'Explosion Of Self Esteem'

Original Interview: August 1998
Please click here for exclusive excerpts  from Countdown. For more writings by and on Amitav Ghosh, please visit his website, amitavghosh.com, where this first appeared

CM: I’ve always believed consistently that India should weaponize and convert its potential energy intokinetic energy and to that extent I think that decision should have been taken long ago. It was left to a BJPgovernment to do so and which may have perhaps caused such a furore both within the country and outside. 

But Ido believe that the NPT was discriminatory something that wanted to freeze the world between nuclear haves andhave nots and India which has had a nuclear programme for many many years also has certain securityrequirements to look after -- particularly in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and in thisdefenceless position it was an imperative to explode [the] bomb, declare itself a nuclear weapon state andthereafter whatever safeguards the nuclear weapon states have decided to adopt, India joins the league andagrees to adopt.

So in that sense I have been a consistent supporter of the bomb.

AG: But the price is too high in terms of sanctions.

CM: No, sanctions really didn’t bother us that much—the economic impact wouldn’t have been thatdramatic. Because honestly I feel the US cannot really afford the sanctions—besides the hypocrisy of USpolicy in this regard. We see what is happening in China for instance that American business has wooed Chinaback, so this is going to happen—We have to stand on our own feet in the economic arena. I think thesanctions are not going to be of any particular significance.

Luckily we are still broadly insulated from international economic trends and also the degree of foreigninvestment in India is still very limited. It's a blessing in disguise 10-15 years down the line India wouldhave globalized fully and then it would have been that much more difficult to carry this out. 

I again feelthat Pokhran II has not come a day too late.

AG: I saw an article you wrote soon after the explosion, called an ‘Explosion of self esteem’ in thatyour argument there was not in strategic terms, but a kind of an internal address.

CM: I think it is a reality that the bomb is a currency of self-esteem. Now whether it should or should notbe so is another matter—but all the major powers, the US, the erstwhile Soviet Union, China, France, Britain,are the countries which have made the bomb a currency of both domestic and internationalself-esteem.

AG: What about Japan and Germany ?

CM: Japan and Germany have specific reasons and under the clauses which bound them not to do so is a verydifferent kind of scenario—

AG: But Italy, Canada, Spain.......

CM: But we must understand the Indian compulsion in a different context, that of 200 years of colonialismand also the kind of nation-building exercise that has had to be carried out in the last 50 years. And in thisnation building exercise, I think the bomb is something that adds a tremendous meaning to national pride. 

Given India’s size, its security concerns, its geo-strategic needs, plus the fact that the bomb is somethingthat adds to a nation’s feelings of security, of self-esteem, of a sense of pride -- something which thiscountry needs and which needs to be sometimes concretely expressed -- space exploration is one, the bomb isanother -- these do have an impact on your pride in being an Indian.

AG: Can you enlarge on your point about colonialism—how do you think it becomes a factor in this—

CM: Two hundred years of colonialism—and the fact that India was never really a modern nation. We do nothave really any degree of national pride or national cohesion in the same way as the British have, the Frenchhave, the Germans have, Americans have. 

We have been told systematically that we are really not fit to ruleourselves—that there had to be degree of external authority -- that was the whole justification of colonialism—thatour achievement, our worth, our talent has always been negated and all colonized people suffer from a feelingof inferiority this is common everywhere whether Africa or Asia and that's what colonialism did, it robbedpeople of their self-esteem and Gandhiji’s whole endeavour throughout the freedom movement was to buildthis sense of self-esteem saying so what if you don’t have a gun or lathi in your hand, you still have moralforce. 

Now, this was very important at that point when we were combatting British rule, but now that we are anindependent country, 50 years down the line, we know that moral force alone is not enough to survive in thisworld or to get the esteem of the people. We tried it through the Non Aligned Movement but we have seen whathas happened to it -- moral force does not count for very much in today’s world. 

And when you are lookingtowards the end of the 20th century towards 21st century as to how you can instill national pride, overcome thefeeling of inferiority which had been ingrained in your mind for 200 years, something like the bomb would seemcould deal with the world better. So that you feel more completely yourself.

AG: Say, you and me. Do you think we carry this sense of inferiority within us?

CM: Yes and No—Even now, may be your experience has been different. Certainly when we go abroad, when wehave to prove ourselves in international forum we have to shout out louder and also there is a very strongelement of patronizing about an ex-colonial doing so well. I feel that ought not to be there we are as good asanybody else—the cream of Indian society is at par if not better in many ways to certain developedsocieties.

Nonetheless we have this problem of either being treated as inferiors or being patronized. This is afeeling that even the Chinese have suffered from and even continue to do.

So its not that we feel inferior, but somewhere when we interact in international forums, you know that youhave to truly excel and draw attention—it won’t automatically come to you and this is quite a differentsense of inferiority—not as it used to be in the colonial period. Where you were deemed not to be a DistrictMagistrate, not fit to be in police, not fit to run your own affairs—now people are surprised that you areand are patronizing about it. And you have to shout louder in order to be heard. So the feeling is still very muchthere—

(AmitavGhosh.Com)