For a mess of pottage
A.P. Venkateshwaran
Hindustan Times
May 10, 1999
Title: For a mess of pottage
Author: A.P. Venkateshwaran
Publication: Hindustan Times
Date: May 10, 1999
Mahatma Gandhi once defined freedom as the right to make one's own
mistakes. Similarly, when asked what he would choose as between
Cowardice and Violence, he had no hesitation in replying that he would
choose Violence! That was because, in his considered view non-violence
was the highest form of courage, whereas cowardice was its very
anti-thesis. Ever since it became fashionable in this country in the
1990s to reject what-ever India had stood for during the first forty
years of our independence, whether it be socialist planning or working
for self-reliance, instead of dependence on others for what was
necessary for national sustenance, these two statements of the Mahatma
have lost their meaning for most of the Indian intelligentsia. In
supinely adhering to outside dictates, the country has been sucked
into a deeper and deeper morass, where the interests of the vast
majority are being sacrificed at the altar of expediency of the few
who claim to represent them. Let us not lose sight of the fact that
even in that citadel of capitalism, the United States of America,
strong voices had been raised against surrendering American interests
if they were to be, in the least, exposed to jeopardy by joining the
World Trade Organisation (WTO). It was only after the US
administration agreed that the decisions of the A70 would be subjected
to review by an independent panel of senior judges of the rank of the
federal court of appeal, that Washington was able to join that
organisation. Needless to say, there is no similar provision to
safeguard Indian interests in the WTO, but New Delhi is anxious to
formalise its commitments to the WTO as early as possible. The manner
in which the US has kept China out of the WTO so far under various
pretexts is further proof, if it was necessary, of the supremacy of
politics over economics, and no one should be taken in by arguments
seeking to extol the primacy of economics over politics.
Of all the virtues, courage occupies pride of place. Without courage,
none of the other virtues can be practised. All the ills that ail our
nation today can be traced to the absence of courage iii those who
lament their inability to resolve problems, wishing that somehow the
problems would vanish and leave them in peace. Whether it be
corruption which pervades our society, as never before, or sycophancy,
or the phenomenal growth in the preference for falsehood to truth, if
it results in advantage to oneself, this erosion in values has become
an all-pervasive phenomenon.
The old adage that "the lie is the weapon of the weak" no longer holds
good. In fact, the lie has earned for itself a permanent place in the
armoury of the strong and the powerful. With the onset of the
Information Revolution and the explosion of the electronic media,
governments have no compunction in using the media for their own
purposes, whether right or wrong. The wordy duel that is presently
going on between NATO which has launched a senseless attack using all
its might against Yugoslavia, claiming that it is aimed at ending the
expulsion of the ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, is a case in point. If
anything, the exodus of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo grew from a mere
trickle into a veritable flood after the bombings began.
No one, despite the protestations of NATO that they are deeply
concerned about the return of the refugees in honour and dignity to
Kosovo, seems to really care what happens to them apart from
dispensing the daily dole, at any rate, for the present. Meanwhile,
the NATO bombings go on without any signs of respite, notwithstanding
the latest shuttle diplomacy of former Russian Prime Minister, Victor
Chernomyrdin, to Germany, Italy and Belgrade. There is also the
side-spectacle of the Reverend Jesse Jackson and an
inter-denominational group which went to Belgrade to seek the release
of three US personnel in Yugoslav custody, seemingly insensitive to
the daily loss of lives and property within Serbia and more recently
Montenegro from the incessant daily bombings of the US air force which
forms the major part of the NATO forces deployed for the attack.
The cowardly silence of the international community in the face of
NATO's actions that have grossly infringed the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of Yugoslavia with impunity, whatever may have
been the human rights violations in that country, speaks for itself.
Where was this humanitarian concern of the self-same NATO countries,
when Pol Pot had carried out a much grimmer genocide in Cambodia,
where over two million people were systematically exterminated? On the
contrary, these very countries had condemned Vietnam for going in and
ousting the Pol Pot regime. Where was the outrage, again, when ten
million Bangla refugees streamed out of the then East Pakistan to
escape the fury of the military repression to eliminate all opposition
to the Pakistani dictatorship, following the spectacular victory of
Sheikh Mujibur Rehman at the polls?
Ironically, instead of extending succour to the refugees, the
nuclear-armed USS Enterprise was sent to the Bay of Bengal in an
attempt to cow down India which had gone to the help of the Mukti
Bahini for the liberation of Bangladesh. It is indisputable that
double standards of this type lie at the root of conflict.
The unsavoury spectacle that one sees today is the abject submission
of the vast majority of the countries of the world to this overbearing
arrogance of power. Coupled to this is the half-suppressed but
nonetheless palpable fear of losing the wages of sin, the thirty
pieces of silver that a Judas can claim for services rendered! The
unending rounds of talks, in which India is presently engaged with the
US, whether over the capping of India's nuclear or missile
development, and the petty rejoicing at some small concessions given
in respect of the sanctions imposed to punish India for daring to
disobey the US diktat, are all of the same pattern - a gradual
weakening of the will and the increasing temptation to compromise the
national interest for a mess of pottage. But there can be no
compromise on the vital issue of the nation's security, and we cannot
do better than to remember that eternal vigilance is the price of
liberty.
Now that the next general elections have been announced and must be
held within six months, an ideal opportunity has presented itself for
consolidating the nation's will and to make it unambiguously clear to
one and all that we are prepared to face any danger and pay any price
to maintain our independence against all corners. It is a weak
argument that elections are expensive. It is much more costly to the
country to have a weak and ineffective governance, bogged down on all
sides. The greatest danger we face is from the subversion of Indian
institutions and, in particular, the Academia and think-tanks which
are systematically suborned by foreign foundations who finance them
through grants and fund the holding of seminars and symposia aimed at
negating the country's policies and programmes. The intention is to
create self-doubt and to exacerbate existing differences in a
pluralistic society, such as ours, and to fan them into becoming
outright conflicts, so as to destroy any possibility there is of a
consensus emerging. That situation should never be allowed to arise.
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