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Ashok Mitra

If we do not have the courage to praise Iraq, we should at least have shame at our cowardly behaviour

India has not, till now, signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Given the commitments made by the nation's major political parties, it is unlikely to do so in the near future either. Consider a hypothetical situation that might arise as a consequence. History, of course, enjoys its little twirls and twists, there is no certainty about the manner global developments could take shape. But the following description is not an altogether improbable version of the conjuncture of events that could occur.

Suppose the United States, indubitably the world's only superpower, is annoyed no end with India's intransigence; how dare New Delhi not sign the treaty? The US administration will try to reason with Indian authorities, coax them, cajole them, and finally warn them about the retributions the country is to face if they do not follow the lead of almost all other countries and sign on the dotted line.

India, let us assume, continues to put up stiff resistance. Exasperated beyond words, Foggy Bottom finally decides to apply heat. It arranges to get a threatening resolution passed in the United Nations general assembly. The resolution directs the UN secretariat to commander a group of inspectors to visit sites in India, exposed or hidden, in search of nuclear bombs and bomb manufacturing material.

According to one interpretation, the resolution authorise the UN and its cohorts -- the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada, et al -- to apply force against India in case the latter refuses to yield ground. With the other members of the UN seemingly not interested in getting involved, the security council too endorses the resolution. As a result, the US claims the authority of the UN to bring recalcitrant India to book in case it bars the UN appointed inspectors from visiting the sites they have listed.

India has few friends to speak up on its behalf: atrophy from fear is a remarkable global phenomenon. The US administration handpicks a team of inspectors, and it has the gall to claim that it is acting on behalf of 'the international community'. The insolence in this claim is flabbergasting; an era eerie silence however reigns across the world, the US gets away with murder.

Soon, Western agents of dubious antecedents run over India in the name of the assignment bestowed upon them by 'the international community'. They look for nuclear bombs and fissionable material at all likely and unlikely places, including the architectural mounds of Khajuraho and Konarak; they peep into the musty interior of Calcutta's Victoria Memorial Hall; they come with their gadgetry and search for bombs in the lanes and bylanes abutting the Viswanath temple in Benaras. No success, but the US-led inspectors are nonetheless undeterred. So is the US administration.

Then comes the crunch. The inspectors have roamed but have not been able to discover a single piece of evidence suggesting the country has either actually manufactured nuclear bombs or secreted away any specific groups of fissionable material for sinister purposes.

The Americans are not prepared to give up. At this stage, they pitch in with an extraordinary command. They have, they allege, well-founded information that the Indians are using the President's estate, Rashtrapati Bhavan, as well as the inner sanctum of the Taj Mahal as secret niches for storing nuclear weaponry. The nation is outraged, and the government of India formally contradicts the allegations.

So what? The US administration, frustrated in its efforts till now to catch New Delhi in the wrong -- wrong as per Foggy Bottom's definition -- is determined to make an example of India. It gets another resolution passed in the UN general assembly: the inspectors selected by the US administration, this second resolution ordains, must be allowed unfettered access into the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the Taj Mahal. The resolution is endorsed, pronto, by the UN security council.

What should our government do when confronted with this resolution? Should it not assert the last vestige of its dignity and tell off the US administration: enough is enough, we are not going to surrender our nation's honour any more to satisfy your lowly whims.

Come what may, we will stonewall the entry of US spies and agents into the living quarters of our president and the private precincts of the Taj Mahal, never mind the gratuitous resolutions passed by the UN general assembly and the UN security council. The entire nation will without question back the government's decision not to buckle in. Irrespective of whether Bharat is mahaan or otherwise, its independent people will not put up with the supreme insult that the US wants to hurl upon it.

This is exactly what Iraq has done. Saddam Hussain's regime has informed the Americans, let hell freeze over, the so-called inspecting personnel flaunting the UN emblem will not be permitted to desecrate Iraq's presidential palaces. The rest of the international community, all honourable sovereign members of the UN, should have every reason to rise in their seats in the general assembly chamber and applaud the spirit of defiance demonstrated by Iraq.

Unfortunately, a pervasive apprehension of what the superpower might do to them grips the representatives of most other countries, so much so that they might forget the code that goes with ordinary decencies of life. They turn the other cheek as the world's master bully blasts away.

Two final comments. First, if we do not have the courage to praise Iraq, those of us occupying space in the rest of the world should at least have a sense of shame at our cowardly behaviour. Second, should there not be now a collective recounting of pastor Martin Niemoller's parable delivered six-and-a-half decades ago: 'First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I did not speak out because I was not a Catholic. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me' ?

Ashok Mitra