The Island-Features

On Indian Expansionism

        by

Gamini Seneviratne

This is a subject that merits close scrutiny in the context of the efforts of the Indian bureaucracy to force a ‘Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement’ (CEPA) down our throats. Indian is evidently afraid that others, notably China, who are competing for resources in this part of the world would get a foothold here. That, they already have; the pressure now is to pre-empt further expansion of the presence of China, Japan & Co. in, shall we say, Lankan waters.As projected, CEPA would simply choke economic enterprise by our people and appropriate our resources in the interests of a Pax Indiana. ‘Histories’, written, naturally, by the perpetrators of such violence, refer to a Pax Romana, a Pax Brittanica and, nowadays, in the present continuous, a Pax Americana. This Indian initiative must also be seen in the light of India’s nuclear deal with the USA: it foreshadows the nature of the ‘Pax’ contemplated by Delhi.Though the small and medium print or even much of the large have yet to be made public, the CEPA (which is now said to be on hold), would no doubt underwrite the same kind of ‘peace’ that every invader of sovereign territories has sought to achieve.In his study of ‘Ceylon Under the British Occupation’, Dr. Colvin R de Silva gives a vivid account of the ‘Madrasi administration’ that was imposed during the early years of the British occupation on the maritime provinces. He characterises them as predators who had no sympathy for the people and their culture (the Brits sent them back). Perhaps Dayan Jayatilleka, whose personal / political positions as they have meandered over time to his benefit should read that.We seem to have it all over again now, and in spades: tea & rubber estates, the Uva Vellassa on the back of magnetite, oil farms in Trinco, the LIOC etc all bent on proving themselves to be the most rapacious.In the not too distant past the parsimony of Indian officials was reflected in the terms they demanded for such products as arecanut (from here), and beedi wrapper leaf (from there). The range of products governed by more recent and equally one-sided deals on trade is much wider. Illustrative of the Indian bureaucracy’s absence of good faith is their prohibition on the export of onion seed for our use. The results of a study of Indo-Lankan trade by a researcher at the ARTI should throw much light on the subject (for use by policy makers who wish to be enlightened).In my formal encounters with the bureaucrats who used to control all human activity in India, but no longer do on terms that tend to be those mentioned below, some of them were so vain (‘arrogant’ might be their preferred term of self-description), and constipated that we felt they had been bawled off by their wives that morning.In a somewhat rambling piece on ‘Will India Become A Superpower?’Ramachandra Guha, author of ‘India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy’, says,"The terms that came to mind in characterizing an earlier generation of Congress leaders were: patriotic, efficient, social democratic, incorruptible. The terms that come to mind now are: selfish, nepotistic, sycophantic, on the make. . . the unelected officials at times exceed the elected politicians in the scale and ambition of their corruption."Guha also comes up with a quote from (Mahatma) Gandhi which is pertinent to any review of where India is being shepherded by her mercantilists such as Manmohan Singh. The proposed CEPA is but one example:"God forbid that India should ever take to industrialization after the manner of the West. The economic imperialism of a single tiny island kingdom (England) is today keeping the world in chains. If an entire nation of 300 million took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts." "These words," writes Guha, "come from an article published in the journal Young India in December 1928. Two years earlier, Gandhi had declared that to "make India like England and America is to find some other races and places of the earth for exploitation".Dr. Manmohan Singh, ironically, was Secretary to the South Commission chaired by Dr. Gamani Corea. Many years ago, Dr. Corea told me how astonished he had been by the sentiments expressed by his colleague at an open conference. Dr. Singh had been conscious of it, but at a tête-à-tête over lunch, Dr. Singh had been evasive.The collection of States ruled by the Rajahs & Ranis, coupled with those over which the British had firm control, became the ‘India’ of today (less the newly created ‘Pakistan’). Commencing with that demarcation (and the concurrent appropriation of Jammu & Kashmir), India has been muscling all around her own territory. She has, for example, choked land-locked Nepal, forced Bhutan to generate hydro-power its people did not need in order to feed Indian industry, violated our air-space and is hell-bent on building a canal through our territorial waters.Among such ‘interventions’, I recall the anguish that enveloped Mohammed Haroon, Minister of Agriculture of Pakistan, as we listened to his Indian counterpart, Fakruddin Ahmed, (later the President of India), outline India’s programme for developing her agriculture. Haroon muttered, ‘The Farrakar barrage’. It was India’s ‘enterprise’ in managing cross border waters: the barrage / dam was built just above her border with East Pakistan, its waters diverted to India in the dry season and, during the monsoon, released to drown what is now Bangladesh. I soothed him with words. More could be said about that and about that occasion. Such a ‘procedure’, was read as an act of hostility.1971 has come and gone. In Bangladesh, chaos has erupted from time to time. The partition of ‘Bengal’ that the Brits failed to carry through a hundred years ago has been made real by Delhi – checkpoints at the ‘borders’ that had not existed for people from ‘East Bengal’ to travel to ‘West Bengal’ for work. Every day. The policymakers in Delhi seem unconscious of the myopia that governs them and their country (which is yet engaged in the long haul towards ‘nationhood’).Their latest move has been to demand that the administration of Bangladesh, no less ‘interim’ than ours, should permit India to run her trucks and trains through Bangladesh in order to establish contact with her north- eastern states of Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. A further demand is that Bangladesh should build the infrastructure required to carry heavy Indian trucks (and truckers carrying AIDS). Bangladesh has turned down the Indian proposal.Jayantha Dhanapala & Daryll Kimball have termed Manmohan Singh’s Nuclear Deal ‘A Non-proliferation Disaster’ (The Island, 31st July) As I suggested in a recent article on our Foreign Service, Jayantha was conscious that India did not challenge the iniquitous provisions in the NPT (over which he presided) in the expectation of a horse-deal with the USA at a later date. That date has now arrived.The gist of this agreement is that India would be exempted from "long-standing NGO guidelines that require full-scope IAEA safeguards… … intended to prevent the use of civilian nuclear technology and material or weapons purposes." They note that, "Unlike the 178 other countries, India has not signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). It continues to produce fissile material and expand its arsenal," and "give India the rights and privileges of civil nuclear trade that have been reserved only for members of the NPT."They observe, further, that "Incredibly, Indian officials also want exemptions from NSG guidelines that would allow supplier states to provide India with a strategic fuel reserve that could be used to outlast any fuel supply cut off or sanctions that may be imposed if it resumes nuclear testing," and that "This flatly contradicts provisions in the 2006 U.S. implementing legislation that were authored by Sen. Barack Obama."And what would that Senator, now the leading candidate for President, say to this? - "India is also demanding "full" nuclear cooperation, including access to advanced plutonium reprocessing, uranium enrichment, and heavy water production technology." And what would he say to Iran?Suvrat Raju, in an analysis of ‘The Nuclear Deal and Democracy’, notes "India's vote against Iran, its support for the war in Afghanistan and its endorsement of American positions on climate change, missile defense and chemical weapons -- where the Indian government acted against domestic opposition and long held policies to support the US." India would not be able to "protest loudly against the oppression of Palestinians, organize developing countries in defence of Iran or repudiate iniquitous conditions laid down by the WTO; it must support the US in diplomatic forums and provide logistical support for US military operations in Asia."Raju reports: "According to figures provided by Anil Kakodkar –- the chairperson of the Department of Atomic Energy –- the deal will increase India's installed energy capacity by 2.5% by 2020," – a tiny change in that respect.It was clear from the start that the deal was about a larger strategic relationship with the US (which would also help India obtain a seat in the Security Council)."India is ruled by a government", says Raju, "that is willing to make (in the words of Nicholas Burns, the American negotiator for the nuclear deal), "courageous decisions" -- and bulldoze domestic dissent -- if this is demanded by Washington or Brussels!"No wonder, Manmohan Singh has been contemplating the merits of a "single party state".Raju concludes that "The idea that a government may imperil its own existence to fulfil commitments made to a foreign government is antithetical to the idea of democracy." Yeah.

The Island-Features