Beware false gods bearing gifts
Democracy, human rights, peace and goodwill to all, form part of the lexicon of political correctness: false words hide what the false heart doth know. The war on jihadi terrorism is frequently characterized by firing blanks. American policy in South Asia is one such example. Pakistan has long held the dubious distinction of being the first state to use non-state actors as a component of its statecraft, having organized, funded and armed its tribal Pathan levies for the invasion in October 1947, a few months of gaining its independence. The failed exercise, repeated In September 1965, and turned into a misadventure. The third attempt in the early summer of 1999 also ended in failure. The lowest common multiple in these fraught decades was Pakistan’s membership of US-sponsored military pacts, SEATO and CENTO, which brought for the country’s army a cornucopia of military and financial aid - life support system for the country’s military in power or the power behind the throne. The climax to this policy occurred in 1971, when US President Richard Nixon, and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, rendered unbridled support to their client in Islamabad, General Yahya Khan, as his forces went about their genocidal slaughter in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), directing their ire at India to the extent of egging the Chinese leadership to strike at India in the north, thereby hoping to restore the fortunes of the Pakistan military regime. Nixon and Kissinger resorted to the language of the gutter in their references to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the people of India. More recently, on 26 November 2008, jihadi terrorists sailed across the waters from Pakistan and launched an assault on Mumbai, India’s financial hub, during which 167 innocent citizens, men, women and children, perished in the carnage. India has been the recipient of much tea and sympathy and good counsel from the United States, but Pakistan retains the affection of the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon, hence vast quantities of money and sophisticated American arms keep flowing in to Pakistan, for defensive purposes, it is coyly claimed. The French have a saying that has stood the test of time: It translates as follows, “The more things change the more things remain the same.”
The latest cash and arms flow from Washington led the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi issue a cautionary warning, to which the Obama administration responded in time-honoured fashion: the aid was designed to keep Islamabad onside and combat domestic terror groups. F-16 warplanes, Hellfire missiles, attack helicopters and the other lethal weaponry worth around $1 billion were apparently necessary to fight al-Qaeda, whose late leader Osama bin Laden was in hiding in Pakistan with the complicity of the country’s top military brass. This bland assurance was accompanied by a six-fold increase in financial aid - a Kafkaesque explanation, you might say. India’s External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj, followed with a statement: “The government has consistently conveyed to the US that it must take into account India-US relations and the impact on Indian security in deciding its military assistance to Pakistan.” This has been a dialogue of the deaf down the years and no change can be expected anytime soon.
What is true of the United States is even truer of China, routinely described in Islamabad and in Beijing as “Pakistan’s all-weather friend”. The United States and China have been on the same page on Pakistan, as they once were in their support of Pol Pot’s genocidal regime in Cambodia against Vietnam, seen then as a foe in Beijing and Washington. Lord Palmerstone, a leading mid-19th century British statesman, famously remarked: “Britain has no eternal friends or enemies, only eternal interests.” The shifting tides of geopolitics require that India, too, has its safe harbours and anchorages, each to be kept functional in the event of a crisis. A ship of state that relies on moral wind in treacherous waters is usually destined for the rocks.
Operation Malabar: An exercise in sea power
India, the United States and Japan are to conduct a naval exercise of far-reaching importance in the Indian Ocean. Japan is a global ally of the United States, while India enjoys a limited partnership. The three nations are joining together with the goal of ensuring freedom of the high seas international traffic. China claims exclusive control of the strategic waters of the South China Sea, whose artery, the Strait of Malacca is the waterway between the Pacific and the Indian Oceans. China’s arbitrary position impedes the rights of the littoral states such as Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia to free passage., and denies them the authority to explore for offshore oil. Their dispute with China bears on the interests of India, with its critical strategic ties to Vietnam. The United States, for its part, is aligned to the Philippines through a security pact. Japan, an island nation, has close trade ties with all of these countries, as do India and the United States. The unfettered right of passage through the South China Sea brooks no denial for the three exercising powers. India has its special reasons for participating in Operation Malabar with China claiming Arunachal Pradesh bordering Tibet, now a formidable military base for China’s power projection in South and South East Asia.
Beijing tied the knot with Pakistan, calculating, thus, to keep India territorially cabined, cribbed and confined. Furthermore, the headwaters of the Brahmaputra and the Mekong river originate on the Tibetan plateau and flow southwards into to India and South East Asia respectively. For years, India has been sensitive about offending Beijing, when it complained that the trilateral naval exercise was an extension of America’s containment of China. Hence, in 2007, the invitation to Japan to participate in Operation Malabar was withdrawn. The Modi government’s stance has clearly hardened of late. India is no longer willing to bend to the caprices of its truculent neighbor to the north. It takes two to tango.
Exercising on the high seas with two of the world’s foremost navies is greatly to India’s advantage. India is a peninsula surrounded on three sides by the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. The historian K.M.Panikkar, a South Indian from Kerala, penned an acclaimed monograph, way back in 1943, entitled “India and the Indian Ocean: A Essay on the Influence of Sea Power on Indian History.” The transformation of the Indian Navy into a true blue water fleet has vindicated Sardar Panikkar’s foresight. To keep abreast with the latest advances and skills in naval science, India must train with best in the field. Operation Malabar justifies itself on every count.
Britain likely rescuer in Santiniketan
The shade of Rabindranath Tagore must be nodding with pleasurable satisfaction that Britain, with its unrivalled expertise in heritage management, will be putting its vast experience at the disposal of the authorities in Santiniketan for the restoration work in an environment that does justice to the spirit of the place. Tagore had many close English friends, foremost among them C.F.Andrews, and an immense admiration for English literary life and appreciation of the country’s political institutions. He had always warned against the dark and negative aspects of nationalism, seeing this as a threat to the civilized values of an inclusive society. Bengal owes a debt to a man who, more than any other, fashioned its liberal and artistic sensibility through a corpus of poetry, novels, short stories and essays, plus a range of songs unique in the language. For all that, and the adulation he evokes among Bengalis, his house in Santiniketan, where he established the Vishwa Bharati University, is crumbling, along with other notable buildings. The UK Trade and Investment body, in its report, says. “Given the cultural heritage and character of Santiniketan, three characteristic areas could be effected - education, culture and tourism…..softer initiatives such as setting up a public art initiative run by local artists and potential exchange programmes with Vishwa Bharati University could greatly help showcase Santiniketan ‘s strength and promote a cultural hub unique to the region and the first of its kind in India.”
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is on a three-day visit to Britain, should take this plan forward. English Heritage has made a significant contribution to the beautification of Kolkata’s river front, while she is calling British companies to invest in her State. Times are changing.
