The Smiles & The Scars

President George Bush has been the toast of large sections of the elite inIndia--particularly from the cocooned classes of strategic oracles, servingbureaucrats, businessmen and prospering and upwardly mobile millionaire andmulti-millionaire journalists.

In the days leading up to and during his just-concluded visit to India, theyhad eyes and ears only for Mr  Bush. Not for those, who questioned the wisdom oftheir unbridled enthusiasm for everything American.

They certainly did not have time or empathy for the thousands of Muslims, whowere demonstrating in the streets. A multi-millionaire journalist was asked in aTV interview what he thought of the over one hundred thousand Muslims, who weredemonstrating in the streets of Mumbai even as the gone-gaga elite were winingand  dining with Mr Bush, or if they were not lucky enough to break breadwith him, ogling at him.

He replied contemptuously: "Let them demonstrate. We are a democracy.They have a right to demonstrate. People demonstrate against Bush in the UStoo."

I started my career as a journalist and had the privilege of having as mymentors the then giants of the profession. They used to tell us that a goodjournalist should not identify himself or herself with an event. He or sheshould maintain a distance from it and understand and analyse it objectively for the readers.

Many of today's journalists belong to a different class--like thismulti-millionaire kind. They identify themselves with an event which befitstheir social and intellectual moorings and tend to become part of it.

There were two events taking place simultaneously--the rapturous welcomefor Mr Bush by sections of the elite and the street demonstrations by largesections of the people--particularly the Muslim minority. The multi-millionairejournalists identified themselves totally with this elite and had no empathy forthe protesting rest. To get some idea of the magnitude and the likely ominousimplications of the protests, one had to go to the foreign media.

The toast of today could become the embarrassment of tomorrow. Notinfrequently, that has been the lesson of history. Remember the toast withchampagne of those Neocons of the US and their embedded journalists, who sangand danced in the ballrooms of Washington DC after the entry of the US troopsinto Kabul in 2001 and their occupation of Iraq in 2003? What happened to theirtoasts today?

Remember the "India Is Shining" toasts of the Bharatiya JanataParty before the elections of 2004? What happened to its toasts today?

Last year, an official of the US State Department elucidated the criteria,which might govern the US decision on the proposal for the expansion of thepermanent membership of the UN Security Council. The strategic oracles of NewDelhi jumped with joy and interpreted this statement as indicating a US decisionto back India for permanent membership. What happened to their toasts today?

The US is a super power not only because of its material and human resourcesand the capacity for hard work and the innovative spirit of its citizens. It isalso because its political leadership and other policy-makers have a lucidunderstanding of its national interests and are prepared for any twists andturns in policy in order to promote those interests and make them prevail.

Its interests are strategic, but its relationships are tactical. Look at theway it used Pakistan, discarded it and again started using it. Look at the wayit used the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan to enter Kabul in 2001 and thenwent about marginalising it. Look at how it remained silent on Iran's nuclearprogramme till its troops had occupied Iraq, which might not have been possiblewithout Teheran's complicity .

Is its new-found enthusiasm  for India tactical or strategic? We shouldpresume it to be tactical unless it is proved to be genuinely strategic andavoid putting all our eggs in the US basket and building castles in the airabout our becoming the equal of China with US help. There is nothing wrong inour wanting to become an equal of China. It should be through our own effortsand not by riding on the shoulders of the US.

There were justified smiles all around over the conclusion of a mutual understanding (not yet a formal agreement) on the way forward in theimplementation of the agreement of July,18,2005, on bilateral co-operation inthe field of civilian nuclear energy. A careful reading of the detailedbriefings on the understanding given separately by the spokesmen of the two governments would indicate that the understanding is a tactical gain for India,but a strategic gain for the US.

It is a tactical gain for India because the US has conceded the autonomy ofthe Indian decision-making relating to the separation plan which specifies whichof the reactors/establishments would be in the civilian sector and which in themilitary. The US has also accepted the Indian intention to keep its fast-breederprogramme out of the civilian list.

It is a strategic gain for the US because it has made India accept in returnthe irreversibility of its decisions on separation once they are formalised.India has been made to renounce its options for flexibility in future to caterto any changes in India's threat perception. This option for flexibility hasbeen retained by other nuclear powers, but the US was not prepared to concedethis flexibility to India and we have acquiesced in it.

The mutual understanding announced on March 2,2006, is only the second stageon the road to the formalisation and implementation of the deal. The third stagewill be the acceptance by the US Congress of the details of the New Delhiunderstanding and its amendment of the US laws which presently come in the wayof the US assistance to India. The support of the Congress and an earlyamendment of the laws cannot be taken for granted. Possible Chinese oppositionduring the third stage of acceptance by the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG),either at its own instance or at the instigation of Pakistan, cannot be ruledout. One should not forget the Chinese opposition, at the Pakistani instigation,to India becoming  a permanent member of the UN Security Council. The fifthand final stage will be the conclusion of an India-specific safeguards agreementwith the International Atomic Energy Agency at Vienna. This is an euphemism forIndia's formalising its acceptance of the principle of irreversibility of itsdecision whatever be the future threats to its security.

The whole process, if it proceeds smoothly, is likely to take one to twoyears. In the meanwhile, in anticipation of the final implementation of theagreement, India will be under considerable pressure from Washington  tosupport the strategic objectives of the US. This pressure started immediatelyafter the July agreement in the case of Iran. Then, it started operating in thecase of our agreement with Syria on the energy issue.

During Mr  Bush's visit, this pressure has started operating in the case ofMyanmar and Nepal too. Support for the US position on the overthrow of themilitary regime in Myanmar and a hardline towards the Maoists of Nepal is thenew price that has been demanded and probably accepted by Dr.Manmohan Singh.

By unintended coincidence, the long-term US exercise for bringing about aregime change in Teheran was set in motion in Washington during Mr Bush's visitto India. Even as Mr Bush and Dr.Manmohan Singh were holding their talks in New Delhi on March 2,2006, the US State Department announced in Washington the creation of a special office to deal with foreign policy changes related toIran and to promote a democratic transition in the Islamic Republic."Certainly this signals the fact that we believe that Iran and Iranianbehavior is one of the greatest foreign policy priorities we will be dealingwith over the next decade," a State Department official said.

The creation of the Iran Office comes in the wake  of an announcementlast month by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of a $75 million StateDepartment initiative to support democracy in Iran through intensified culturalexchanges, increased programs for democratic advocates and expanded broadcastinginto the country. When asked directly whether the Office is being created topromote a regime change in Iran, the senior official said the Office is beingcreated "to facilitate a change in Iranian policies and actions." Headded: "Yes, one of the things we want to develop is a government thatreflects the desires of the people, but that is a process for theIranians."

Having (hopefully) learnt from its experience in Iraq, the US intends tobring about a regime change in Iran not through military invasion, but throughpolitical covert action. The newly created Iran Office will co-ordinate thiscovert action. India, which has the world's second largest Shia population afterIran, with many of them having links with Iran, will be an important window onIran for the US intelligence agencies for the collection of intelligence fromIran and for the identification of assets, which could be used for the covertaction.

The proposed increase in the number of US diplomats to be posted in India,many of whom will definitely  be from the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA), and opening of a Consulate in Hyderabad, which has India's second largestShia population after Lucknow, have to be seen as part of this exercise for aregime change in Teheran through political covert action.

Indian silence and acquiescence over the use of its territory by the USagencies for their covert action against Iran could be one of the pricesdemanded by the US as  a quid pro quo for the implementation of the nucleardeal.

Despite the many smiles, the way  the present government has handledIndia's relations with the US has left  scars in the hearts of the IndianMuslim minority. Its muted silence on issues angering the Muslims and itsinsensitivity to their feelings over issues such as Falluja, Guantanamo Bay, AbuGharaib etc have created growing pockets of anger in our Muslim community,particularly the youth, which do not bode well for the future. Alienation of theIndian Muslim youth outside Jammu & Kashmir and driving it to identifyitself with the anti-US and pan-Islamic ideologies of Al Qaeda and theInternational Islamic Front (IIF) is an imminent danger due to the ill-advisedinsensitivity of the government towards the hurt feelings of the Indian Muslims.

The countrywide demonstrations seen during the visit of Mr Bush are anexternal manifestation of the seething anger inside the hearts of growing numberof our Muslim youth. The government's ill-advised silence and actions have sownthe seeds of pan-Islamism in the Indian Muslim community, which had in the pastkept away from it. If the intelligence agencies of Pakistan and Iran exploitthis for their own purpose, we will have only ourselves to blame for it.