The World Wars and India

World War anniversary observances in Western Europe, Russia and the United States are efforts to imprint an alien and illusionist history of little significance to India's own national narrative.

The European view that the two world wars were a fight against fascism is prime facie nonsense. Britain and France ruled the two largest slave empires and fought to protect their racist tyrannies.

The United States intervened in both conflicts to help the side it saw as the lesser of two evils and failed both times in its declared aim of promoting the global rule of law.

After World War I, Woodrow Wilson steered the Covenant of the League of Nations to acceptance by other Powers but not by the US Senate.

In World War II Franklin Roosevelt tried to hold the British to the Atlantic Charter’s vision of a free world but after his untimely death Winston Churchill in collusion with the new military-industrial elite of the United States subverted America’s own democracy and launched the Cold War. (See here for an explanation of what happened.)

Russian memories of both conflicts leave out much bitter reality. It was during World War I that a bunch of violent misfits guided by the loony ideas of Karl Marx took over imperial Russia and turned it into one large slave labour camp. World War II was indisputably a great patriotic struggle against a vicious enemy but commemorations gloss over the paranoid Stalinism behind that effort.

Obviously, none of this holds much meaning for India.

What we need to remember about the two world wars is that they had a strong role in aiding our struggle to get rid of British rule.

The million Indians who participated in World War I created a new reality in Indian politics that frightened the British into the overreaction of the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre. That radicalized Indian opinion and filled the sails of Gandhi’s Non-cooperation movement.

Three million Indian soldiers participated in World War II, and after that Britain had no hope of holding India: the day after the Naval Mutiny of 1946, Clement Attlee announced his government’s intention to transfer power in New Delhi.

I would hazard a guess that most Indians are unaware of these facts and that even our expert analysts have not kept track of how these different narratives have played out over the last seven decades.

For India, there were immediate and heavy repercussions from the British success in engineering an American coup and launching the “Cold War.” It left Britain free to Partition India and create Pakistan as a permanently failed State to be its military proxy in South Asia.

Those realities have shaped our national life ever since, and it is alarming indeed to hear Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar speak of reciprocating Pakistani terrorism. The source of South Asian terrorism is not Islamabad but London and any tit for tat policy on Pakistan will lay us wide open to British manipulation.

That would have been obvious to everyone if our geopolitical pundits had done their work honestly over the years, but they have not, and we must live with the consequences.

The latest example of dishonesty is an edit page piece in BusinessLine (21 May) by former Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan G. Parthasarathy.

Although headlined “India still a pawn on the strategy board.”the article is no more than a review of what Parthsarathy sees as Washington’s various perfidies. This hardly shows that India is a pawn, for it is only because we pursue an independent line that there is room for perfidies.

More importantly, he ignores the fact that Washington has been guided throughout the post-World War II period by the British incubus within its national security system.

That cannot be dismissed as a coffee house “conspiracy theory” because Britain’s strategic role in launching the Cold War is much celebrated in Churchill’s March 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech.

Evidence of British involvement in launching the “war on terror” that followed the end of the Cold War is not equally clear but only because there has been no focused effort to uncover the transatlantic connections behind the 9/11 attacks.

For instance, little attention has been paid to the significance of the rigged election of Bush Jr. that set the scene in Washington a few months before the attacks.

The back story to that election is the friendship between two extremely rich families, the Bushes in the United States and the Gammells in Britain. As George Bush was ambassador in China and CIA Director, Bush Jr. was spending summers at the Gammell farm in Scotland, hanging out with scion Bill, whose college buddy was Tony Blair.

Bill Gammell founded petroleum major Cairn, which became a FTSE 100 firm in a matter of years; meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's long term ambassador in Washington became so close to the Bushes he was generally known as “Bandar Bush.”

That explains why, after a group of Saudis carried out the 9/11 attacks, a plane load of their countrymen was allowed to leave the United States without being questioned and in violation of the nationwide no-fly order then in effect.

Parthasarathy seems oblivious to this whole universe of seamy and dangerous connections underlying the most pivotal events of our time. In making the case that India is a “pawn” he makes not a single mention of Britain, a country that has manipulated us at every turn for the last 158 years (counting from the uprising of 1857).

Why our strategic analysts consistently overlook Britain's profoundly negative role in world affairs (see here and here), and its especially vicious treatment of India, is a question very much in need of an honest answer.

The issue is urgent for we could well be headed for another spate of cataclysmic events as Britain pursues its furious sense of entitlement in India (not to mention Africa, the Middle East and the United States!).

Pakistan and the United States should also pay heed, for we could all be headed for the time foreseen in the Vishnu Purana when the appearance of “eight suns” brings on a great drought.

In fact, the only way to avoid some such catastrophe might be to talk openly about who might be responsible and publicize plans to share the heat.

An Excellent Nobel Award

The award of the Nobel Peace Prize jointly to Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi is excellent not just because of the merit of the recipients but in its timing, when the India-Pakistan border has been for weeks a ribbon of meaningless armed conflict and unnecessary death.

The award underlines the hope and promise of youth in an area where older generations on both sides of the border have failed miserably to understand the hatreds and violence of their common past, much less escape it.

If the two laureates work together, as Satyarthi has proposed in comments to reporters, it could mark an important new beginning for peace in the region.

In contemplating that scenario it is important to underline that anything they do together should be seen as more than an emotional phenomenon.

It is an opportunity to focus attention in both countries not only on their common humanity but on the tragic history of colonial manipulation that split their shared culture and traditions.

In addition, the award points to two aspects of the misery of children in South Asia that highlight how India and Pakistan are victims of the same contemporary circumstances.

One is that the child labor that Satyarthi has spent his life trying to eradicate is rooted in the same bitter poverty that drove the Taliban to try and kill Malala; her bright insouciance threatened the only livelihood they have, the trade of opium and heroin.

The second is the genesis of that common economic reality in colonial rule.

Britain did not just drive what was once the world's most prosperous region into poverty; to protect the interests of its elite in the $60 billion Af-Pak opium/heroin trade and related money laundering it has sustained the murderous terrorism that has blocked or slowed development throughout South Asia.

Perhaps the most poisonous of its manipulations has been the harnessing of religion to the ugliest of human drives, fear, anger and hatred, the theme of India-Pakistan relations since Partition in 1947.

In celebrating Malala the teenage cherub espousing education for girls and Satyarthi the angel of enslaved children, we have the opportunity to address a whole range of dark issues emanating from post-colonial Britain.

A Quiet Indian Peace Bid on Kashmir

Just after the conclusion of the general elections and before the results were known, the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on Kashmir, Satinder Lambah, made a speech in Srinagar laying out the most comprehensive peace plan India has ever made.

He said the speech reflected just his personal views but The Times of India's brief report by Indrani Baghchi (buried at the bottom of page 15 in my edition of the paper), said “the highest levels of government” were involved in crafting it.

The proposal is that that Line of Actual Control (LOC) become the de jure international border while India and Pakistan move to erase it for all practical purposes.

For that to happen, there would have to be a general demilitarization and normalization throughout Kashmir, and the winding up of terrorist training facilities in Pakistan. There would be no tariff or non-tariff barriers to trade and no constraints on the free passage of people or on development of transport infrastructure.

Presumably, somewhere along that continuum, the special constitutional provisions in effect on both sides of the border would be brought in line with the new realities.

What might give the proposal a chance of success is the changed regional dynamic resulting from the projected withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan at the end of 2014.

A significant element of the new dynamic has been the Pakistani response to the American effort to bribe the drug-running Haqqani terrorist network away from control by the ISI: Islamabad is now engaged in bombing the assets of its former client, inflicting heavy losses.

Other aspects include the energized Moscow-Beijing axis in the face of the situation in the Ukraine, Uighur terrorism in China and the tensions boiling up along Asia's eastern seaboard.

From West Asia shell-shocked by what can now be called the Arab Winter to China teetering on an economic precipice, there is a new sense of vulnerability throughout the continent.

That has caused erstwhile supporters (Saudi Arabia and China), to cool towards Pakistani sponsored “Islamic terrorism,” and even the ISI might have begun to see that if the Haqqanis can be turned into a Frankenstein’s monster, so can all its other proxies.

The wild card in all this, of course, is the British interest in continuing to control the $60 billion drug trade out of Afghanistan. That is the glue binding the ISI to British policy, and it remains to be seen if the new regional situation can weaken the bond. .

In the past, India-Pakistan peace initiatives have led to violent provocations to prevent progress. In the current circumstances, that will have to be more than the usual cross-border terrorism or attacks on consulates. It will have to be something of the order of 9/11 or 26/11, precipitating war. As I have noted before, there is evidence the British and their allies in the United States have been trying to set the scene for that.

Among the recent signs that something nasty is in the works is the disappearance from his Karachi residence of noted Indian gangster-terrorist Dawood Ibrahim. He can only be up to no good.

I do not think we will have to wait long to find out if we have chaos in South and Central Asia or a major move towards regional peace.

Flight 370 a Grim Omen for India

The disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 on 9 March should be seen as a grim omen for India.

It portends a 9/11 type attack using the missing Boeing 777 that could precipitate war with Pakistan.

A single chilling fact precludes any possibility that the aircraft was lost innocuously at sea: as it veered off its set course and headed towards India, the aircraft reportedly climbed to 45,000 feet – 2000 feet beyond the maximum for a Boeing 777 – then dropped rapidly to 12,000 feet.

Such a descent occurs when there has been a catastrophic loss of cabin pressure.

The climb to 45,000 feet is also significant if we consider that at that altitude, sudden depressurization will render passengers brain dead in 15 seconds.

At that hour of night – past 01:30 – most of the passengers were probably asleep and of those who were awake few could have grabbed an emergency oxygen mask in time.

We know from the series of satellite "handshakes" by the Boeing's Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), that it continued flying west for five to six hours. 

That is enough time to reach as far north as Kazakhstan in Central Asia, overflying areas infested with drug dealing terrorists who certainly had the wherewithal to make a one-mile landing strip.

Given the brutality of the hijacking, it is highly likely that the aircraft is now in the possession of terrorists in that general area, being readied for use.

So why is the search for the missing plane focused on the remote southern Indian Ocean?

Because American and Chinese satellites reported debris in the area, and the British company that runs the surveillance system INMARSAT, said that it had registered a number of pings from an unidentified aircraft in that area.

There is no other evidence. Even if some floating seat cushions turn up in the area, it is most likely to have been planted on 24 May, when a fierce storm supposedly stopped all search operations for 24 hours.

The fact that the search was refocused on the basis of such skimpy evidence indicates a willingness of major Powers to turn a blind eye on reality; it should put Indian air defence authorities on high alert for misinformation from usually reliable sources. 

This is not being paranoid.

The world is in the midst of a complex power struggle in which treacheries abound. 

At a time when all the major developed countries are still reeling from the “Great Recession,” and China is on the verge of economic collapse, India is the only national market that can generate the rapid increase in demand necessary to avoid a prolonged global downturn. Control of it is a rich prize.

However, getting a government in New Delhi entirely devoted to foreign interests will require extraordinary circumstances, such as would result from a massive airborne terrorist attack that precipitated war with Pakistan.

(The bizarre essay prophesying an India-Pakistan war published by the Brookings Institution suddenly makes sense! So does Ashutosh Varshney’s book on India’s “improbable democracy:” it establishes his credential as an expert on the planned chaos.)

Another factor that makes me think a major terror attack is in the works is the increasing difficulty Britain faces in laundering the $60 billion proceeds of the illicit drug trade out of Afghanistan. International pressure to close down its “tax haven” money laundering system has made it imperative that the money be invested in the region, which means India.

Such large-scale investment will be possible only if Britain has the kind of political control in India that it asserts in Pakistan through the ISI.

A beginning has been made in that direction by promoting in India the same kind of endemic sectarian violence that bedevils Pakistan: communal incidents this year are up 30 per cent over 2012.

However, that is not enough. Even with the largest electoral war chest localized communal incidents cannot be used to manipulate Indian voters on the scale necessary to bring in a proxy government. Ergo, a terrorist attack that could provoke war, give new life to all kinds of moribund insurrections, and allow a bully-boy proxy to emerge as a national saviour.

There is little doubt who that will be.

The relentless reporting in the country’s British proxy mass media of a “Modi wave,” the personality cult now in the works, and the jettisoning of senior BJP leaders of integrity and stature, all point to a scenario in which the “khoon ke saudagar” can spout on about Hindu power and a 54-inch chest while bringing back foreign rule to India.

Do I think this will happen?

No. There are too many honest sensible Indians to allow it.

Also, I do not think it is in the cards at the end of the Kali Yuga.

Coverage of Sunanda Pushkar's Murder

The Press coverage of Sunanda Pushkar’s murder was pretty much obliterated on television by the Aam Admi Party’s shenanigans in New Delhi.

For the most part, the story was reduced to television crawlers highlighting a statement by the victim's 21-year old son that his mother was too strong to commit suicide and that he did not think Shashi Tharoor could have harmed her.

In print, the coverage was decidedly odd.

On 21 January, a Zee News story by Sushmita Dutta had the following lead: “Hours after the autopsy report of Sunanda Pushkar was out and given to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate Alok Sharma by All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) stating drug overdose may have caused her death, Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shashi Tharoor got a clean chit into the matter based on a witness testimony, police sources said on Monday.”

A Reuters story on the 22nd put the story in the following context: “The drama around Tharoor comes after a series of scandals that have dented the idea of a rising, confident India. The image of an economic juggernaut was undermined last year when growth fell to its lowest in a decade. Politicians have been dogged by allegations of corruption on a spectacular scale, and a grisly gang rape in Delhi at the end of 2012 that sparked huge protests has marred the "Incredible India" slogan meant to draw tourists from around the globe. Even a former Supreme Court judge has been probed over alleged sexual harassment and one of India's most powerful journalists was arrested last month in another sexual assault case.”

The story (without a byline as published), said that “Tharoor may survive politically. He has received backing from the leader of the ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, and sympathy from many politicians. One TV channel called him the "Comeback Kid" for his ability to bounce back from reverses.”

Also on the 22nd, a PTI story was headlined “Shashi Tharoor inseparable, no question of resignation: Congress.” It noted earlier reports that the BJP's Kerala unit had demanded Tharoor’s resignation and that Congress ally NCP had said he should keep away from his ministerial responsibilities until the investigation was over. Congress spokesman Randip Surjewala had told reporters the NCP suggestion “could be personal opinion of NCP leader D P Tripathi. ... Tharoor is in a responsible ministerial position. He is also an inseparable part of Congress. There is no question of his resignation.”

Neither Reuters nor PTI mentioned in those stories what the Economic Times noted in the penultimate paragraph of its small take on the 22nd: that the autopsy report submitted to the investigating magistrate “mentioned more than a dozen injury marks on Pushkar's hands and a minor bruise on her left cheek which could be due to the use of ‘blunt force’". Citing “poisoning” as the cause of death, the magistrate had “asked Delhi police to further investigate the case, including the possibility of suicide and murder.”  

It seems to me the injuries sustained by the victim -- lacerations on the wrists and bruises on her upper body and neck -- are conclusive proof of murder. 

Much of the Press coverage seems to be avoiding that and looking towards a swift finding of accidental drug overdose that will allow business as usual. 


I have known Shashi since he was a child and find it hard to believe that he is capable of murder; but there is no escaping the conclusion that Sundanda Pushkar was forced to ingest the two dozen anti-depressent pills and alcohol that ended her life. 

There are two pointers for those investigating the case. 

One is the Pakistan angle -- his wife thought Tharoor had been having a "rip roaring affair" with Lahore-based journalist Mehr Tarar. Both the principals have denied this, but clearly there was some to and fro across the border. Was the murder to blot out any possibility of an embarrassing security leak? If so, the murderers would be under the authority of the Home Ministry, which is reportedly seeking to hurry the investigation to an end.

The second lead is the fact that  Sunanda Pushkar was preparing for tell-all television interviews about her involvement in the IPL scandal that led to her then boy-friend Tharoor's resignation from the External Affairs ministry. The couple had hotly denied reports they cleared some $15 million from that deal. Whose ox would have been gored if she had revealed another reality?

All this should make quite clear that the investigation into the murder cannot be rushed to a conclusion, and that an independent inquiry is essential.

Pending a resolution it is indefensible for Tharoor to continue in a position of influence in the government. 

Ashutosh Varshney's NRI View of India

Ashutosh Varshney, an academic at Brown University in the United States, has a new book out, “Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy.”

Judging from what he said at a book release ceremony in Goa yesterday, it is the usual intellectually disreputable NRI product, a mix of Western stereotypes and learned blindness to inconvenient history.

India’s democracy is “improbable” in Western eyes because of the country’s poverty and the expectation (Varshney's citations began with John Stuart Mill), that a country so diverse could not be a nation, much less be subject to democratic governance.

Varshney ascribed the failure of democracy in the great majority of poor countries – over 75% – to a variety of internal factors, not breathing a word about the primary reason, endemic subversion by neo-colonial interests.

In noting Pakistan’s failures he ignored completely the poisonous process of its creation by the British and its ISI enforced servitude as their proxy to disrupt South Asia and the Islamic world.

He cited Indonesia’s failure without a nod to the brutal realities of the Cold War that inflicted on the country a massacre of some 500,000 “communists” and imposed prolonged rule by a military junta backed by Washington.

He was silent on the manipulations of African countries by Britain, France and Belgium that destroyed their infant experiments with democracy and plunged many into murderous tyranny and perennial civil war.

Since the 1990s Africa has painfully extricated itself from many such conflicts and under the Organization of African Unity democracy had become the norm on the continent; but in the last few years, as European neocolonialists have faced crisis at home, they have reversed decades of progress. Varshney is blind to the past and the present.

Similarly, the 1953 British-American coup that destroyed Iran’s homegrown democracy under Mohammed Mossadegh has evidently made no impression on his scholarship.

Varshney has to ignore all this because that is the cost of NRI success in Western academia; what is inexcusable is that in explaining India’s success he ignores completely the country’s millennial tradition of governance directed by concepts of Ramrajya and the constant democratic influence of the major castes even under the most despotic rulers.

He accepts without question the Western claim that its “nations” represent the conceptual default framework essential for democracy.

Western nationhood is the result of armed conquest and the violent molding of all minorities into servitors of an imposed national ideal. Their democracies are a recent historical development that assumed their current liberal character only in the second half of the 20th Century, under the impact of the human rights revolution Gandhi let loose with Satyagraha in South Africa.

In contrast, the Indian nation is the result of a long evolution going back to the compilation of tribal lore into the Vedas that tamped down group conflicts and allowed the emergence of interdependent castes. The Ramayana and Mahabharata mark significant points in that evolution, and over the millennia, Indian polity has shown a remarkable capacity to meet challenges and adapt to new conditions.

Guru Nanak and Kabir initiated the modern Indian renaissance by seeking to break down religious and caste divisions that had emerged during a period of invasion and social decadence. Their success can be judged by India’s massively unitary response to British rule. The only effective response to that upsurge was the enormous and completely unprecedented communal violence the British engineered.

Varshney seems oblivious to this entire history when he terms Jawaharlal Nehru the “father of Indian democracy.” Nehru certainly deserves credit for nursing India into electoral politics, but the essentially democratic spirit of Indian society is of ancient origin.

Indian democracy is not “improbable.” It is our heritage.