Author: T. V. R. Shenoy
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: April 10, 2003
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=21721
Introduction: The Left argues that
India has always condemned aggression. Did Parliament attack the Soviet
invasions of Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), and Afghanistan (1979)?
What links the French provincial
town of Sevres with one of the biggest fiascos of the Indian freedom movement?
Do Indian politicians really love the taste of egg so much that they insist
on smearing it all over the face? And what does any of the above have to
do with the war in Iraq? Trust me, there is a connection.
It is a common fallacy that World
War I ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. Actually, it
was concerned only with the fate of imperial Germany. Of greater historical
consequence were the treaties of St. Germain and of Trianon, which shattered
the ancient Habsburg dominions, laying the foundations for the Communist
dictatorships in eastern Europe as well as the tangled and bloody Serbo-Croat-Bosnian-Kosovan
relationship. And, more germane to us today, there was the Treaty of Sevres
in August 1920, dealing with the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman Sultans had, since 1517,
been simultaneously Caliphs of Islam, and reading the qutba in their names
was the fashion in several Indian mosques in the early years of the last
century. Splitting the Ottoman Empire was thus seen by some Indians as
an insult to Islam.
This led to one of the most misguided
decisions in Indian history - the voluntary choice made by the Congress
under Mahatma Gandhi's leadership to join the Khilafat agitation, meant
to preserve the privileges of the Caliph. In one of history's ironies,
one of the few Congressmen to protest was a certain M.A. Jinnah, who pertinently
demanded how it helped the cause of Indian nationalism to fight for the
rights of a foreign monarch. (One, moreover, whose claims to Caliphate
were rejected by the Sheriff of Mecca!)
But everybody was having so much
fun making speeches and agitating against the British that nobody answered
Jinnah. The drama ended in a fiasco two years later when the Turks themselves
kicked out their Sultan, with the Turkish National Assembly abolishing
the title of 'Caliph' for good measure. Two years of the Khilafat agitation
served only to convince a section of Indian Muslims that they were a community
with interests that transcended those of India. And all talk of 'Hindu-Muslim
unity' ended with the murderous anti-Hindu riots of the Moplah Rebellion...
Learning nothing from history -
except that it is possible to attract Muslim votes by raising extra-territorial
issues - this generation of politicians seems set to repeat the folly of
their predecessors eighty years ago. This time, it is not a Caliph, but
the Butcher of Baghdad who is the unlikely target of their hero- worship.
There has been heated debate on whether India must 'condemn' or merely
'deplore' the war to oust him. This is precisely the kind of behaviour
which leaves one desperately ransacking the thesaurus for a polite way
to put 'moronic' and 'Leftist' in the same sentence.
All this took place on April 8.
Nobody seems to have noticed that American troops had entered the presidential
palace in Baghdad twenty-four hours earlier. Nor that every other major
nation had already begun preparing for the post- Saddam era, even those
such as Russia and Germany who were at the forefront of the anti-war forces
earlier.
Nor that the government of Iraq
itself had declared just a few days ago that it was happy with the attitude
adopted by the government of India! So what, pray tell, was the need for
some parties to insist that Parliament pass a resolution on Iraq at this
late stage?
The Left argues that India has always
condemned aggression. Did Parliament attack the Soviet invasions of Hungary
(1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), and Afghanistan (1979)? Come to think of
that, has Parliament ever actually used the word 'condemn' before?
I don't propose to waste time arguing
whether the war was just or not, that is for history - and the Iraqi people
- to decide. My question is this: Is such hyperbole in India's own interests?
Twelve years ago, in the wake of
Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, our then external affairs minister, Inder Kumar
Gujral, was photographed hugging Saddam Hussein. When Kuwait was liberated
a few months later, 'Indian' became a hissing-word in that part of the
world. Billions were spent in the reconstruction of Kuwait; India didn't
get a cent. Thousands of Indians lost their jobs; we were considered untrustworthy
employees who fled at the first sign of trouble and then collaborated with
the enemy. Why, pray tell, are we set on repeating history?
Who do you think will appreciate
India's stance? The liberated Iraqis who danced in Najaf and Karbala, or
those who looted Saddam's palaces in Basra? The Arab world at large? But
Kuwait was the staging area for the invasion, Qatar was the headquarters
of the US Central Command, the US Fifth Fleet lies at anchor in Bahrain,
and Jordan's first reaction was to seal its border so that none of its
Arab brethren might enter. As for Saudi Arabia, it has stopped negotiations
for a US $800 million contract to buy tanks from France (the leader of
the anti-American voices at the Security Council). No, we invite only the
contempt of the Arabs with such tomfoolery.
A sentimental policy knows no reciprocity.
It is an exclusively Indian fantasy to believe otherwise. Let us be done
with these impotent expressions of anger and romanticism where the smug
knowledge of having done a good deed is the sole reward for sacrificing
national interests at Saddam Hussein's altar. Doing a good deed a day may
be the Boy Scouts's policy, but there is a place for Boy Scouts - and neither
Parliament nor the Foreign Office is the site for a jamboree.