NEWS & MARKETS
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Business Commentary / Ashok Mitra

Liberalisation as the acid that eats away at the moral fibre

The truth is finally out. The United States administration has stated it quite explicitly -- the so-called United Nations sanctions against Iraq can be lifted on fulfilment of only one condition: Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq, must stand down from his office. A peremptory decision, and no prior approval of the UN Security Council or the General Assembly was taken before the state department spokesman made it public. It is in the name of the international community that till now the US and some of its lackeys had been pursuing their brigandage all over the world, and not just in Iraq.

There was indeed no limit to the presumptuousness. The last round of raining of missiles on Baghdad and its outskirts has made it plain that the fiction of the international community has zero credibility. Even within the Western powers, the divergence of views in the wake of these attacks could not be sharper. Germany and France have openly disapproved of the outrage perpetrated against Iraq, Germany even more stridently than France.

The US in a sense stands totally isolated; the decisions the US president has taken, and is taking, reflect the rantings of a depraved man. It is as if he has a personal vendetta against Hussein and, come what may, he would go ahead with this subjective agenda notwithstanding the shock and disgust it has evoked across the continents: what does he care, he is the supreme leader of the world's only superpower.

This international bully has continued to proceed on the assumption that his word is law. The rest of the world has an obligation, for the sake of humanity, to silence this bully. The irony in the situation can hardly be missed. The US president is the subject of impeachment proceedings before the senate; the formal prosecution is likely to begin this week. The formidable set of allegations against him, supported by data of various descriptions, cannot be easily brushed aside.

And yet, if opinion polls are any guide, the American public could not be overly concerned about the president's alleged debauchery as long as he is reasonably successful in ensuring income and employment at home. His sexual deviance they tend to ignore; his misdoings in Iraq or elsewhere do not bother them either; even the speculation whether his latest acts and activities were not intended to divert attention from his domestic difficulties, leaves them indifferent. This is what liberalisation has done to the psyche of men and women in country after country, they themselves are all right Jack, let Bill Clinton do whatever he likes.

There is nonetheless a wrench in the heart, more particularly because overwhelming sections of the black voters in the US have, for their own reasons, emerged as strong supporters of the Clinton regime. He has initiated a number of measures in the area of civil rights which have eased somewhat the conditions of living for the black community; they deem it their moral obligation to be grateful to the president on that score.

This too is the bequest of liberalisation. The argument is simple and straightforward: since this man has proved to be good for them, they would support him through thick and thin in spite of his lurid record both in the conduct of his personal affairs and in the conduct of the nation's foreign policy. It would be an arduous exercise to convince them that it is sinful to support a president who is little more than an international gangster and has designs on weak and helpless countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

This process of changing the mindset of large sections of the American electorate will take time. Conceivably, the impeachment proceedings too will drag along for weeks and months. Meanwhile, there is altogether no certainty that a desperate Clinton would not, once the vote on impeachment becomes imminent, launch another barbarous attack on Iraq or discover a pretext for lashing out against another country. He might well nurture some leftover hope that another round of jingoist adventure could still save the presidency for him.

Which is precisely where the role of countries such as India suddenly looms larger. Russain Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov has dropped the hint, during his recent visit to New Delhi, of the positive aspects of a network of alliances among Russia, China and India from which the world could gain much. Around this triumvirate, new forces could also foregather and tilt decisively the balance of international relations away from the current uncomfortable phenomenon of single power domination.

Irrespective of the course the impeachment proceedings take, the focus of the new international concordat could be on containing the excesses of the megalomaniac at present in control of the US administration and who could, till the other day, browbeat the UN Security Council into doing his bidding. Should Russia and China be able to swing Germany and France to their side, the picture within the Security Council is bound to change qualitatively.

Primakov, however, received little response to his suggestion. A sorry pack of ministers and civil servants happen to be in charge in New Delhi. A profoundly conservative lot, they continue to believe that the post-Cold War non-equation of powers is forever. It is not; it is already a changing landscape in the UN.

Furthermore, the developing economic uncertainties in the world have eroded the sense of smugness in some entrenched quarters.

The multinational corporations based in the US have nonetheless a stake in the existing arrangements.

They are doubtful of the degree of penetration they could achieve in the Chinese market, given the fact that China is maintaining an annual rate of industrial growth touching 10 per cent, which cannot but hasten the pace of the country's import substitution. Once the Chinese authorities reach a kind of entente with Japan, the potential market dreamt of by the multinational corporations is likely to shrink further.

The latter are, in the circumstances, anxious to maintain a toehold on the Indian economy. The designing foreigners draw sustenance from the datum that India's politicians and civil servants have developed a taste for venality. Some of the multinational companies are certainly hoping to bribe their way into India.

After all, going by his reputation the upper class Indian is not only generally venal, but is also the greediest of the human species, who will not mind selling the country short if the price is right. It is not for nothing that young Ph D aspirants in American universities are encouraged to do extensive fieldwork before they sit down to spell out on the computer their lush ideas on the role of corruption in economic development in poorer countries.

The insurance and patents bills are therefore not the central issue. The issue is repairing the moral fibre of which that modest Gujarati, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, had once talked about. Come to think of it, what he said is not qualitatively much different from the lesson derivable from the magnificent social dynamics Karl Marx had expatiated upon: a revolution succeeds because it is built on morality. Who knows, once liberalisation reaches an impasse, it would be the season for a moral comeback, even for the cash counting Indians.

Ashok Mitra

Business news