The main enemy way in which the government, led by the Hindu communalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has hijacked the nuclear agenda, have another responsibility. "Even as they may feel or publicly declare that these tests are desirable and will contribute to a strong India, it will be the most shameful abnegation of their political and moral responsibility if they do not also declare publicly that they are motivated by a vision of Indian nationalism that is fundamentally opposed to the ugly, antidemocratic, communal, intrinsically belligerent Hindutva that is the guiding force of the BJP-RSS project... Neither of India's mainstream Communist Parties have taken a consistent anti-nuclear stance. The recent nuclear tests seem to have provoked a slight shift in Communist discourse. But it remains couched within a "patriotic" framework. Almost as if the BJP finger on the trigger is more significant than the detonation of the device itself, and its implications for India and the region. [BS/JD] is at home!
Gone are the voices of discord. Gone are the criticisms of corruption. Gone even is the criticism of the destruction of the Babri Masjid (Mosque). Congress, Janata, Samajwadi, and various regional parties are tripping over each other's feet in their bid to hail India's shiny, new-found national unity in the aftermath of [last month's] nuclear explosions.
National security has become the watchword with which the Vajpayee government, and the [Hindu communalist] family, are seeking to mobilise public opinion. For a whole month, until the explosions, the bourgeois media criticised Defence Minister George Fernandes for having attacked China and "damaged attempts at normalisation of relations. Those same scribes and editors are now competing with each other to praise Fernandes for having "prepared public opinion" for the explosions.
This wave of chauvinistic nationalism has drawn in the major parties of the Indian left. Constantly looking at bourgeois and petty bourgeois public opinion, whose approbation has become their life's blood, the CPI and the CPI(M) have done no more than slightly distanced themselves after the second round of explosions, and even then, after taking a bow in the direction of the scientists, and after ensuring that their bourgeois allies will not be too upset by their criticisms.
"National security," yells Prime Minister Vajpayee. "National security," cries The Organiser [newspaper of the extreme-right RSS]. "National security, agrees happily Mulayam Singh Yadav, ex-defence minister, spurious socialist, and supposedly the major rival of the [governing, Hindu communalist] Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "National security,"
agrees the [opposition] Congress Party, stressing that they, not the BJP, are the real father of India's nuclear teeth. And "national security," mumbles the shame-faced left. But who is threatening whom? Whose security will the nuclear explosions
For the Indian working class, the answer is clear. The day the nuclear devices were exploded, Maoist activists were still being murdered in Bihar state by the Ranvir Sena, a private militia closely linked to the ruling BJP. Striking nurses in Delhi were being threatened with eviction, arrest, the application of the Essential Services Maintenance Act, and any number of repressive measures. Delhi University teachers, recently on strike for better pay and other benefits, were threatened with pay cuts for the period of strike. Jingoism pays
Because the BJP did not win a clear majority of parliamentary seats, it governs in an unstable coalition (see April's International Viewpoint) and has moderated its programme. But the underlying fascist agenda was never abandoned. Jingoistic nationalism is one such element.
Such nationalism not only threatens peace in the region. It is also a weapon in the hands of the ruling class to ideologically break working class solidarity. The threat of war is always a good weapon. It whips the petty bourgeoisie, and even layers of the working class, into a frenzy. It isolates the class conscious vanguard. It gives the regime legitimacy in leading attacks on working class standards of living, and into attacking and seeking to
In today's India, the BJP can also call on the mass organisations of fascism that
have been built up over the years, particularly the RSS (see p.26)
Already, the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister, and the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission have warned that "sanctions must be faced with determination." Indian capitalism clearly has the required determination. Determination that this time the costs must be passed on to the working class, and that the union-protected, hard-earned rights of
After the sanctions begin to bite, every struggle by the working class to maintain its standard of living will be branded a treasonous activity. Every major strike will face, not only state action, but the organised violence of the fascist forces. Soverignty threatened?
Are India's securities and sovereignty, truly threatened? By whom? Can Pakistan really invade and dismember India? Had there been no sustained history of repression in Kashmir, had there been no systematic violation of the democratic rights of the Kashmiri people, had their right of self-determination not been trampled underfoot, just as West Pakistan had done with the people of then East Pakistan (later Bangladesh), then Pakistan would have been able to do nothing in that region.
Moreover, what are nuclear weapons supposed to do? No imaginary line on a map will stop radioactive fall-out. An Indian nuclear bomb dropped in Pakistani cities like Lahore or Karachi will also affect Indians, quite apart from the fact that Pakistan may retaliate in kind.
Is it the sovereignty of India vis-a-vis USA that the government wants to demonstrate? This is a farcical and token sovereignty. Internationalisation of capital has meant that the sovereign state plays a very limited role in many crucial areas. Neither India, nor any other country, can ignore the WTO or the international financial institutions. Nothing short of world-wide workers" struggles, culminating in workers' revolutions, can do that. Attacking the workers
No, what is being sought is far more sinister. Indian capitalism, rallying behind a fascist-militarist tendency, wants to strengthen state power against its own mortal enemy, the Indian working class.
The economy of India is not yet like Jamaica or Sri Lanka. Significant sections of the working class still get substantial cost-of-living increases, and struggles, by bank employees and others, have politically blocked certain moves in the direction of liberalisation. This rankles with the upper classes. The sovereign state is now urged to exercise its mind in this, domestic direction.
Obviously, there is also a foreign policy dimension to these latest developments. It is the attempt by the Indian bourgeoisie to attain big-power status. Former Prime Minister Gujral tried to be a nice guy. That got India no promise of a permament seat in the UN Security Council.
Now, increasing sections of the military, the state bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie are adopting the long-cherished RSS vision of an armed, combative India, dominating Asia from Kabul to Singapore. A vision enthusiastically fed to the middle class public by the paid "opinion-makers"
This big power status means India will be able to dominate neighbours like Pakistan, so long as direct US interests are not challenged. This is the meaning of Prime Minister Vajpayee's private messages to US President Clinton.
Obviously, this is bound to raise tension in the region, and create a local arms race, involving India, Pakistan and China. With Vajpayee and Defence Minister Fernandes now identifying China as the main enemy, India is virtually declaring that India wants to re-negotiate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, to ensure parity between India and China.
Since China has a declared stockpile of 300 nuclear arms, and knowing that producing the nuclear warheads is only a small part of the total cost of weaponisation, the indications are grave. Recent posturing suggests that the Indian government is willing to rush into missile production at a very high rate, and enter into a contest with China, which is three times as rich as India, and has a faster-growing economy.
This can be done. In the 1930s, Hitler rearmed Germany at a breathtaking pace. And the USSR maintained an arms race with the USA for many years, despite its weaker economy. But the cost is very high, and inevitably falls on the working class. Though, for a certain period of time, militarisation can offer large profits, and provide a major area of investment. From the point of view of Indian capital, such a programme may compensate for the effects of Western sanctions. Western and Indian hypocrisy
The United States is showing its usual hypocrisy. It is the only country to have used the atom bomb, and the first country to test the hydrogen bomb and make the neutron bomb. In the war against Iraq, the USA, despite the vaunted accuracy of its "smart bombs", killed many civilians. Consciously and deliberately. The United States has fought more destructive wars than any other country since World War II.
The rulers of the USA say sanctions are intended to ensure that nasty weapons do not fall into the wrong hands. But by what standards are their hands the right ones? The imperialist butchers of Korea, Vietnam or Iraq have no moral right to dictate terms to any other country.
This sentiment is widespread in India. Like Nehru and Indira Gandhi before them, India's current rulers want to exploit the legitimate anti-imperialist feelings of the mass of the people for their nefarious ends. Threats and sanctions will be used to consolidate the RSS-BJP position, just as the savagery of the second Gulf War has actually strengthened rather than weakened Saddam Hussain in Iraq
In this context, India's testing of nuclear devices was wrong, just like every testing of nuclear devices. In every case, it is not the neighbouring country, but the ruling class at home, that constitutes the main enemy of the toiling masses. This kind of "national security" actually jeopardises the lives of millions of ordinary Indians, by exposing them to the risk of retaliatory nuclear attacks.
India's scientists should not be congratulated. On the contrary, by contributing to the further damage of the environment, and a new nuclear arms race, for the sake of personal wealth, "glory" or misplaced nationalism, these scientists stand convicted of crimes against humanity.
Even before 1945, some scientists, in Germany and elsewhere, had resisted the pressure to help out their regime. And since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, every scientist who takes the side of nuclear war-mongers, anywhere in the world, does so knowingly, and cannot be absolved of his or her personal responsibility.
As well as replacing nationalist hype with clear, class demands, those who want peace and amity in the sub-continent, should unite to fight for India's immediate signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty with no further negotiations.
This does not mean supporting sanctions against India. On the contrary. Nuclear weapons are unsafe in any hands, but the struggle against the bomb must be a progressist and internationalist struggle, oppose every ruling class attack on the proletariat anywhere. * This article was produced by the Inquilabi Communist Sangathan (Indian Section of the Fourth International)
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nandes recent tirade against China now stands revealed. It was to lay down the ideological rationale for the bomb tests.
This could not have been pegged to claims about Pakistani nuclear provocation, because of that country's essentially reactive diplomacy. It could only have been pegged on the need to counter a future threat from a 'potential' enemy, China. And on the need for India to finally be seen as a 'great' power', and win 'world respect.
This action is not the expression of a mature, calm, confident and relaxed nationalism, but of the very opposite! For a long time now we have been witnessing an insecure, tense mood of frustrated and uncertain nationalism amongst the Indian elite and middle classes. It is precisely because this milieu exists, and because this promotes the search for a more aggressive resolution' of existing problems that the BJP-RSS combine has been able to make the political inroads that it has.
It is not in the least a coincidence that