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http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/071204L.shtml India Pays for Their Dirty Deals By J. Sri Raman t r u t h o u t | Perspective Monday 12 July 2004 Chennai, India - While Indian voters have thrown the far-Right Bharatiya Jantata Party (BJP) and its assorted accomplices out of power, the country will continue to pay for at least three of the regime's dirty 'defense' deals - two of them with a nuclear dimension. The tab for 2004-05 will come to 250 billion Indian rupees, or about 5.6 billion US dollars, which the poverty-stricken people of India will now pick up. For these deals alone, that is. The allocation for 'defense' in the federal budget, presented in the Lok Sabha (the Lower House of India's Parliament), amounts to 770 billion rupees (about 17 billion dollars). This is a whopping increase of 23 per cent in the entire allocation. And this, too, is a legacy of the BJP rulers, who claim to have taken a lead in moves to make up with Pakistan. The most important and infamous of the deals was the one-billion-dollar contract with Israel for purchase of Phalcon air-borne early-warning radar systems. The deal was intended also as a political declaration. It followed the visit to India of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in September 2003. The visit had been announced, not in India, but in the USA, by the then National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra. The announcement had been accompanied by his call for a new "axis". Addressing the 97th annual conference of the American Jewish Committee in Washington in May 2003, Mishra urged that "a core consisting of democratic societies must emerge, which can take on international terrorism in a holistic and frontal manner to ensure that global terrorism is pursued to its logical conclusion". Identifying India, the USA and Israel as three such societies facing "similar threats of terrorism", he called for their strategic partnership. Mishra was only giving a post-9/11 spin to the old, far-Right position on Israel and India's policy towards it. It was "Islamic terror" that the "axis" was supposed to target. Which is why arguments that the "axis" should include Turkey and, yes, Pakistan facing "similar threats of terrorism" left New Delhi cold indeed. All this, of course, marked a sharp departure from India's decades-old policy of support for the Palestinian cause. Despite popular protests, Sharon arrived to a red-carpet official reception and the deal was signed subsequently. New Delhi had earlier sought and acquired "anti-terror" Israeli expertise for India's operations in Kashmir. Washington, only months before, had strongly opposed the sale to India of the Phalcon systems - jointly developed by the USA and Israel - on the ground of high tensions in South Asia. Mishra's call for an "axis", however, worked like magic. Washington's green light to the sale was forthcoming in just about a month. It was not as if no one warned of the nuclear dimension to the deal. Pakistani analyst Moieed Wasi Yusuf pleaded that the sale, by reducing the survival chance of Pakistani aircraft during hostilities, would make Islamabad turn more to missiles. This, in turn, could be the precursor to a nuclear catastrophe in South Asia. Yusuf as well as Pakistani and Indian peace activists drew attention to the fact that the installation of the systems increased the danger of nuclear accidents. None of this, however, deterred the deal. Less of a political statement, but larger was the 1.5-billon-dollar Admiral Gorshkov deal signed with Russia. It was widely reported that the sale of the 44,500-ton aircraft-carrier, not considered an attractive item by itself, was part of a package. One that would include leasing of Tu-22M3 long-range strategic bombers and Akula class nuclear submarines to India. Along with Brahmos cruise missiles, to be jointly produced, these could help develop a long-range nuclear delivery system. The parties to the deal have sought to ally such fears, but these have persisted, especially in Pakistan. The third deal, worth millions of pounds, was signed between India and that crown jewel of Britain's military-industrial complex, BAE (British Aerospace) Systems. The object was the sale of 66 Hawk Jet trainers. The crucial negotiations took place, curiously enough, in the Indian summer of 2002, when a million Indian and Pakistani soldiers were massed on the border between the two countries, raising a worldwide scare of a nuclear war. The funds for atomic energy have been increased from 18.17 billion to 25.04 billion rupees (about 5.5 billion dollars). These funds, it is an open secret, include the allocation for nuclear-weapon programs. Similarly, the funds for the Space Department, known to include the allocation for missile development programs, have been enhanced from 22.74 billion to 27.31 billion rupees (about 6 billion dollars). Another costly legacy of the previous regime's policy towards its neighbors is the increased budgetary provision for the continuation and completion of the project of building barbed-wire fences along the India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh borders. Together, these will amount to nearly six billion rupees or about 1.3 billion dollars. The entire legacy is something the people and the peace activists of India cannot expect the present coalition government headed by the Congress Party to disown in a hurry. It will take a struggle to make them dare to dissociate themselves from it. --------------------------------- 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 contributer to t r u t h o u t |
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| << July13, 2004 - [India Thinkers Net]GUJARAT : ENCOUNTER TRUTH |
July15, 2004 - [India Thinkers Net]The curse of casteism >> |
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