Post by Moses on Dec 26, 2005 19:15:04 GMT -5
Bangladesh: India Celebrates an Illusory 'Victory'
By J. Sri Raman
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 26 December 2005
India's tourist literature may talk of Mahatma Gandhi, Gautam Buddha and their messages of peace. Neither of the country's two main political parties, however, prides itself on any contribution to the cause of peace. Quite to the contrary.
The leaders of the far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have left no one in doubt about this. The primary and proudest achievement of the BJP-led government under former-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, according to them, lay in the Pokharan nuclear-weapon tests. They are convinced that they can silence any critic questioning the party's commitment to the country's cause by citing the tests, and the status these are supposed to have conferred on India.
The Congress Party, heading the current coalition government in New Delhi, finds their counter in the Bangladesh war of 1971. They hail the liberation of Bangladesh, achieved largely by India under former-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, as a feat of the kind the party's political foes can never boast of.
What is more, each of the parties acknowledges the "achievement" of the other. Stray voices from within the Congress might have mildly protested Pokharan, but the party as a whole and their government today only proclaim their resolve to pursue the path of nuclear armament. The BJP and their associates have been even more effusive in acknowledging their worthy adversary's role in the war of three decades ago.
Vajpayee himself, at that time, famously hailed Indira as "Durga" (the demon-slaying deity of the Hindu pantheon), though he has since been denying the statement in vain. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), patriarch of the far-right "parivar" ("family"), with the BJP as its political front, has been even less restrained and more rapturous in its praise of the former prime minister on this count.
The left and liberal sections of opinion in India, too, supported the war then as a "liberation struggle." All the more so because the Richard Nixon regime of the US at the time was tilting toward Pakistan and against India and Bangladesh as a continuation of its cold war in the region. Many here saw the revolt of then-East Pakistan as a welcome rejection of religion-based nationhood.
Ironically today, it is religious-communal fascism in India that pays the most fervent tributes to Indira for "breaking Pakistan," as the RSS puts it. And it is religious fundamentalism that is increasingly on the rampage in Bangladesh.
On December 16, the government of India celebrated the "Vijay Divas" (Victory Day) in commemoration of the conclusion of the Bangladesh war with the Pakistani forces' surrender to the triumphant Indian army. The BJP registered a token protest against the government for not celebrating with equal pomp the July 26 anniversary of the Kargil victory, achieved under Vajpayee against Pakistani intruders in the Himalayan region; and Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee proffered the technical explanation that Bangladesh was a "declared war" while Kargil was not. The matter ended there with the BJP preferring not to press their point.
The more noteworthy point, however, was the absence of any public enthusiasm over the Bangladesh anniversary. The political evolution of India's eastern neighbor has done nothing to enthuse the people, especially as they have been exposed to far-right propaganda about the dire threat from Bangladeshi "infiltrators" to the country's security and demography.
Developments in Bangladesh over the last decade, and more particularly in the recent past, have only helped to strengthen the propagandists' divisive politics. The growth of "jehadi" fundamentalism, by all accounts, has been phenomenal in that country ever since President George Bush embarked on a war against it in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
We have talked, in these columns before, of the several incidents of terrorism to shake Bangladesh over the past two years. These include the series of grenade blasts in Dhaka on August 21, 2004, and the 400 explosions in 63 district centers across the country almost a year later. This month alone, killings of several judges and lawyers, indicted by terrorists on charges of not implementing the Islamic law, have been reported along with an open extremist threat to eliminate women - even non-Muslim ones - not wearing veils.
The terrorist politics have led to an anti-India tirade as well, which sections of Bangladeshi media deplore as a "diversionary tactic." The government of India and its security and intelligence agencies, however, cannot claim to have given no cause for complaints. They could have certainly avoided the 100-round exchange of fire on August between Indian and Bangladeshi forces across a fenced border, which triggered grave apprehensions all over the region.
Involved in all of this are more than India-Bangladesh relations. The far-right campaign against Bangladeshi "infiltrators," strengthened anew by every successive terrorist strike across India's eastern border, is easily convertible into one against "Islam." It can thus serve to scuttle as well the India-Pakistan peace process, which the BJP cannot otherwise oppose, having initiated it during the Vajpayee days as a post-Pokharan ploy to prove their peaceable intentions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A freelance journalist and a peace activist of India, J. Sri Raman is the author of Flashpoint (Common Courage Press, USA). He is a regular contributor to t r u t h o u t.
By J. Sri Raman
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 26 December 2005
India's tourist literature may talk of Mahatma Gandhi, Gautam Buddha and their messages of peace. Neither of the country's two main political parties, however, prides itself on any contribution to the cause of peace. Quite to the contrary.
The leaders of the far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have left no one in doubt about this. The primary and proudest achievement of the BJP-led government under former-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, according to them, lay in the Pokharan nuclear-weapon tests. They are convinced that they can silence any critic questioning the party's commitment to the country's cause by citing the tests, and the status these are supposed to have conferred on India.
The Congress Party, heading the current coalition government in New Delhi, finds their counter in the Bangladesh war of 1971. They hail the liberation of Bangladesh, achieved largely by India under former-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, as a feat of the kind the party's political foes can never boast of.
What is more, each of the parties acknowledges the "achievement" of the other. Stray voices from within the Congress might have mildly protested Pokharan, but the party as a whole and their government today only proclaim their resolve to pursue the path of nuclear armament. The BJP and their associates have been even more effusive in acknowledging their worthy adversary's role in the war of three decades ago.
Vajpayee himself, at that time, famously hailed Indira as "Durga" (the demon-slaying deity of the Hindu pantheon), though he has since been denying the statement in vain. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), patriarch of the far-right "parivar" ("family"), with the BJP as its political front, has been even less restrained and more rapturous in its praise of the former prime minister on this count.
The left and liberal sections of opinion in India, too, supported the war then as a "liberation struggle." All the more so because the Richard Nixon regime of the US at the time was tilting toward Pakistan and against India and Bangladesh as a continuation of its cold war in the region. Many here saw the revolt of then-East Pakistan as a welcome rejection of religion-based nationhood.
Ironically today, it is religious-communal fascism in India that pays the most fervent tributes to Indira for "breaking Pakistan," as the RSS puts it. And it is religious fundamentalism that is increasingly on the rampage in Bangladesh.
On December 16, the government of India celebrated the "Vijay Divas" (Victory Day) in commemoration of the conclusion of the Bangladesh war with the Pakistani forces' surrender to the triumphant Indian army. The BJP registered a token protest against the government for not celebrating with equal pomp the July 26 anniversary of the Kargil victory, achieved under Vajpayee against Pakistani intruders in the Himalayan region; and Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee proffered the technical explanation that Bangladesh was a "declared war" while Kargil was not. The matter ended there with the BJP preferring not to press their point.
The more noteworthy point, however, was the absence of any public enthusiasm over the Bangladesh anniversary. The political evolution of India's eastern neighbor has done nothing to enthuse the people, especially as they have been exposed to far-right propaganda about the dire threat from Bangladeshi "infiltrators" to the country's security and demography.
Developments in Bangladesh over the last decade, and more particularly in the recent past, have only helped to strengthen the propagandists' divisive politics. The growth of "jehadi" fundamentalism, by all accounts, has been phenomenal in that country ever since President George Bush embarked on a war against it in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
We have talked, in these columns before, of the several incidents of terrorism to shake Bangladesh over the past two years. These include the series of grenade blasts in Dhaka on August 21, 2004, and the 400 explosions in 63 district centers across the country almost a year later. This month alone, killings of several judges and lawyers, indicted by terrorists on charges of not implementing the Islamic law, have been reported along with an open extremist threat to eliminate women - even non-Muslim ones - not wearing veils.
The terrorist politics have led to an anti-India tirade as well, which sections of Bangladeshi media deplore as a "diversionary tactic." The government of India and its security and intelligence agencies, however, cannot claim to have given no cause for complaints. They could have certainly avoided the 100-round exchange of fire on August between Indian and Bangladeshi forces across a fenced border, which triggered grave apprehensions all over the region.
Involved in all of this are more than India-Bangladesh relations. The far-right campaign against Bangladeshi "infiltrators," strengthened anew by every successive terrorist strike across India's eastern border, is easily convertible into one against "Islam." It can thus serve to scuttle as well the India-Pakistan peace process, which the BJP cannot otherwise oppose, having initiated it during the Vajpayee days as a post-Pokharan ploy to prove their peaceable intentions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A freelance journalist and a peace activist of India, J. Sri Raman is the author of Flashpoint (Common Courage Press, USA). He is a regular contributor to t r u t h o u t.