Commentary/ Fuzail Jafferey

Washington will not allow peace to prevail in the subcontinent as long as India does not accept US hegemony in its internal affairs

Failures of national development have often produced scapegoats. In India, the scapegoats for these failures are the Muslims and any other so-called minorities whose actions are deemed to threaten the Indian State, its national unity and integrity. These failures and scapegoats provide an essential base for the recent rise in militant Hindu nationalism.'

The above is neither an extract from the speech of Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the Jamat-e-Islami chief of Pakistan, nor of any misguided Indian Muslim leader like Abdullah Bukhari who charged the Indian state with encouraging militant Hindu nationalism in the country.

These are the utterances of a prominent American professor who recently declared that the Indian State has been a total failure in 'providing to Indians the national self-respect they demand in the world'. Professor Paul R Brass of the University of Washington, while participating in a seminar by the Woodrow Wilson centre to assess the 'Progress, problems and prospects' of India and Pakistan, made an extremely bitter and scathing attack on India, which is aspiring to be recognised as an 'equal' by the great powers.

Those American experts who have been of late predicting that India would achieve the status of an economic giant by the end of the century must have felt shocked and surprised by Professor Brass's uncharitable remarks. According to the learned professor (who has authored quite a few books on India), the economic policies pursued by the Indian leaders in the post-Independence era have not succeeded in turning it into an economically powerful country. It had failed miserably in improving the lives of its people in a manner that the western world considers 'sufficient or even decent'.

There is no doubt that poverty continues to be a major hurdle in India's progress. At the same time, as the noted Indian economist, Professor A M Khusro, recently pointed out, the number of Indians who crossed the poverty line during the last two decades or so is more than the total population of Europe.

Oblivious of such facts, Professor Brass continued his tirade against India emphasising that a country where millions upon millions live in the most degraded conditions imaginable, and which was dreaming of becoming a Hindu state could never become the world power.

A couple of interesting facts before we go ahead: the seminar at which Professor Brass embarrassed India in every possible way was held on June 8, the day on which the Washington Post came out with its fabricated story about India's deployment of ballistic missiles on the Pakistan border, and that it was attended among others by Robin Raphel, assistant secretary for South Asia at the US state department and a known India baiter, and Riaz Khokhar, Pakistan's new ambassador to the US.

Since then, the Pakistani press has vociferously attacked India and mobilised public opinion against Nawaz Sharief's friendly gestures towards I K Gujral. Some Pakistani columnists have also been trying to incite Indian Muslims against the government. But before going into details, let us ponder for a moment as to why the US and its ally Pakistan have suddenly renewed their outburst against India in the golden jubilee year of Independence.

Apart from India's firm insistence on its freedom to keep its defence and nuclear options open, certain pleasant development in recent weeks have made the US and Pakistan feel uneasy and unhappy. After a long gap, India now has a prime minister who is more a statesman than a mere politician. The Gujral doctrine is fast catching up with South Asian countries, especially Muslim-dominated ones such as Indonesia, Iran and Malaysia. Gujral enjoys the confidence of the minority community as he has been, since long, a great champion of the composite culture and has always taken a greater interest in the development of Urdu than that of Hindi or even his mother tongue Punjabi.

Another development which has annoyed America and Pakistan is the visible change in the attitude of the Indian Muslims and the Bharatiya Janata Party towards each other. While Muslim leaders have stopped harping on their demand for reconstructing the Babri mosque, the BJP has realised, though belated, that it cannot politically flourish without Muslim support. Thanks to his swarna jayanti yatra, BJP president Lal Kishinchand Advani has acquired almost a new avatar. While addressing a public rally in Calcutta, he not only praised the secular and democratic ideals of Nehru and requested Muslims not to treat the BJP as a political untouchable, but was also quite apologetic about the Ayodhya incident.

All this has not gone down well with the US and Pakistan who want India to remain politically instable. Taking cue from the Washington Post and Seminar, the Pakistani press has again started spreading all sorts of rumours. Muslims, both at home and abroad, are warned that India is relentlessly nurturing its 'strategic vision' of 'Akhand Bharat.' While none including the Nagpur bosses talk about establishing a Hindu raj even in India, the Pakistani journalists tell us that India's 'hegemonic external policies' are aimed at establishing 'a mythical Hindu empire in the whole region including Sri Lanka and Afghanistan'.

The peace-loving Pakistani citizens who want closer ties with India are told that Prithvi is not only a formidable lethal weapon but is also immune to counter missile systems like the Patriot. The major population centres in Pakistan like Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Faisalabad, they are told, are hostages to the Indian missile.

The Pakistani prime minister who developed a very good equation with Gujral during the Male summit is under great fire these days. According to Ikrammullah, a senior commentator, Nawaz Sharief is not at all concerned with the threats posed from the Indian side. ''Miyan saheb sees no evil, hears no evil and therefore speaks no evil. His faith in his friend Gujral prevents him from even smelling the threat that is emerging on Pakistan's western borders."

The Pakistani press has almost unanimously condemned Sharief for giving an interview to an Indian television channel. They feel that if at all he had to do so, he should have reflected the mood of the nation ''by showing his fist to Indians in the manner Liaquat Ali Khan did in 1951, rather than talking in a conciliatory tune. It is further argued that Sharief has no mandate to strike a deal with India on the Kashmir issue."

Since all such editorials and articles end up with an appeal to Washington to take more active interest in the region, we cannot but draw the conclusion that the US will not allow lasting peace to prevail in the subcontinent as long as India too, like Pakistan, does not accept its hegemony in the internal affairs of the country.

The US administration is worried about India's growing political, economic and ballistic strength. It is afraid that if India is not checked in time, it may soon fill the gap created by the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is no wonder then that the anti-India tirade initiated by Professor Brass in Washington, supported by the Washington Post's baseless allegations, is now taken over by the US lobby in Pakistan which is yet again indulging in a sort of proxy war. No one can predict how long Nawaz Sharief who had to increase the defence budget under pressure, would continue with his efforts of building bridges with India.

It is the time the government and people of India extended all possible moral help to the Pakistani premier who is under seige, despite his numerical majority in the national assembly.

Tell us what you think of this column