Threats to India's Stability
Externally, There
are two sources of threat to India's stability, and both of them are gravely
impinging on her internal law and order situation. We are caught up between
two ideological trends arising to our east and to our west, both antagonistic
to each other. The nature of relationship between China and Pakistan vis-à-vis India draws inspiration from the famous Maoist maxim that enemy's enemy
is a friend.
Fundamental Difference
However, the fundamental difference in these two
sources of threat to India needs to be understood. China, an authoritarian
state, is in full control of her sovereign power in formulating her policy
towards India. But the theo-fascist state of Pakistan, also a functional
client-state of the US, has, for a long time in the past, surrendered her
sovereignty of formulating her Indian Policy to her benefactor. Unlike
China, State power in Pakistan is husbanded by three components of her
polity, namely, the electorate, the olive-green chapter and the Punjabi
feudalist-bureaucratic combine. At the same time, Pakistani underworld
comprising drug-traffickers, rabid fundamentalist organizations and exporters
of terrorism and theo- fascism bring up the tail-end of the feudalist military
combine.
A power structure in which responsibilities can
be shifted and accountability can be disowned, tends to proceed on reckless
adventurism. India had to face this adventurism in the past. Despite fragmentation
of Pakistan in 1974, this power structure could not be dismantled. In fact,
it has now been reinforced through a clean chit obtained by Islamabad from
Clinton administration calling her a 'moderate Islamic state'.
Threat to India's stability emanates from these
two sources because the democratic-secular structure of Indian polity is
perceived as a "menace, out to destroy authoritarian rule and a theocratic
system in her two neighboring Asian states". After all, 900 million people
in vast land mass occupying a strategically important region between the
Stepes of Central Asia and the warm waters of Indian Ocean, bound together
by millennia of common heritage, struggling for socio-economic advancement
along an ideology of democracy and secularism, political pluralism and
individual freedom, do envisage a strong reverberation of their aspirations
in the hearts of millions of people in the adjoining countries.
Hegemonist State
Therefore, both China and Pakistan must perforce
project India as a 'hegemonist' State with intentions of bossing over the
smaller states in South East Asia and the region. This stance has two implications.
One is to create a fear psychosis among the adjacent smaller states, and
the other is to legitimise interference and even presence of the unipolar
power in the region. With 5000 square kilometres of the illegally occupied
Indian territory in J&K State gifted away by Pakistan to China, Islamabad
boasts of having resolved all border disputes with China. And China has
built the Karakoram Highway through illegally occupied Indian territory
in J&K State. Yet Beijing portrays India as a hegemonist state and
makes the Macmahon line a contentious issue to make incursions into Indian
territory.
US-China Nexus
Chinese communist leadership and US State developed
good understanding on arming Pakistan from early 1970s as regional deterrent
to the developing Indian democratic-secular State in S.E. Asian region.
An overall assessment of the US policy in the continents of Asia, Africa
and Latin America shows her willingness to accord tacit support to dictatorships
and authoritarian regimes out to curb democratic aspirations of their masses.
India did not fit in her scheme of things and when Pokhran blast came about,
the Americans embarked on double-pronged onslaught on India. Internally,
pressures were mounted like financial and economic sanctions, NPT and Kashmir
issue, and with that came the arming to the teeth of Pakistan. Amusingly,
American press occasionally comes out with stories of how the US authorities
just overlooked the clandestine acquisition of crucial nuclear components
by Islamabad from some Western countries and agencies. Even today, the
Americans are providing her all possible logistical support to collect
crucial material like enriched Uranium and Red Mercury from the economically
truncated states of Central Asia after the collapse of the Soviet power.
Crisis in Afghanistan
Following the crisis in Afghanistan, a new situation
has developed in the region which has exacerbated threats to India's stability.
This is the extensive proliferation of American provided sophisticated
arms in the region and the US- sponsored Islamic radicalism initially meant
to confront the communist ideology but now unleashed against the democratic
and secular forces in India and elsewhere in the region like Tajikistan
or the Philippines. Kashmir has been made the flash-point with the US Foreign
Office declaring that the whole of J&K state was a disputed subject.
Today, the world's strongest democracy is the
world's strongest supporter of theo-fascism. This is so because the unipolar
power must maintain to hold on the vast oil resources of the Arab world.
And the key to that resource is Saudi Arabia. The most retrograde autocratic
regime that has opened its coffers on global theo-fascim. Theo- fascism
exported by these agencies through an international network of armed activists
parading religion as the endangered entity, is knocking at the door of
every Muslim wherever he be. Only a few can resist the unrelenting harangue.
Our countrymen need to understand it.
Post cold-war strategies, economic globalisation
and reoriented roles of formidable military structures like the NATO should
not mean abrupt or even gradual abandonment of pervading interests of big
powers, US in particular. Central Asian vacuum on the one hand, and Pakistan's
growing search for geo-political depth westward and eastward on the other,
have become strong incentives for the Americans in giving another tight
embrace to their decades old ally viz. America finds enormous economic
interests in the almost untouched vast mineral wealth of central Asia to
which Pakistan holds the key for overland entry since Iran has turned a
'rouge' nation. America's quest for a foothold in Kashmir, an ambition
which came to be nursed in early 1950s and was never suspended all these
decades, aims at keeping a close watch on China. But that can be no relief
to us since China has the capacity to hold back the intruding American
influence and also keep India within her limits. It should be clear to
all that the presence of the US in any form and in any manifestation in
the region will be with a tacit understanding between Beijing and Islamabad.
Beijing has the diplomatic skill to derive adequate mileage out of American
posture. After all, both are fully aware of the potential of India to become
an industrial and economic giant given at least two decades of internal
peace and external security.
Two Sources
In this political landscape, we find that the
two sources of threat to India's stability have come to the conclusion
that an open military confrontation with her could become counter productive
in view of the repressive regimes unwilling to move towards democratisation
of their institutions. As such. they have resorted to both manifest and
subtle subversion through proxy war, disinformation, international propaganda,
trans- border arms infiltration, overt and covert support to dissident
factions, fanning of communal and ethnic conflicts and the like activities.
Such subversive measures succeed to a large extent in a soft and open state.
Thus external forces begin to work in tandem with internal subversion which
makes destabilisation process easy for them.
How can this challenge be met and repulsed? Certainly,
a far-reaching structural change is to be looked for. Never before was
free India forced to defensive strategies. We believe that India needs re-defining
her interpretation of a nation-state. We also believe that subversion has
to be eradicated with an iron hand. India will have to spell out in clear
and loud terms her understanding of a secular state.
New Thinking
Militarily, new thinking is called for particularly
in the structure of her land forces and conventional armament. Perhaps,
raising of Frontier Commands, one far the North Western border, would precede
re-investment of Himalayan buffer diplomacy. The State authority must assert
and this authority must reflect the will of the people.
And lastly, it should be said that the most formidable
defence and offence on which our country can depend is the unity among
her people. This is the hour of sinking all differences that might divide
the people of India. The united people draw their inspiration from the
great civilisation of this country. No power on earth, nor even the gods
in the heaven, can down us if we remain united. And unity means sacrifice,
dedication and will to exist as a vibrant nation.
[Courtesy - The Sahayogi Times]
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