BETA

During eighties in Jaffna as a general rule for all Jaffnites my father was a regular listener of Indian radio programmes. Some times I was also attracted to some of those programmes; when I look back those programmes most of them were boasting about Indian ‘power’ and praising the glory of socialist India’s fight against imperialism.

The controversial 123 agreement (civilian nuclear project) between US and India has stirred up the already muddled Indian political establishment. The proposed agreement will allow India to gain access to US technology and skills to produce nuclear power (civilian project). This is in violation of nuclear non proliferation treaty (NPT) of 1954 and will allow the IAEA to inspect all fourteen nuclear sites in India annually; this is clearly a disgraceful end to Indian ambition to become a global super power. India –US relations started to warm up in early nineties with economic liberalisation by then congress led government of PV Narasimha Rao and later right wing BJP led NDA government initiated more closer defence and strategic relationship. The current ‘strategic partnership’ was started with the10-year India-U.S. defence framework agreement signed in 2005. The 123 agreement was aggressively pushed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his advisers with the blessings of Sonia Gandhi despite the strong opposition from left parties and dissent from some constituents of UPA. Even a lay person will notice the change in Indian foreign policy during last decade and now it is more ‘congruent’ with US strategic interests. This is a very shameful end to traditional Indian foreign policy and her anti imperialist stand in the past. The US government dictates the Indian foreign policy and even demands certain issues to be done specifically in order to suit the American needs. The following excerpts from the Frontline magazine will give some idea about the extent of this new phenomenon.

“U.S. policy in West Asia today is focussed on combating Iran. Japan has always been supportive of the Bush administration’s policies. India also seems to be on the verge of jumping onto the anti-Iran bandwagon. India has already voted with the U.S. in the IAEA against Iran’s nuclear programme. In May, key U.S. Congressmen who have been supportive of the India-U.S. nuclear deal wrote a strongly worded letter to Manmohan Singh, expressing their “grave concerns” about India’s ties with Iran and warning him that this could adversely impact on the deal. The letter listed a series of meetings between Indian and Iranian officials. “It is difficult to fathom why India, a democracy engaged in its own fight against terrorism, would want to enhance security cooperation with a repressive government widely regarded as the world’s most active sponsor of terrorism,” the letter stated. Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon had to dismiss reports of a close military cooperation with Iran to placate the Congressmen soon after the contents of the letter became public. Other backchannel assurances must have been given to the U.S. by the Indian government to get the “nuclear deal” expedited”
The “Malabar CY 07-2” naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal held in the first week of September of 2007 is important indicator of emerging multi polar strategic alliances in Asia and the realisation by the Indian ruling elite (politicians, bureaucrats and technocrats) about the limitations of India’s influence in global politics. Now India’s role in global politics has been reduce to Asia minus Middle Eastern conflict (west asia) as a US deputy ‘sheriff’.

The deterioration of Indian influence in global politics is multi factorial such as the collapse of USSR and the emergence of US monopoly in global politics and decadence in governance (primary factor).

The decadence in Indian governance

The gap between the super rich and the poor is on the rise and being exacerbated by the reckless open market economy; India is still far from achieving her goal of poverty eradication. Millions of people are struggling to get decent housing, health care, education, clean water and livelihoods. The representatives elected by the millions of ignorant and poverty stricken Indian ‘citizens’ will also reflect the poor quality of the governance. There is hardly any Indian politician escaped fraud and corruption allegation. I would like to highlight the decadence of Indian political establishment with an example.

SELVI, SMT. V. RADHIKA
(The name according to the official website of the Indian government)

I thought Ms Radhika will be a perfect example to show the current state of Indian political establishment. She was a typical Tamilnadu housewife until the killing of her husband Vengadesh Panniyar by the police with the tacit approval of then AIADMK government led my maverick politician Jayalalitha. Mr Panniyar was a prominent politician, mafia kingpin and head of a Nadar (a caste in southern India) community organisation. At that time of his killing Ms Radhika was pregnant despite that she was given prominence during the funeral of Vengadesh Panniyar by Nadar community leaders. The DMK party exploited the visible anger of Nadar community against AIADMK to its favour by giving her candidacy for the Trichendur parliamentary constituency at the next general election ignoring its senior members including ‘Supreme Star’ Sarathkumar (He is also from Nadar community).

Now she holds the office of Minister of State, Home Affairs in the central government. The following information given about her in the official website;

Special Interests
Spending time with public and downtrodden people in particular; reading books and viewing movies

Favourite Pastime and Recreation
Watching TV

Sports and Clubs
Kabbadi and Javelin throw

I wonder if India wants to become a global super power including a permanent member status in the Security Council with the leadership of people like Ms Radhika then it will be a very long walk.

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