ELECTION 99
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Let's forget 1962

In harsh summertime, the instinct is to seek cloud cover. The new regime in Delhi has made use of the cover provided by the distraction of the announcement of the Lok Sabha poll results so as to escape the embarrassment of across-the-board increase in diesel prices as well as of signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Pressure from the American administration as well as the World Bank- International Monetary Fund bosses was obviously intense.

The wages of both Pokhran and Kargil had to be paid. The additional budgetary deficit expenditure necessitated by the Line of Control clashes must be narrowed, say the wisdom dispensers from Washington, DC.

In any event, the fund-bank entities follow the signals set by the United States administration, which wanted to even scores and snub New Delhi because of its intransigence demonstrated by the implosion at Pokhran. The Americans now know they have got India comprehensively entrapped. The CTBT must be signed, or else the Indians will be cut off from all victuals.

Forget the American pressure. It is legitimate for anybody to raise questions on the issue of the waste of public money, of the tens and tens of billions Pokhran had called for. Within a week of Pokhran, the Pakistanis responded in kind; the supposed superiority in military prowess accomplished vis-a-vis Pakistan immediately proved to be a myth. This was on top of the opprobrium attracted by the obstinacy of our government in not signing the CTBT. The pretension of being a big power when the back up clout is missing is easily exposed.

It has therefore been a harrowing time for the government in New Delhi in recent months. A globalised economy has its own compulsions. Imports are up, exports are down, foreign institutional investors and Non-Resident Indians are proving to be exceptionally volatile in their mood. The US administration is in a position to choke the inflow of funds from these external sources. That is a terrible thought; the surrender to the Americans has accordingly to be most thoroughgoing. On top of all this, the consequences of the World Trade Organisation's tough regulations have to be coped with.

Pokhran and Kargil have set in train logistical requirements, the purchase of arms and material must have soared. Only the Americans have the capability to bail us out in these circumstances. There have been no screaming headlines, but the superpower, it can be taken for granted, is fulfilling the role history has assigned for it. The price it is extracting from India is extraordinarily harsh. But it could hardly be otherwise. India, the Americans have judged with precision, have nowhere to go. The government of India will now sign the CTBT, without a squeak of protest. It will also have to be on its best behaviour while expressing views on the WTO's Seattle agenda. It is in fact the beginning of the season for signing on the dotted line as behoves a subordinate power.

John Foster Dulles's dream of a pan-American universe has finally come true. Were he around, he would have been happy beyond measure at the turn of events. India is now no different from a teeny-weeny country such as Thailand or the Philippines, meek as a sheep, doing the bidding of the master. Even so, it continues to be an unstable state of affairs. The Americans are more than likely to discover to their cost that, whatever the superficial resemblance between emerging situations, India cannot be treated in the same manner as Thailand and the Philippines had been during the Cold War. It is much too big an entity. It also retains the memory of a not too distant past when it indulged in the luxury of a delusion of grandeur. It was, the records would show, the leader of the Afro-Asian movement and of the movement of the non-aligned nations which culminated in the Group of 77 in the United Nations forums.

Its government has since fallen on bad times. Adverse consequences have followed. It made a hash of the model of independent economic development. The experience of globalisation the economy is currently going through has no central focus. The economy cannot sustain itself at practically any level without huge external accommodation.

The country's political leadership, given its class roots, is quite prepared to yield all the way to the Americans. At least these leaders know how hollow the recent claim of a famous victory at Kargil is. India and Pakistan have been shown their place by the superpower: both countries better agree to play lap dog to the good Americans, thereby entering the zone of tranquillity.

Can this be a stable arrangement though? Memory will rankle the leaders of the subcontinent, the memory of times when they were the cock of the show. Ideological chasms have perhaps long ceased to be an issue, but the pride the nonaligned movement had bequeathed does not wither away. The pride, alas, has no longer any rational basis. Indians as a nation are, alas, yet to appreciate that fact. Chafing at American superbossism, they seek a credible way out. For a while, the hope is cherished that the European Union could offer a conceivably appropriate challenge to the US. That hope has since dimmed. The Europeans, it seems have little interest in the pastime of placing roadblocks to colonial-imperial pursuits by any neighbour, big or small.

Look around, look around, there may still be someone else willing to protect India from superpower overbearingness. Despite its immense wealth and resources, Japan though has not the least intention to assume any such role. It is well satisfied with its status as a sleeping partner of the Group of 15 community; if the Americans say it is high tide, so says the government of Japan; if the Americans say it is low tide, ditto the Japanese. Against this background, it will be altogether absurd to appeal to the Japanese to rescue us from the clutches of the superpower.

Quite candidly, just one country is in a position to help India escape the claustrophobia born out of American hauteur. The regard and deference China commands these days is without parallel in global history. The Soviet Union even in its heydays evoked widespread derision. No country, in contrast, dares to hate China.

China has maintained a rate of economic growth averaging more than 10 per cent per annum during the last decade. Western powers keep vying with one another to have a share of the huge market the world's most populous nation is able to offer. China is no part of the WTO, and yet the Western countries lean backwards as much as they can to offer the most favoured nation treatment to the Middle Kingdom. The prayer on every lip is to stay on the right side of China.

The noises Chinese leaders made on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic indicate that they are now willing to consider donning a more expansive role in world affairs. They have the wherewithal to offer a challenge to the Americans and other Western powers. If Indians are in desperate search of a senior patron to speak on their behalf and rattle the American establishment, China can fit that bill. And perhaps the Chinese, pragmatic to the core, will be willing to let bygones be bygones and agree to protect a distinguished fellow member of the ancient NAM from economic exploitation by the West.

It is the Indian administration which will be in a jam here. The Chinese can save us from American boorishness. Realpolitik would therefore suggest the wisdom of opening a line of communication with China. But wait a minute, is this not the same China which ''invaded'' our territory in 1962? How can we then accept the protective cover offered by it? To do so will be an affront to our national dignity?

These issues will crowd the arena, now that the counting is over and the Lok Sabha is about to be called to order.

Ashok Mitra