Author: Rajeev Srinivasan
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: June 20, 2003
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jun/20rajeev.htm
There are several reasons why this
is the perfect time for India to enter into a strong alliance with Israel:
* Chanakyan theory of statecraft
* Certain similarities that make
them compatible in the 'clash of civilisations'
* A realisation by Indians that
Israeli concerns are valid
* The rabid opposition of India's
Marxists
Let me emphasise, however, that
it is not necessarily the case for India to be forever wedded to Israel,
or indeed, to anyone else: all tactical alliances are fluid and based on
expediency. Indians, naïvely, go for lifetime commitments, when a
light-hearted affaire de coeur is the right answer. The BJP has learned
this art of compromise, but the Congress never did. But that's no surprise
considering their 'leaders' are selected more for their ability to kiss
Nehru dynasty ass than for any inherent competence.
Chanakya in his classic Arthashastra
(translated and edited by L N Rangarajan, Penguin India, 1992, 868 pp.,
Rs. 395) speaks about the national interest. He has a dictum that by definition,
a state's immediate neighbours are enemies; in India's case this is amply
borne out by China, Pakistan and Bangladesh. As an illustration, China
was not India's enemy for 2,200 years as some Chinese strongman said recently:
that was because there was a country in between, the buffer state of Tibet.
As soon as they swallowed Tibet, they became India's neighbour, and therefore,
enemy.
Chanakya defines six methods of
foreign policy that the nation could pursue in order to advance its interests:
* Samdhi, or making peace via a
treaty, when one is relatively weak
* Vigraha, or active hostilities,
waging war, when one is stronger than the enemy
* Asana, or staying quiet, as in
an armed truce, when the enemy is equally strong
* Yana, or preparing for war, building
up one's capabilities, when one has certain advantages
* Samsraya, or seeking support
from others, when one is depleted in strength
* Dvaidhibhava, or dual policy
of making peace with one neighbour to pursue, with his help, the policy
of hostility towards another, when this is necessary
Of these, Chanakya is clear that
actively waging war is the last resort, and that it is only when other
means are exhausted that one should pursue this direction. It may well
be that India is simultaneously pursuing yana by building up her military
and economic strength, and samsraya by seeking support, both sensible policies.
Israel is a good fit in both strategies, for it does have the military
technology India needs, and its support irritates only those who are inimical
to India anyway.
Chanakya would suggest war against
Pakistan, and armed truce against China. Chanakya also defines the 'Middle
Power' (madhyama) and the 'Neutral Power' (udasina), powerful states that
may have an interest in the nation's affairs. The US fits in with the definition
of 'Neutral Power', one that is more powerful than both us and our immediate
enemies. Israel is clearly an ally of the Neutral Power.
Theoretically, there is thus good
reason for India to ally herself with Israel. There is also an eminently
practical reason: the stark reality is that India and Israel are the only
two states that are actively resisting being overwhelmed in a giant Islamic
crescent ranging from West Africa to Indonesia. And we are the only two
states that have the fundamental religious foundations to resist dhimmitude.
There are a number of other similarities:
for instance the issue of 'holy sites' in Palestine and in Ayodhya. Furthermore,
it is amazing how the antediluvian Marxists around the world despise both
Hinduism and Judaism; but they are quite happy to be water-carriers for
Islamism in contrast. Little do the Marxists realise that they will be
the first to be liquidated in an Islamist State. This is much like black
Muslims in the US who do not appreciate the irony that their ancestors
were enslaved by Muslim slave traders who rounded them up and frog-marched
them in chains to board waiting European ships.
The whole issue of the primal rights
to the land in Palestine, in particular in Jerusalem, is quite tortuous.
The American scholar Daniel Pipes suggests convincingly that Jerusalem
in fact was not a major holy site for Muslims. It is not mentioned even
once in the Koran, says Pipes. Muslims claim that the Al Aqsa mosque in
Jerusalem (also the Temple Mount, Judaism's most sacred spot) is where
their Prophet descended to after going to heaven. However, that spot was
only referred to as the Far Mosque, and its alleged association with Jerusalem
is recent.
It is true that Judaism is very
much in the fire-and-brimstone tradition of the desert, and therefore philosophically
the opposite of the far more humane tradition of the forest, which suffuses
all the Indic faiths. However, it is also true that Hindus and Jews have
suffered most grievously from the excesses of Islamic and Christian dogma
and belligerence. Because of this, both also turned inwards: thus the ossification
of caste in Hinduism and the Orthodox Jews' strict rules about how Jewishness
is only inherited through the mother.
Despite all this, there is one incredible
fact that almost all Jews I know recognise: that out of 148 nations in
which Jews have lived, they were oppressed in 147 of them, and the sole
exception is India. For instance, the Jews of Cochin landed in 72 CE at
the great port of Muziris (Kodungalloor) on the Malabar Coast. Joseph Rabban
was elevated to chieftain of the village of Anjuvannam achandrataram --
so long as the moon and stars exist -- by King Bhaskara Ravi Varman around
1000 CE. I know a lady named Esther, a white woman with bright red hair,
who wears a sari and speaks immaculate Malayalam, as she should: her ancestors
have lived unmolested in Kerala for 2,000 years, since the destruction
of their Second Temple!
Young Israelis come by the thousands
to India after their compulsory military service these days. Locals in
Hampi and McLeodganj and Dharamsala may complain about their 'raves', but
it must be a wonderful experience for these youngsters to know that there
exists a land where they are not hated just for being Jews.
Furthermore, there was an extremely
interesting offer from Israel in the early 1980s. Just after they bombed
and destroyed Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor on June 7, 1981, the Israelis
contacted India and asked for cooperation in likewise destroying Pakistan's
reactors at Kahuta. They only needed refueling facilities for their planes,
and permission to use Indian airspace. Of course, the Nehruvian Stalinists
in power in India at the time were horrified: whatever would our Arab friends
think! In hindsight, bombing Kahuta then would have set back Pakistan's
'Islamic Bomb,' although their kind friend China would still have given
them the components for screwdriver assembly.
As predatory and missionary desert
faiths continue to impose themselves on all the peoples of the world, it
is important for the Jews and Hindus, both victims, to stand by and support
each other. It is indeed a clash of civilisations.
There is also the growing realisation
by many Indians that they have been led up the garden path by all the rhetoric
about Palestinians. Nehruvian Stalinists justify the loud breast-beating
they indulge in about Palestinians on several grounds:
* Compassion for 'suffering' peoples
* The warmth Arabs will feel if
India supports Palestinians
* Opposition to colonialism/European
imperialism
In point of fact, Palestinians do
not deserve support from Indians on any of these grounds.
* Compassion: Palestinians swamp
the media with their comparative victimhood. Yet there are plenty of others
more deserving of compassion. After all, charity begins at home. Consider
the ethnically cleansed Kashmiri Pandits, rotting away in refugee camps.
Or consider the Hindus of Bangladesh: literally every day I hear about
yet another atrocity committed, most often gang rapes and murders, or abductions
and forcible conversions, of young Hindu women. Why is it that all the
champions of the Palestinian cause in India have no tears for these people,
our own? Why aren't they assailing Pakistan and Bangladesh? Indians need
to rally around the slogan: 'Let my people live!'
* Arab goodwill for India: This
is laughable. What has India got to show for its pains in supporting Palestine?
Nothing, nada, zilch! As Americans might ask, 'What have the Arabs done
for us lately?' The only Arabs who were even half-way decent to us were
the Iraqis. All the other Arabs despise Indians. In fact, most Arabs don't
even have much goodwill for Palestinians, else they would have helped them
rebuild their lives, instead of forcing them to live as refugees and using
them as jihadi cannon-fodder
* Anti-imperialism: This is a throwback
to the days of the despicable NAM, when Nehru and company used to feel
self-important as the 'leaders' of a bunch of banana republics. But the
time for all this inane rhetoric is far gone. What is happening in Israel
and Palestine is not imperialism, but the struggles of a numerically small
civilisation to avoid being swamped by violent neighbours. And these neighbours
have the full support of the world's Leftist media: remember the godawful
fuss they made about 'Jeningrad', until it was shown to be a fabrication,
special delivery for the television cameras of gullible networks?
I too at some point in my impressionable
youth swallowed the Indian media rhetoric about Palestinians. There were
some Palestinians at the IIT Madras, who had tales of teenage years spent
cradling AK-47s fighting against an implacable enemy, a coloniser, a continuation
of the colonial European assault on Asia. Later I met Israelis at Stanford,
and I used to harangue them about what terrible imperialists they were.
But slowly it occurred to me that
the Jews were more sinned against than sinning, and I am sure I am not
the only Indian who has come to this conclusion. Their motto after millennia
of oppression, 'Never again!' holds resonance for Hindus. Today we are
up against the same enemy: one that views us both literally as untermenschen,
sub-human monsters, spawn of Satan, fit for nothing but slaughter; the
moral equivalent of vermin, as whites in American classified Native Americans
two centuries ago.
There are acts of barbarism that
do take place in Israel's struggle to exist. Thus Ariel Sharon is rightly
condemned as the Butcher of Sabra and Chattila refugee camps in Lebanon,
when Israel's ally, the Christian Phalangist militia, went on a rampage
against Palestinians. That is surely deplorable.
However, the very same people who
condemn Sharon, the Marxists of India, are full of eulogies for Mufti Mohammed
Sayeed. Do you know, gentle reader, that Sayeed is called the Butcher of
Anantnag for his role in terrorising Kashmiri Hindus? Here's verbatim email
I got from Kashmiri Pandits in response to my column The Perfect Con Job:
The Kashmiri Loot of the Nation.
'The irony of seeing the butcher
of Anantnag (when in 1985-86 riots in Anantnag Kashmiri Pandits suffered
at the hands of Mufti's men) rise to become the CM of the state today is
heart-wrenching. Mufti was at the helm of the KP massacre and lootings
in Anantnag way before his 'boys' came into action in the Valley.'
'In 1986 there were anti-Hindu riots
in south Kashmir. We the Hindus in Kashmir know that they were instigated
by Mufti Sayeed. Reason: Central Govt. under Rajiv wanted to overthrow
the GM Shah government. After the riots Central Rule was applied.'
'Mufti is the butcher of Anantnag.
He orchestrated the Anantnag riots in early 1986. This single incident
triggered the start of our exodus. And now, he is being rewarded with the
CM-ship of the state. Only in India!'
For more details on the Anantnag
riots, try the URL http://www.ikashmir.org/PastPresent/ chapter16.html
So why are Indian Marxists so gung-ho
about Mufti Mohammed Sayeed and not about Ariel Sharon? Their Chinese handlers
must have told them that it is important to keep the Marxist- Islamist
nexus going, and to keep India and Israel away from each other.
And that is the final reason: the
major hue and cry raised by Marxists. Since by definition everything they
want is anti-India and pro-China, it is an excellent reason to proceed
forthwith with an Indo-Israeli tactical alliance. Clearly, that would be
positive for India and negative for China (for instance the Phalcon and
the future Arrow weapons deals).
