India, we are told, has a great friend in the United States and there has been, and surely we will never again have, a greater friend than George Bush. At least our Ambassador to Washington, Ronen Sen swears by it. It is very comforting to know that.
India requires friends; it has been isolated, in a sense, from the US for many long years. Now the US, the allegedly sole Super Power on earth wants to befriend India. And how can we refuse the offer?
Dr Manmohan Singh says we should not continue to hold on to the ghosts of the past, but move forward. Isn'tthat sound advice? Washington showed its great love for India recently when it delivered two used F-16B state-of-the-art fighter jets to its sworn enemy, Pakistan. Chicken feed, one would say, and there is no need to worry. After all, what are two fighter jets when India is planning to buy several billion dollars worth of similar fighter crafts from all over the world and tenders have already been floated? But, according to the prestigious journal, Arms Control Today, Washington is planning to donate another two dozen fighter air crafts to Pakistan. In addition, it will upgrade Pakistan'scurrent fleet of 34 F-16 combat aircraft and is ready to sell?no doubt at subsidised price?18 new F-16C/D fighters by 2010.
Arms Control Today pointed out that India has publicly expressed its worry about the transfer of F-16 fighters to Pakistan but added that the transfer has to be seen in the context of legislation that Bush has signed into law that mandates sale of military equipment to Islamabad, contingent on its commitment to eliminate the Taliban. But what is Pakistan'srecord in this regard?
According to IBN Live. com, declassified American official documents reveal that Islamabad has funded, armed and advised the Taliban. The National Security Archives of the George Washington University early in August also had published government documents which showed that ?while Musharraf admitted that the Taliban were being sheltered in the lawless frontier border regions, the declassified documents clearly illustrated? Pakistan'sguilt.
According to the Archives, ?declassified State Department cables and US Intelligence reports describe the use of Taliban terrorist training areas in Afghanistan by Pakistani supported militants in Kashmir?. Also exposed are Pakistan'ssupport to ?the Taliban'ssevere form of Islam throughout Pakistan'sfrontier region?. But is there anything else about the sheer hypocrisy of President Bush? Hold on. A book entitled Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons authored by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark tells how successive US administration have winked at Pakistan'sclandestine nuclearisation and its rampant proliferation activities. The book charges Bush of perpetuating deceit in an elaborate charade, that forgave Pakistan for its nuclear transgressions as a price for keeping it from becoming an ever more dangerous proposition?in other words, succumbing to Pakistani blackmail.
Says the book: ?American officials knew that Musharraf had known about the nuclear trade all along. And Washington itself had not only covered it up for imperative geopolitical reasons, even when Islamabad began trading its secret technology.? The book then quotes Robert Galucci, a former US diplomat who had tracked Islamabad'sChinese-backed nuclear programme from its inception in 1972 as describing Pakistan as ?the Number One threat to the world at this moment?.
According to our dear Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, we must forget these ?ghosts? and accept Washington as our committed friend. India is a generous country. It forgives everyone who sins against it. After all, isn'tthe United States the most powerful country in the world? Isn'tit wise to coddle up to it rather than stand up to it? Why bother about national self-respect? Never mind if Tony Blair, the longest-serving Labour Prime Minister of Britain to rule the country had precipitatedly to resign in the context of its armed help to the US in suppressing Iraq. Britain'snew Prime Minister Brown is trying to distance himself from Washington while our dear Dr Singh is trying to move closer.
We live in a strange world. We never learn from history. The US doesn'tlike India to have an independent foreign policy. Some American law makers are allegedly ?disturbed? at India'sfriendliness towards Iran. How can India be friendly towards Teheran, when the US hates it? In a letter to US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, a Republican Senator John Kyl and a Democratic Senator Richard Durbin have said that ?government sanctioned military-to-military working groups and joint military training exercises that India conducts with Iran? are a cause for concern. Really? What are these gentlemen doing when US supply of fighter jets to Pakistan have become a matter of concern to India? And when America turns a blind eye to ISI?supported assistance to the Taliban and other anti-Indian forces? Is it that India has no right to complain? Instead of seeing the writing on the wall, the Indian government deludes itself and worse still deludes the public.
The truth is that the 123 Agreement is a not-so-clever US effort to draw India into a strategic alliance geared to further only American interests. All the rest is plain sham. The UPA Government'sthesis is that India cannot afford to confront the most powerful nation on earth and it is better to be a poodle than a hound. This is a matter of national self-respect and has nothing to do with the Left stand in Delhi. Jawaharlal Nehru, in similar circumstances would have refused to take the current Congress Party'sstand, come what may. During his time Nehru had the courage to help establish the non-aligned movement and garner support from like-minded leaders in Indonesia, Egypt and Yugoslavia. It is time a new version of the non-aligned movement is established to tell the US that India'sself-respect is not for sale. There are ways to counter the US, politely, but firmly.
India is not all that helpless that it has to genuflect before the US on the grounds that it pays to do so. In the long run it is India that will have to pay a grievous prices for Dr Manmohan Singh'sobstreperous folly. Dr Singh has obviously not read the history of India that led up to 1857. Sidling up to the powerful for self-interests has been the bane of our leaders down the centuries. We will never learn.
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