Listening to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on C-SPAN radio earlier this month, one might have concluded that the government of India has already green-lighted the deployment of troops to the war theatre in Iraq. Both military leaders and their civilian superiors in the Pentagon repeatedly assured Democratic senators that the Bush administration's new move to include the United Nations in its Iraq operations, if endorsed by the Security Council, would be followed by substantial troop contributions from a few nations. Among the names that came up regularly were Pakistan and Turkey, but even more often than these was mother India.
Across the oceans, however, it is a different story. Although New Delhi cited the absence of a UN mandate in its refusal to provide troops to support the U.S. occupation, it is by no means certain that once the ink from Mr. Kofi Annan's signature has dried on a new plan, Indian soldiers would be on their way. Rather, the NDA government may simply have found the lack of a UN role a convenient reason behind which to shelter its refusal. The more important question - whether with the UN parsed in, New Delhi could conveniently forget its round condemnation of the conflict in Parliament, and ignore public opinion against such deployment - was left unanswered.
But the question cannot be deferred indefinitely. With Mr Bush now resigned - albeit in his own churlish way - to accepting a greater hand from the world body, members of the Security Council are being sounded out to obtain their views on the nature of the agreement between the U.S. and the U.N. Once the deal is struck, Mr Vajpayee's cabinet will find itself back on an earlier square.
Although there are - and have always been, from the outset - very many reasons why India should not provide a single soldier to support this misguided war, it is not difficult to find opinion-makers pointing a strategic geopolitical opportunity in the making. By playing along with the U.S. now, they argue, India can build a substantial platform for a heightened global presence in the years ahead, and 'idealistic' consideration of Iraqis' rights and sovereignity are pointless. We must accept - even embrace - the new reality in the Middle East, or risk remaining on the sidelines of global affairs as before, too filled with our own suffocating convictions.
Such advocacy is unfortunate at best, and more likely egregious. A long line of the disenfranchised - for e.g. those who fought for our independence many decades ago, or those grotesquely suppressed by other 'realities' such as caste or race - should flinch at such disregard. Idealism, even when castigated as naive, is the better of complicity and itself.
Moreover, visions of imminent grandeur cannot ignore an important fact; whatever be the justification offered for waving our troops off to foreign shores, it is impossible to forget that it is precisely the irrelevance of India in global affairs that has brought us to this pass. The war was advocated and embarked upon without solicitation of our views; indeed it was waged even as we formally condemned it - a stand no other nation took. Any role for multilateral intervention was disdained by the U.S. administration, whose members - continuing in office today - caricatured the United Nations and the 'international community'. The mounting body bags have brought only the mildest traces of humility. Even at this late hour, the nations whose troops purportedly will be sought to replace Americans in the Middle East have no role to play in the discussions at the Security Council. As the US resigns itself to the relevance of the UN, the Security Council participates in reducing the relevance of India. A deal, made between the United States and veto-wielding France, is to define the new paradigm.
For New Delhi, there could not be a greater indication of irrelevance. While our government acquiesces with the unwarranted war, Indian citizens must suffer the ignominy of hearing American officials proclaim that the decision has already been made for India, and that all that is required is a signal from the White House for deployment to begin.
Realpolitik or not, the case for Indian participation cannot be fully made
in the interests of a foreign power. The administration's opinion may differ
honestly from that of those who are firmly against the deployment of our troops.
On questions of accountability, however, there is no such room for acceptance.
The government of India is unequivocally answerable to the people of the
country, and is required to account for its important decisions in a
manner that answers all significant concerns. The 'increased global
presence' we hope to achieve by this madness is a joke; an assurance of
nothing, which only we imagine, and which may not even be binding on the
United States if Mr Bush doesn't make it past the next election.
A return to the years of empire bodes ill for all weaker states, not just Iraq. Indeed, that belief lies at the core of Parliament's earlier condemnation of the war. A convenient conversion to a colonialism that includes a role for us would be duplicitous in itself; to further remove the Indian people from this transformation would be shameful. New Delhi must represent us, not the American administration.
