Author: Vir Sanghvi
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: October 21, 2001
If the American press is to be believed,
Washington is now getting increasingly concerned about the growing anti-US
feeling in the Islamic world. As the 'war' (or the bombing, at any rate)
in Afghanistan drags on, the rising tide of anti-Americanism seems to have
become almost unstoppable.
Most Indians - myself included -
will find this Islamic anger with Washington hard to understand. Take Pakistan,
for instance. Politically unstable and economically bankrupt, the country
would have collapsed long ago had the Americans not kept it going. Or Afghanistan,
for that matter. America spent billions on helping the Afghans get rid
of the Soviets and Afghanistan became the major beneficiary of US largesse
in the 1980s.
And yet, they hate Washington on
the streets of Kabul and Karachi.
Contrast the reaction in these countries
with the Indian response to the anti-terrorism campaign. We have no reason
to love Washington. For the first 40 years of our independence, the Americans
took the if-you-are-not-with-us-you-are-against-us line with New Delhi
and refused to accept our claims to be non-aligned.
In 1965, when Pakistan sent infiltrators
into Kashmir in the hope of fomenting a rebellion (this led to the 1965
war), Washington looked the other way. In 1971, when we intervened in what
was then East Pakistan to prevent a genocide, the Nixon White House actively
opposed us (against the advice of its own ambassadors in the region) and
backed a military dictator in Pakistan. After that, not content with backing
Pakistan against India, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger went on to also
support China against us.
During the Reagan years, we were
an irrelevance because Washington was too focused on helping Pakistan to
arm the Afghan mujahideen. The policies of that decade have led to the
present crisis and - ironically enough - to the rampant anti-Americanism
in that region.
Only during the Clinton years did
we sense some détente. But even that, it now turns out, may have
been somewhat illusory. Even while Bill Clinton was assuring us of a new
beginning, he was simultaneously secretly negotiating with Nawaz Sharif
to lift all sanctions in return for Osama bin Laden's head. That deal would
have gone through if Pervez Musharraf hadn't toppled Sharif.
But here's the funny thing: there's
much less anti-Americanism in India than in all the countries that Washington
has helped, armed, financed and romanced.
Even when our Foreign Ministry cozied
up to the Kremlin, most educated Indians still looked to the West, and
America in particular, for our reference points. We valued the freedoms
of the West, admired its tolerance, and recognised that as democracies,
India and America had much in common. Today, most middle class Indians
have a close friend or family member who lives and works in America. And,
as the queues outside the US embassy will attest, more and more of us want
to study in, or visit, the United States.
And yet, many Indians are baffled
and disappointed by what we see as a disconnect between what the US should
stand for and what it actually does stand for.
For all its talk of promoting democracy,
America seems to prefer to do business with dictators. Despite its oft-expressed
concern for human rights, America will turn a blind eye to genocide. In
spite of the US's emphasis on promoting secular governance, it will back
the most medieval regimes in such areas as the Middle East.
Worse still, America's motto seems
to be: don't do as I actually do; do as I say you should do.
The current crisis seems to us to
re-emphasise the American double-standard. Let's take the most obvious
example. Most Indians I know, back the American campaign against terrorism.
No country can be expected not to respond to such grave provocation as
the World Trade Center attacks. And if the men who organised the terrorism
live abroad, then America has the right to either take them out or to bring
them to justice.
This is not aggression. It is self-defence.
But try transferring that same argument
to an Indian context and suddenly the classic American double-standard
raises its head. Surely, India must also take action against those who
hijacked IC 814. We must respond to the Bombay blasts. And we must hunt
down those who organised the suicide bombing of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly
building.
But the moment we try and assert
the same rights that America takes for granted, we become a threat to world
peace. We are asked: how can you be sure that Pakistan is behind it? We
do have good answers. Even if you discount our claims of ISI involvement,
there is no doubt that Maulana Masood Azhar, who was released after the
IC 814 hijacking, is in Pakistan. It is clear that Dawood Ibrahim, whose
men planted the Bombay bombs, lives in Karachi. And the Jaish-e-Mohammed,
which has taken responsibility for the Srinagar attack, is Pakistan-based.
All this is far stronger than the
evidence that Osama bin Laden and the Taliban were involved in the WTC
attacks. And yet, Washington takes the line that we should practise 'restraint'
and not retaliate.
We are told that the only way out
is through 'dialogue' with Pakistan. This advice is flawed on two counts.
First of all, how would America like it if our response to the WTC attacks
was: don't go after the terrorists; engage the world's Muslims in dialogue
and try and find out why the US is so well-hated in the Muslim world?
Secondly, it is a curious view of
the world that terrorists happily suspend their activities while dialogues
are in progress.
The most glaring example is the
Middle East. Ever since Anwar Sadat accepted Menachem Begin's invitation
to address the Knesset in the late 1970s, some kind of dialogue has always
been in progress. This dialogue may or may not have helped in resolving
the conflict but of one thing there is no doubt: the terrorism has not
stopped.
Similarly, the UK discovered that
no matter whether it spoke to Sinn Fein or held a plebiscite (it has done
both since the 1970s), the terrorists of the IRA would not abandon violence.
It was only in the 1990s when combined operations by MI 5, the army and
the police broke the back of the IRA, that there was a drop in terrorism
.
Terrorists have no interest in dialogue.
Talk to one, and you'll be bombed by the other. Involve Yasser Arafat in
the peace process and George Habash will shoot you. Engage the IRA and
the Real IRA will bomb your capital. Open talks with the Hizbul Mujahideen
and the Jaish-e-Mohammed will open fire.
When it comes to their own defence,
the Americans recognise this. That is why George Bush is trying to bomb
the hell out of bin Laden instead of inviting him to Camp David for talks.
But Washington is curiously reluctant to accept that what is fair for America
is also fair for the rest the world.
None of us seriously expects America
to encourage us to bomb Dawood's home in Karachi or advise us of the futility
of talking to General Musharraf. Most Indian policy-makers are too cautious,
anyway, to do anything that Pakistan could interpret as aggression. And
Indians remain touchingly optimistic about a dialogue with Pakistan --
remember the hype surrounding both Lahore and the Agra summit?
What we find galling is the principle:
if it is right for Washington then why is it wrong for New Delhi?
George Bush has - in his few introspective
moments - talked of treating the crisis as a starting point for re-examining
America's relationship with the world. My guess is that he means: why do
people we've either helped, or done no harm to, hate us so much?
But there are other questions he
should also ask: why does America always fail to adequately respond to
the goodwill and warmth that emanates from the world's largest democracy?
Why does it always support the Noriegas, Saddam Hussains, bin Ladens and
Slobodan Milosevics right up to the moment that they turn around and suddenly
become its biggest enemies?
I don't think that the answers Bush
comes up with will make much difference to India. We have survived American
hostility and indifference for half a century now. More significantly,
no matter how duplicitous the State Department has been, our basic goodwill
towards the democratic and cultural values we share with America has remained
unaffected.
But it is in America's own interests
to find some answers. If it wants to know why such former friends as Iraq
and Afghanistan have turned into enemies, here's a good starting point:
any country that prefers madmen, fanatics and tyrants over liberal democrats
has only itself to blame when the tyrants turn on their sponsor.
