Modi Government's Foreign Policy is Going Pakistan Way
Narendra Modi's submission to US might is in a way following the path of Pakistan, which right from the beginning submitted to US and in the process blocked the avenues of development of democracy and development in the country.
India’s foreign policy started with a policy of non-alignment, submitting neither to the United States nor Soviet Russia, the two poles of the cold war era. Pakistan was subservient to the American designs right from the beginning and as democracy was overtaken by the Muslim Communalist politics, the role of American Ambassador, the Mullahs and army came to the foreground in the newly born country. Even today the fundamentalism in the name of Islam dominates in Pakistan while the military has a very strong role. Either there have been military dictators one after the other or they have a strong say in political affairs. The lunch invitation of Donald Trump to Field Marshal Asif Munir tells all the tale. While there are other components of Pakistan’s foreign policy, it was clearly marked by its pro US orientation. Jocularly, it was said that Pakistan is ruled by three As - Allah, American Ambassador and Army. This may be gross generalisation but what became clear is that when politics in the name of religion came to dominate the social scene, such a situation did happen in our neighbouring country.
India had its own path of non-submission to super powers and carved its path of all round development - taking the help of different countries in development of technology, industries and education. One example which is very apparent is the establishment of five initial IITs, each with the help of different major countries. India did not submit to super powers pressure, most exemplified on the eve of formation of Bangladesh. Richard Nixon, US President, asked for India to keep off the happenings of East Pakistan, when the Pakistan Army was wreaking havoc, leading to massive exodus of refugees into India. Indira Gandhi boldly refused this dictate of Nixon. Instead, she signed a ‘Treaty of Friendship’ with Soviet Russia and despite the seventh fleet of US in Bay of Bengal, Indian army intervened and helped Mukti Bahini to liberate East Pakistan from the clutches of the West Pakistan, which was trying to exploit the East Pakistan, to the extent of trying to impose Urdu as the national language of the undivided Pakistan. The Bengali speaking East Pakistan rebelled and India did not bow to the US threats and came to the rescue of the population of East Pakistan.
Shift in Indian Foreign Policy
From 2014, there is a gradual shift of Indian foreign policy, it 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 Sindhoor, there was military action between Pakistan and India. While India claimed that ceasefire was brought in due to the mutual discussion and request from the Pakistan side, Donald Trump repeatedly claimed that his administration brought in the ceasefire between the two countries 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 Pak-India forum, and the valuable initiative like ‘Aman ki Asha’ (Ray of Hope) between India’s Times of India and Pakistan’s paper Jang. The Government level blame games were always there. Kashmir remained a hot issue. Kashmiris kept suffering the fire of militants and terrorists coming from Pakistan, and the presence of military in the civilian area for such a long time.
Now it seems that the stance of RSS and BJP towards Pakistan is changing as Dattatray Hosabale, the Sarhkaryavah (number 2 in RSS) of RSS asked that doors of dialogue should be open between India and Pakistan. The RSS combine kept raking up Kashmir issue and blaming Nehru for mishandling of Kashmir issue. The turmoil in Kashmir continued. It is true that earlier also during Vajpayee regime, he took a bus to Lahore to sort out matters. Despite that stalemate continued even after the reciprocatory visit to India by Pakistan’s dictator Pervez Musharaff. Now the statement of Hosabale comes as a breath of fresh air, giving a different impression towards Pakistan than the usual one. RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat tries to link it with the idea of Akhand Bharat. As such the earlier experiment of SAARC was not much promoted by the BJP regime. SAARC was a great experiment of regional cooperation amongst the South Asian countries.
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-Pak relations. Hosbale's statement came after his recent US visit. Many suspect that such a statement at this juncture may be under US pressure. One is not sure of that but one thing which is definitive is that India’s subservience to the US is on the rise. This was confirmed by the recent happenings where 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 instructions of the US not to buy oil from Russia was also in the same series.
This got further confirmation from the statement, which was later withdrawn, by Ram Madhav. He is one of the senior-most and prominent leaders of RSS-BJP. While talking in Washington's Hudson Institute, he said that India has tried to work with the US by conceding to its demands for a hike in tariff and not buying oil from Russia. This gentleman went on to say, “Where exactly is India not doing enough to work with America.” When criticised he was prompt enough to withdraw his statement, anyway the cat is out of the bag.
Right from the beginning, RSS was pro US to the extent of even supporting US 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 focussed more on identity issues, temples, cow-beef, rejection of Darwin's theory and removal of periodic table at the same time promoting the blind faith Baba’s of the ilk of Dhirendra Shastri while playing second fiddle to the US!
This submission to US might is in a way following the path of Pakistan, which right from the beginning submitted to US and in the process blocked the avenues of development of democracy and development in the country.
After the demolition of Babri Mosque led by RSS combine, Pakistani poet, Fahmida Riyaz wrote, Arre bhai tum bhi hum jaise nikale (Oh brother you are also like us). In a way India is toeing many policies which Pakistan has followed. The pro US stance is one of them!
[The writer, Dr Ram Puniyani, is former professor of IIT Bombay.]
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