SOCIALIST UNITY CENTER
A non-chauvinist view of India-Pakistan war
Tension between the Indian and Pakistani militaries over
the control of Kashmir increased in early August as Indian
gunners shot down a Pakistani aircraft, killing 16 troops
aboard.
The July 15 issue of Proletarian Era, the newspaper of the
Socialist Unity Center of India, put forward a non-chauvinist
view from the Indian subcontinent that condemned the rulers of
both Pakistan and India for the war and warned of U.S.
intervention in the subcontinent.
SUCI has held mass anti-imperialist demonstrations in
Calcutta and West Bengal simultaneously with such actions in
Europe, the United States and other parts of the world. SUCI
also demonstrated on April 24 to support Mumia Abu Jamal and on
June 5 to end the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. And it has often
demanded that the United Nations end sanctions against
Iraq.
An abridged version of the SUCI statement follows.
The reason we have narrated the war-like postures and
utterances of the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party--right-wing Hindu
nationalist, currently running a caretaker government in New
Delhi] leaders in some detail is to bring out in a nutshell the
kind of jingoism they have tried to whip up. Would it be wrong
to assume that this was done to gain the maximum political
mileage for the BJP and its allies with the coming Lok Sabha
[parliament] polls in view?
Is it not a fact that to both [Pakistani Prime Minister]
Nawaz Sharif and [Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari] Vajpayee,
a limited war could be useful in home politics?
That Vajpayee has gained immensely from the Kargil
skirmishes is there for all to see. Not to be outdone, Congress
and the other opposition parties too immediately started a
competition as to how best the Kargil issue could be exploited
to serve their narrow political interest.
U.S. increases intervention
However much Delhi may play it down, the USA has arrived as
the mediator, at least on the Kargil issue, if not on the whole
Kashmir question. It should be remembered that the BJP and its
predecessor Jan Sangh have all along constituted the right
reactionary force in the Indian body politic, have been
pro-American politically. So it has come naturally to the BJP
to seek help of the USA and the other major imperialist powers
on the issue.
The fact remains that the USA has arrived in strength in
this country politically and diplomatically. It is not that the
USA is a peace-loving country and so it took initiative in
containing and stopping the Kargil conflagration. Far from
it.
As the leading imperialist country and pursuant to its grand
imperialist design, the USA indulges its international
brigandage every other day and thinks nothing of unleashing
murderous attacks on other countries and regions trampling upon
their sovereignty at will, Iraq and Kosovo being the two latest
instances.
The U.S. does not suddenly have love for the Indians nor has
it suddenly been convinced the Indian side is correct. But
during the Cold War, Pakistan was a willing participant in U.S.
machinations against the socialist bloc. At that time,
successive Indian governments--motivated by the aggregate
interest of the ruling Indian capitalist class that they
served--maintained a posture of neutrality between the
imperialist and the socialist blocs. This stance was aimed at
gaining trading advantage and aid from both the camps and to
achieve better leverage and maneuverability vis-a-vis both.
But with the end of the Cold War the world has become
"unipolar," with the USA as the undisputed superpower. With
this, Pakistan's edge over India in the matter of securing the
support of U.S. imperialism no longer exists.
Warning of the dangers of U.S. inroads into the
decision-making process in Indian affairs, the SUCI statement
decries the lack of protests within India.
There were so many protest demonstrations against U.S.
machinations and attacks on Cuba, Iraq, Kosovo, etc.,
throughout India over the years, but when the U.S. entry on the
Indian scene itself is becoming a reality, there are hardly any
protests! This shows how far jingoism and war psychosis can
cloud the vision.
There is an increased danger since it's the BJP--a Hindu
fundamentalist party--whipping up jingoism, because BJP is
majority communalism and carries within it the seeds of a
country-wide communal [ethnic] bloodbath.
Military firms grow rich, workers and peasants
die
The influence of the military is growing not only in
Pakistan, where this is an old story, but in India.
But this time, the military affairs and the military have
come to the forefront. There are well-publicized daily press
briefings by military officers with retired generals as TV and
newspaper pundits. They argue for more sophisticated military
hardware on a massive scale.
The truth is that in all imperialist-capitalist countries,
it is an industrial bureaucratic military complex that wields
real power from behind the facade of parliamentary democracy,
India being no exception.
War is an endemic necessity in all capitalist countries in
the present era, the most advanced and the relatively backward
alike.
It is the common people of the country that shed blood in
war, but does it benefit them any way? The huge additional cost
of this increased war effort will have to be borne by the
common people in the form of even more increased taxes and
soaring prices.
While the monopoly war merchants reap superprofits from
this, the plight of the common people, whose sons die on the
battle field, would even worsen. Even their elementary problems
would remain unsolved.
Is not the people's real war against poverty and
deprivation?
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