rooted democratic institutions and culture. This is what has seeped into society in the other states of the Indian Union, including those who were erstwhile Princely states and had no tradition of decomcratic politics or electoral competition and why despite all the faults of the democratic system the majority of the disenfranchised masses continue to repose their trust in it. In Kashmir the stifling of opposition to the National Conference prevented a healthy multi-party system from emerging. The clientist culture which in the rest of India was already giving way to the mass based demands in the form of populism of various kinds such as: regional parties, parties of the assertive lower socio-economic groups, still existed in the valley; the alliance between the National Conference and the Congress - supposedly the two main opposition parties in the state destroyed what little faith there was in the electoral system which provided no outlet for dissent and which was shown to be morally and politically bankrupt. The failure to democratise the institutional and political culture and to allow the growth of real mass-based politics is the deepest failure of the Indian state in Kashmir and it is still paying the price of that failure even now. It is time this failure was acknowledged and the steps to rectify it taken. I fear that this is the only real chance for peace.

:: Conrad Barwa 9:07 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Notes on Empire:

The following is an extract from Gore Vidal’s Book “The Last Empire” I think it encapsulates much of what you allude to in allude to in your description of the passage from Republic to Empire and reading your post reminded me of it, I thought it may be worthwhile to quote an extract from it below.

As the meeting progressed, the atom bomb was successfully tried in the New Mexico desert. We were now able to incinerate Japan – or the Soviet Union, for that matter – and so we no longer needed Russian help to defeat Japan. We started to renege on our agreements with Stalin, particularly reparations from Germany. Our aim was now to unite the three Western zones of Germany and integrate them into our Western Europe, restoring in the process, the German economy – hence fewer reparations. Then as of May 1946, we began to rearm Germany. Stalin went ape at this betrayal. The Cold War was on.
At home the media was beginning to prepare the attentive few for Disappointment. Suddenly, we were faced with the highest personal income taxes to pay for more and more weapons, among them the world-killer hydrogen bomb – all because the Russians were coming. No one knew quite why they were coming or with what. Weren’t they still burying 20 million dead? Official explanations for this made little sense, but then as, Truman’s Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, merrily observed, “ In the State department we used to discuss how much time that mythical ‘average American Citizen’ put in each day listening, reading, and arguing about the world outside his own country…It seemed to us that ten minutes a day would be a high average.’ So why bore the people? Secret “bi-partisan" government is best for what, after all, is – or should be - a society of docile workers, enthusiastic consumers, obedient soldiers who will believe just about anything for about ten minutes. The National Security State, the NATO alliance, the forty-year-old Cold War were all created without the consent, much less the advice of the American people. Of course, there were elections during this crucial time, but the Truman-Dewey, Eisenhower-Stevenson, Kennedy-Nixon were of a single mind as to the desirability of inventing first, a many-tentacled enemy, Communism, the star of the Chamber of Horrors; then to combat so much evil, installing a permanent wartime state at home with loyalty oaths, a national ‘peacetime’ draft, and secret police to keep watch over home-grown ‘traitors’as the few enemies of the National Security State were known. Then followed forty years of mindless wars, which created a debt of $5 trillion that hugely benefited aerospace firms such as General Electric, whose long-time TV pitchman was Ronald Regan, eventually retired to the White House.
Why go into this now? Have we not done marvellously well as the United States of America? Our economy is the envy of the earth, the President proclaimed at Denver. No inflation. Jobs for all except the 3% of the population in prison and the 5% who no longer look for work and so are not counted, bringing our actual unemployment figures close to the glum European average of 11%. And all of this accomplished without ever once succumbing to the sick socialism of Europe. We have no health service or proper public education or, indeed, much of anything for the residents of the fun house.

I suppose there is already a rich literature mapping this transformation from Republic to empire, but it is not so well known to many outside America. This is not a narrative I necessarily agree with ( and in itself contains several problems), though I find it persuasive. The point I am interested in is the peculiar and specific class dynamics, which impel all such hegemonic-imperial states, even if they happen to be democracies like Britain or the US. I don't think it is a coincidence that it was only after Britain pursed a course of decolonisation, was it able to lay the foundations for many of the more successful social welfare polices of the post-WWII era, there is an argument that the destruction of the Imperial state was necessary for the emergence of the Welfare state. Ironically, at a time when Britain's influence and power overseas were receding rapidly, most of its citizens especially those in the working-class industrial heartlands of the North and the Celtic fringe were enjoying the largest transfers of welfare and state spending via health, housing, education and other state supplied form of insurances for a lifetime. In part, the sacrifieces the general population were called onto make during the war necessitated that there be some concrete reward afterwards and the acceptability that Keynesian economics gained allowed more room to manouvre; nonetheless the massive expansion into social sectors such as health, education and housing, the virtual committment to a full emplyoment policy and the guarantee of a cradle-to-the-grave system of state provided income support and insurance mant that real shifts in the polity such as a redirecting of expenditure and politcal capital away from overseas commitments and towards the domestic sphere was a precondition for such changes to occur. The parallels with the US are obvious; in this I subscribe to your view that withdrawal from the Empire is a necessary prerequisite for socio-economic reform at home. In so far as the current social relations of production constrain this kind of welfarism in the US it seems the only way the government in the US has to revive or pump-prime the economy is to spend heavily on defence and only by raising the spectre of a demonic foreign enemy can such spending be appropriated and legitimised. It is no coincidence I think that the last great welfare push by a President was Johnson's Great Society programme which floundered because there was not enough money for this and to fight the Vietnam War as well, then preoccupations with the Cold War and the 'Evil Empire' distracted the debate away from reform for another to decades. Again, it is indicative that after 1989 and the collapse of Communism, saw with Clinton's re-election the first ambitious reform programme namely Medicare - now that external threats recede, this leaves attention free to wander back to the domestic sphere. Of course the vested interest groups reacted violently against Clinton’s agenda and saw him as a threat to their position - what else could account for the almost pathological hatred of the Right towards a man who in practical terms had moved the political debate very much to the right and absorbed many of the opposition's policies. Now again, in a systemic sense the recent "War against Terror" provides relief for these vested interests as it allows a recourse to the time-tested and favoured method of federal deficit spending in the name of national security - which seems to be the only form of government spending allowed in the current political framework in the US - spending under any other banner and for any other purpose, especially in the name of welfare, would re-engineer a change in the social relations of production something those who benefit from the current regime would like to avoid at all costs.

Of course in some sense this is an old story. Going back to the archetypal Empire- The Roman one which also set the precedent in the transition from Republic to Empire: the acquisition of power abroad played a similar role with the power distribution in the Republic - Plebeian supporting reformers such as the brothers Gracchii came against the opposition of the Senate with the Patrician grip on power buttressed by the gaining and maintaining of provinces overseas: we all know how this story goes. But its relevance for us today lies in the relationship between a hegemonic-imperial power has between it and the subordinate regions abroad and the distribution of power and wealth in its own domestic sphere: instead of a combination of bread and circuses, what seems to be on offer is the circus of Empire abroad or the bread of internal reform at home.

:: Conrad Barwa 10:19 AM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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American Nostalgia/Senility:

If my fellow Americans are brutally ignorant of what is happening in the world, particularly in South Asia, let us not say it is because the US is only interested in areas of the world where it has close cultural and commercial interests. After all how many Americans can name more than one British politician? How many Americans can name more than one Japanese city off the top of their head? Americans only learn about the world through invasions and their memory is erased not long after the media spotlight shifts.

Americans are ignorant of the world because of a unique form of nostalgia/senility. Since the Regan "Revolution", Americans have worked hard to forget the details of their history. The want to erase the painful memory of defeat in Vietnam, stalemate in Korea, and humiliation in Cuba, Lebanon, and Iran. They only want to remember how America "saved" Europe from fascist oppression, while forgetting how their own country has oppressed the Western hemisphere since James Monroe.

The latest humiliation of the US by Al Quaeda has made my compatriots even more inward looking than ever before. Americans feel threatened by an outside world that they wanted to forget. They ask silly questions like "Why do they hate us so much?" Rather than mobilizing the entire population for war, the people have been told to wait passively for another attack. In their passivity they grow paranoid.

The dramatic miliary buildup during the Regan administration set the stage for this passive/aggressive paranoid empire. The preponderance of military strength means that the state does not need to mobilize the people for war. The US military is strong enough to fight without a general draft. The only role for the people in this conflict is passive consent, flag waving, credit card spending, and tax paying. Unlike the Britons under the British empire, the Americans do not believe that their futures are in any way related to the territories that their army invades or corporations penetrate. Americans view wars and disturbances around the world as so many brushfires that must be put out quickly by their professional military, so that Amercans can return to the business of being Americans (i.e., earning money and consuming goods). That American foreign policy may have played an important role in creating these disturbances around the world is a paradox that barely registers on the public psyche because it would require critical investigation and historical analysis. Thus, the American government need only fear defeat in combat, as only the tiniest of minorities opposes US militarism per se; the passive population will not ask tough questions and the media will quietly lull them back to sleep with soft news if any issues irk them.

If the American people are ignorant of world affairs it is because they have been rendered impotent by their politicians and generals. And it is this impotence that has permitted a vibrant republic to turn into an empire.

:: Vikash Yadav 1:04 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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