An excerpt from the statement of the International Committee in support of the people’s war In India, Afghanistan
.... Comrade Ajith’s crime is to
dedicate more than four decades of his life to the relentless struggle against
a brutal and reactionary system which is exploiting, oppressing, grinding, and
sucking the blood of hundreds of millions of the wretched of the earth. …
....Comrade Ajith’s crime has been
to think and imagine and fight for a better world, in which all these
atrocities become history. But for the reactionary Indian state, which
shamelessly claims to be the “biggest democracy” in the world this is a crime. …
Comrade Ajith is an ideologue of the
CPI (Maoist), which is currently leading a revolutionary people’s war to
demolish the system of semi-feudal, capitalist and imperialist oppression and
exploitation and to establish new democracy and socialism. Comrade has
dedicated more than four decades of his life for this cause.
The following paper by comrade Ajith
was published on the Vol. 3 No3 of People’s March, January-March 2015 - 1st part
Modi's
Foriegn Policy
Indian Expansionism’s Big Power Dreams
By ajith
Nearly a
year into its rule, the Modi regime is yet to deliver anything substantial on
the socalled ‘economic growth’ front –– other than several policy decisions
that further open up the country to imperialist plunder. Despite the windfall
gain made through the steep fall in crude oil prices, the Central government’s
finances are still in a bad shape. With their hype on fasttracking the economy
punctured, Modi’s spindoctors are now trumpeting his foreign policy. The claim
is that he has masterfully catapulted India into a prominent position on
the world arena through his international moves. Obama's visit as the chief
guest at the Republic Day parade took this to a frenzy. Forceful, dynamic,
strategic –– the flow of adjectives are torrential. On closer observation, they
stand in inverse proportion to actual results.
Modi has
indeed taken India into an
even closer engagement with the US
and its allies Japan and Australia, both of whom are pivotal in the US strategic plan to contain China. Closer ties with Vietnam and Fiji
are promoted as a counterplay to China’s
penetration in South Asia. But where it really
matters for Indian expansionism, in South Asia, it is steadily being pressed by
the growing weight of China.
Though the Indian rulers once again succeeded in blocking China’s entry, it couldn’t prevent
this issue from becoming a major topic in the November 2014 SAARC summit.
Moreover, support for China’s
membership has gained more adherents. Other than Pakistan,
now Sri Lanka and the Maldives argued for it, with Nepal tacitly acceding. China
holds out the promise of huge investments, which means fat commissions and they
see no reason to forsake it. This was ultimately reflected in the wording of
the declaration issued by the SAARC summit of November 2014 which instructed
its concerned body to “…to engage the SAARC Observers into productive,
demanddriven and objective project based cooperation in priority areas as
identified by the Member States.” India’s opposition is increasingly
getting isolated as petty obstructionism. Meanwhile, Indian expansionist plans
for its greater and quicker economic penetration of South Asia through a Trade Pact
continued to be blocked by Pakistan.
Several other developments also underline the limits of Modi’s initiatives in South Asia. Maldives
has for some time now been moving closer to China. The cancellation of a major
airport project given to an Indian firm and its replacement by a Chinese
infrastructure concern was a landmark of sorts in this trend. It has now been
further strengthened by the Maldivian government’s decision to endorse the 21st
century Maritime Silk Route (MSR) promoted by Chinese expansionism. The MSR
visualises development of a sea route from China’s
Fujian province to the Mediterranean Sea via
South Asia and East Africa. It complements the
land based Silk Route
proposed through Central Asia, linking China
to Europe. The Maldivian endorsement of the
MSR involves the building of a deep sea port on its northernmost Atoll, which
will eventually open up space for Chinese naval activity. Ironically, the
Maldivian President Abdulla Yammeen too has announced a ‘look East’ shift in
foreign policy, a shift to closer ties with China. His reasoning was that
economic cooperation with China
does not challenge Maldives’
“Islamic” identity unlike ties with “Western colonial powers”. It is obvious
that the real entity he had in mind was India, which had tried to prop up a
new power centre in the form of the presidency of Mohamed Nashed, not part of
the traditional ruling elite. The Brahmanic Hindutva Sangh Parivar banners of
the Modi regime are certainly not going to ease the path of Indian expansionism
over there.
If Maldives is a new headache for the Indian rulers,
Sri Lanka
under its former President Mahinda Rajapaksa had become increasingly explicit
in servicing of Chinese expansionist interests. The repeated port calls of
Chinese submarines in Sri Lanka
ignoring Delhi’s
opposition was big news in the Indian media, accompanied by reports of how the
Modi government made its ‘strong displeasure’ known to Rajapaksa. But there was
nothing to show that this mattered to Colombo.
The Modi regime will surely be hoping that the new presidency of Maithripala
Sirisena will be of help in once again securing its domination. Reports, which are
now coming out in the media, indicate that his defection from the Rajapaksa
camp and success in stitching up a winning alliance was no sudden development.
It was the product of months long secret consultations among various forces,
with the Indian spy agency RAWplaying a leading role. The pay off is already
seen in the statements made by the new Sri Lankan rulers on 'correcting the imbalance'
in foreign relations and the express visit made to Delhi by their new foreign minister. But Sri Lanka’s growing relations with China, even at the expense India, was not just some purely
Rajapaksa affair. It is rootedt in the interests of the Sri Lankan ruling
classes. Despite the change of regime they will continue to try to benefit by manoeuvring
between Indian and Chinese expansionism. At the most there may be some move
away by the Maithripala government from Rajapaksa’s overt tilt to China in order to
manoeuvre all the better. China
has invested nearly Rs 30,000 crore in that country since 2009 compared to India's
Rs 180 crores.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has strengthened ties with Russia which
delivered advanced weapons to it disregarding the objections of the Indian
ruling classes. The recent summit meeting between Putin and Modi has repeated
the usual verbiage on the ‘strategic partnership’ between Russia and India. After the usual
condemnations of 'terrorism' their joint statement goes on to state, “The
leaders expressed hope that all safe havens and sanctuaries for terrorists will
be wiped out without delay and terrorism would be completely eradicated from
the common region within a decade.”What stands out here is the change in
wording compared to last year's statement. There the targeting of Pakistan
was rather obvious –– “… terrorist acts … may have international linkages
extending across and beyond the borders. States that provide aid, abetment and
shelter for such terrorist activities are themselves as guilty as the actual
perpetrators of terrorism.” Though India
still remains a major market for Russian weaponry and both are members of the
BRICS, Moscow is evidently readjusting its relations
in South Asia in view of the growing dependence
of the Indian rulers onWashington. In the short term there won’t be a total
reframing –– India has its
geopolitical value for Russian imperialism, not the least as a foil to China.
But
Pakistan’s immediate gain, and the
consequent weakening of Indian expansionism’s clout, is obvious
For all the
aggressive hard sell of going from ‘Look East’ to ‘Act East’ in its pursuit of Indian
expansionist interests the Modi regime still remains more or less where the UPA
left off. Modi’s foreign policy is characterised by some (and criticised by others
like the CPMCPI revisionists) as a total break from the one followed till now.
Deepening ties with Zionist Israel, practically abandoning the Indian state’s long
standing support to the Palestinian cause, is an often cited example. Its silence
during last year’s genocide in Gaza
surely gave ample evidence. But a meaningful look at India’s foreign policy, including
its present specificities and nuances, demands a wide angled take. The striking
shift in stance on Palestine
is not a purely Modi or BJP impulse. Diplomatic ties with Israel were inaugurated in the
early 1990s by the Congress led by Narasimha Rao. They were maintained and
nurtured over subsequent decades by Central governments formed or supported by parties
from the whole spectrum of parliamentary forces, all the way from the rightist
BJP to the socalled leftist CPM. The continuity in the orientation of India’s
foreign policy, no matter who rules, is striking. It emerges from the
expansionist ambitions of what is essentially a comprador state. Significant shifts
in its foreign policy orientation, seen over the six and odd decades of its
existence, are well contained within this continuity
Two periods
can be distinguished. The first was that of socalled nonalignment inaugurated
by Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister.
Apparently
indicating an independent bearing in foreign affairs it was actually a
euphemism for the manoeuvring of the Indian ruling classes in the world arena.
Two factors made this possible. The more important of them was the replacement
of overt colonialism with indirect rule and domination through neo-colonialism.
The other
was the growing contention between the imperialist blocs led by the US and Russia, which emerged as a super power
after the restoration of capitalism in the 1950s. The first of these made
nonalignment a possible option since the legitimacy of neocolonialism depended
on allowing room for some amount of independent posturing by oppressed countries.
Neocolonialism after all was itself mainly an imperialist response to the tide
of national liberation struggles. It was meant to diffuse them by seeming to
accede independence. The second factor, imperialist contention, created space for
manoeuvring.
But possibility
and space didn’t automatically translate into ‘nonalignment’ It was born from
the need of the new rulers of the excolonies to actualise and utilise the space
of formal independence granted by their neocolonial existence. Because, even
after transferring power to their trusted agents, the colonial powers tried
their best to retain as much direct control as possible in the erstwhile colonies. The US was
championing ‘decolonisation’with the intent of coopting nationalist sentiments in
the colonies to serve its aim of edging back the traditional powers and gaining
a dominant position. But it too favoured tight control.
Military
groupings like the CENTO and SEATO were formed for this. Though the containment
of the socialist camp and communist movements in oppressed countries were made
out to be the reason, the real aim was to lockin countries that had now gained
formal political independence.
The
‘nonalignment movement’ (NAM)
could emerge only by resisting this.
In the
turbulent post2nd world war period, any opposition to the erstwhile colonial
powers and the US
quickly acquired a nationalist, progressive political hue. The world situation
marked by a rising tide of national liberation struggles aided this. The NAM
came to be regarded as the champion of national independence opposed toWestern
imperialism. But a closer look would show that this was hardly the case. The NAM
was not really driven by antiimperialism.
It was a
continuation of the anticolonialism of compradors, already seen in political movements
led by them in the colonial period; for example, the one led by the Indian National Congress. In the long
run, NAMstyle opposition aided imperialist powers since the definition of imperialism
was being restricted to colonialism at a time when neocolonialism was already
replacing it in the real world. Thus, even while there were occasions of sharp
contradiction and even conflict (the Goan war) with specific imperialist
powers, ties of dependence toWestern imperialism and service to it could be
well contained in the nonaligned stance of the Indian state.
India, Egypt
and Yugoslavia were
prominent initiators of the NAM.
Among them, India
had ties with multipleWestern imperialist powers and a fairly sizeable economy
they were keen on exploiting. Egypt
enjoyed strategic geopolitical importance. Yugoslavia had political value in
the contention with the socialist camp. The US
backed Yugoslavia against
the socialist Soviet Union. In Egypt it stepped in against British and French imperialist
aggression when Nasser, the then president of that country, nationalised the Suez Canal. India,
under Nehru, allowed it to stage spying sorties over China.Within theWestern imperialist
camp the NAM
thus gave rise to opposing responses. Most saw it as a tool of the socialist
camp. Yet there were others too who perceived in it a useful countervail
against developments in the AfroAsian Bandung conference of 1955 where
neocolonial countries joined up with socialist countries and revolutionary
China gained prominence. This dimension of the NAM
was gradually unravelled with the emergence of a new imperialist bloc, through the
rise of Soviet social imperialism.When the relation between the two blocs went
from collusion to contention in the early 1970s, the NAM bloomed as an institutional
framework eminently suited to neocolonialism.
Growing contention
between the two blocs, led by the US and the Soviet Union, posed the pressing need before the
comprador states to ally with one or the other. They could do this and still
retain some manoeuvrability by being part of the NAM. On their part, the super
powers could utilise its venues through their proxies and employ the
‘independence’ rhetoric to accuse each other of domination while continuing to
pursue their imperialist agendas and poach on the other’s camp.
The social
imperialist bloc initially enjoyed a bit of an advantage since it was
unencumbered by any colonial past. But increasing instances of its aggressive
moves, such as the occupation of Afghanistan, soon whittled this
down. By the end of the 1970s, military pacts like CENTO and SEATO with an
explicit colonial pedigree were winded up while the NAM remained and grew. But now its conferences
increasingly, and openly, became another venue of super power contention.
The
uniquely neocolonial characteristic of the nonalignment policy was best
demonstrated by Indian expansionism itself when it signed the Soviet social
imperialist proposed Defence Treaty of 1972 even while it remained a staunch
proponent of the NAM.
Despite threats of the US,
it could attack and dismember Pakistan
by manoeuvring and utilising the national liberation cause of Bangladesh. It seized and forcibly
incorporated Sikkim.
It gained nuclear weapon capacity. All of these moves strengthened and consolidated
Indian expansionism’s domination in South Asia.
But none of this was given by its strength as an independent power. They became
possible within the larger framework of super power contention, under social imperialist
protection guaranteed by the Treaty of 1972.
Once
nonalignment is located within the broader international frame of imperialist
relations, the logic of the shift in foreign policy initiated by the Indian
National Congress’s Narasimha Rao government in the early 1990s becomes
apparent.
This was
necessitated by the new international situation. The collapse of social
imperialism in the early 1990s and the recasting of neocolonial legitimacy
under the aggressive push of globalisation had made nonalignment redundant.
Indian
expansionist interests could no longer rely on social imperialism. It needed to
toady to US imperialism. In hindsight, the grounds for this had already been
laid down by Indira Gandhi in the beginning of the 1980s. Growing political and
economic problems weakening Soviet social imperialism had begun to limit its
capacity. The Indian ruling classes had to turn to the IMF. Since then,
dependence on the US
bloc kept on deepening. Though all the appropriate nonaligned gestures and
rituals were followed, the tilt to the US in international relations
became more and more explicit. Under Rajiv Gandhi, Indian military facilities
were offered to refuel US war planes bombing Iraq. It fell to Narasimha Rao to
give the crucial push. Quite significantly, this was accompanied by the turn to
globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation, abandoning earlier economic
policies that gave preference to the public sector and a greater role for the
government.
To secure
their comprador and expansionist interests the Indian ruling classes had to abandon
the policies and structures built up under Nehru, both in the domestic and
international realms. Such recasting however posed the threat of tearing off their
guise of independence. This was further amplified by the turn in political
discourse brought about by imperialist globalisation. For the several decades
following the transfer of power in 1947, exposure of imperialism and its
control, the role of the IMF andWorld Bank as neocolonial institutions and
similar issues had been restricted to Maoist forces. It had almost disappeared
even from the propaganda of the parliamentary left like the CPM and CPI. This
would change with the global shift to globalisation and the fall of the social imperialist
bloc leading to the near total domination of the US. Imperialist dependence and its institutional
control became live topics even in parliamentary discourse, with ramifications
going well beyond it.
Being
forced to increasingly expose their subservience to imperialism, each act of
the ruling classes was simultaneously acknowledging the correctness of Maoist
analysis on the sham nature of India's
independence. The attempt to distract public opinion through an aggressive
promotion of Brahmanic Hinduism and its chauvinism was useful to the extent of
deepening communal polarisation.
But it too
failed in the matter of salvaging the independence banners of the ruling classes. In
fact, the opportunities obtained by the Sangh Parivar to rule, whether the 13
day spell in 1996 or the full term of the 2nd NDA government, only showed it up
as even more subservient to US interests. Since all the parliamentary parties
were either in Central or State governments, and all were pushing the imperialist
agenda of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation, none within the
ruling class spectrum could step in as saviour.
Independence, selfreliance and the whole package
of terminology earlier employed to cover up the reality of a semicolonial, semifeudal
existence had to be redefined. The global recasting of neocolonial legitimacy came
in handy.
No comments:
Post a Comment