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SPEAKING FREELY
Redefining India's
destiny
By Sajid Ali Khan
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
Please click here
if you are interested in contributing.
"We don't want to
fight;
But, by Jingo, if we do,
We won't go to the
front ourselves,
But we'll send the mild Hindoo."
This was an 1878 London music hall parody on
learning that Indian troops were being sent to Malta to
help the English.
India is a great nation
composed of individuals, all of whom like to have their
say. That is the reason democracy works in India and why
India can hold up its head in the community of nations
as the largest democracy yet known to man.
But
like individuals who learn from history, India has stark
lessons it must not forget from its own recent history,
much in the memory of living individuals, such as our
freedom fighters, one or two of whom are close
companions of mine in London and who join me in being
opposed to India becoming involved in the Anglo-American
blitz in Afghanistan followed by invasion and occupation
of Iraq.
I write as one who went through the
Blitz on London in 1940. In this report there may be
argument favoring sending Indian troops to Iraq. To join
that argument, it is necessary to ask the reason for the
attack and invasion of Iraq.
Let us discount the
propaganda about liberating Iraqis. Nobody is liberated
by killing them and by blitzing their cities, destroying
the infrastructure needed to supply electricity and so
potable water (which works on electric supply) to the
population. Let us bear in mind the two reasons made
most often, in the influential Wall Street Journal for
instance, which are the security of Israel and the loot
from Iraqi oilfields.
It was forecast by the
intelligence agencies in the United Kingdom, as has been
revealed by the Hutton inquiry ongoing in London
presently (normally these papers would not be revealed
for another 30 years here), that there would be greater
likelihood of chaos and attacks by those called
terrorists if Iraq was invaded. This is what has duly
happened.
Let us recall the attempt to dissuade
governments from joining an attack on Iraq by some
millions who took to the streets of London in peaceful,
mainly cheerful, expression of solidarity for "No War
against Iraq"; myself walking from Big Ben past Downing
Street (where a mighty roar rose from the throats of our
multitude) with other middle-Englanders for the first
time in our long lives, I stopped off at Pall Mall to go
to a club (it was a raw, sharp, if sunny February 15
morning) while most went on to the traditional venue of
Trafalgar Square.
So our Prime Minister, Tony
Blair (now referred to with the third and fourth letters
in his surname switched) went off to his and George W
Bush's pre-planned war. Without United Nations approval.
So much for the mantra "Saddam is disobeying the United
Nations"!
How triumphant Bush on his aircraft
carrier and Blair visiting his troops in Basra in
southern Iraq looked. History should remind us of the
triumphalism of the British resident's report to HM
government in London after the first Anglo-Afghan War;
everything, he reported, was fine: cricket was being
played outside on the lawn; the Afghans were cooperating
and HM had acquired a new land. Then the solitary
survivor, the medic William Bryden, crawled into India
with his horse practically shot from under him, and
managed to blurt out "I am the Indus army".
History gives lessons. If only they were able to
be learnt.
But Afghanistan was invaded twice
more before the English did what comes naturally to
them: they asked Sir Mortimer Durand to draw a line on
the map dividing the twin Pashtun cities of Peshawar in
the north from Kandahar in the south. That line is now
not between India and Afghanistan, but between Pakistan
and Afghanistan, giving us more reason to think before
we leap into a new quagmire. Do not let us be taken for
a ride again.
It is my view that it is necessary
for India to find a method of getting away from trying
to protect artificial borders, and instead to use the
skills of its many people to open frontiers, (in effect
as is happening in Europe between nations who have been
fighting and invading each other's lands for centuries).
There is still the present attempt by the US to
put Indian troops between their forces and the
widespread Iraqi resistance. So far India has resisted,
though it is clear that foolish elements are seduced by
the notion that if only they allow the India
jawan (soldiers) to be blown up in Iraq in
preference to a GI, then the great powers of the UK-US
coalition will somehow do the decent thing, think
political elements in the Bharatiya Janata Party, now
wielding power in New Delhi, and lo and behold not only
will Kashmir slip snugly into the Hindu embrace, but
also India can forget secularism and the necessity of
carrying an electorate in favor of an argument, rather
the UK-US powers will do it (something, I know not what)
for them.
The world of superpower diplomacy is
not like that; it is the maintenance of armed forces
around the world. US Secretary of State Colin Powell
said in Baghdad on September 14 that the US does not
occupy others lands. True, it seems no longer
colonialist after acquiring the lands of the North
American nations now comprising the US. It does retain a
part of Cuba (the infamous Guantanamo Bay; just as the
UK retains a part of Cyprus).
But consider that
the US entered Germany in 1944, and still has a huge
armed force presence there. That's nearly 60 and still
counting. US military bases in England go back to 1942
after Pearl Harbor; 61 years so far. The US entered
Japan in 1946 and it's still there, as it is in Korea,
(no longer wanted, forcefully in Vietnam; or the
Philippines). It has acquired Diego Garcia in the Indian
Ocean, built runways from which it can and has bombed
Sudan and Afghanistan and Iraq (don't expect anything
from the British: Harold Wilson gave a long lease to the
US military after expelling all the, mainly fishermen,
families (so the Americans need not worry about natives
getting under their feet); all without even telling his
own cabinet. The chain of US bases extends from mainland
US round the globe through England, Germany to Italy,
Spain and so on. A military chain mail right around the
globe.
Let India look to make allies of its
neighbors. That may be tough, though I think that once
the effort is made India will be agreeably surprised at
the welcome of the attraction of such mutual cooperation
- look at the influence India can have again on
Indonesia, Indochina, as well as China and Pakistan,
Iran and the Central Asian states such as Uzbekistan
(whence came Babar, so it's time to pay a return call)
and Kazakhstan. Remember, these central Asians were
writing much of the data for the former Soviet Union's
space program, so they need a large open and secular
India with which they can interact in the new
information technology age.
Sajid Ali
Khan is a former member of Chatham House (Royal
Institute of International Affairs) and World Affairs
Editor of Indialink International. He lives mostly in
London.
Speaking Freely is an
Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing.
(Copyright Sajid Ali
Khan)
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