Monday, May 17, 2010
‘Terror’ victims – US and India, having different enemies, should follow different strategies
The announcement of a list of ‘terror’ organisations by Indian authorities openly exposes how far Indian policies are dictated by US overlords and how US ends up imposing its own way even in administrative field by insisting on dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.
India had never had the need to publish any such list in the past nor has it to institutionalize a ‘war on terror’ regimen to respond to its own list of adversaries/enemies who have sapped its constructive and peace energies. The new modes operandi is unabashedly picked up from the US security and defence establishments. The commonality of names in list of the two countries will further strengthen how much India is being led through the nose by the overbearing US overlords.
US ‘war on terror’ is overlapping with ‘war on Islam’.
India has no mandate from its people to join any ‘war on Islam’. Indian administration had realised long time back, that even if an extremist Hindutva group is all for declaring an open war on Islam and Muslims, India’s integrity, security and internal peace cannot be compromised by following the uncalled for misadventure. India’s 200 million Muslims are well meshed with Indian democracy as far as it is allowed to and are peacefully integrated in its political environment. Any wholesale disturbance in this delicate balance of communal interactive equilibrium could be the first step towards the unraveling of the very Idea of India.
For the Indian public it is not a rocket science to figure out that US has its own compulsions in setting up a semi-permanent ‘War on Terror’ machinery that coincides with its hegemonical designs on Muslim world that is sitting on the largest oil reserves of the world.
India should learn and definitely has learned from its experience, as to how it had to eat humble pie and make up with Iran on more congenial terms than when it had chosen to oppose Iran at IAEA under strong open blackmailing pressures from the US.
It has now realised that the sacking of Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, who was in the forefront of negotiating with Iran the terms for gas supplies to India through Pakistan and/or through undersea pipelines was a blatant attack on India’s sovereign right to be free from such external pressures. Mani Shankar was sacked by open arm twisting by the Bush administration, who had Manmohan Singh government over the barrel with the stick and carrot negotiations leading to civil nuclear supplies agreement. In fact, nothing short of giving back the Petroleum Ministry to Mani Shankar will restore the confidence of the people in the bona-fide of their Prime Minister to confirm that his government is not mortgaged to the US handlers.
The Jairam Ramesh outburst over a vested interest coterie in Indian government and the ruling coalition partner, Indian National Congress, unreasonably hindering investments from China, is still fresh in public arena. It should be added for good measure that the same vested interest coterie is similarly against any investment from Arab investors, who are not only our major oil suppliers at present but could be for long term foreseeable future too. Indian government has hidden policies unknown to and uncleared by Indian public to close all investment opportunities to the US clique, to the exclusion of other more soft term investors. India should debate openly as to the clear benefit of opening Indian economy to different investors to hedge our future from vagaries of economic turmoil in western economies. It will give us more freedom to write our own future economic plans without being heavily entangled to the US and its dependants. Needless to add how our economy’s financial control parameters had kept us less prone to the recessionary upheaval that was direct result of uncontrolled financial trickery by Wall Street gnomes.
The recent arrest of an innocent Imam from Emirate flight taking off from New Delhi airport, on mere unsubstantiated suspicion by a US based NRI lady is clear proof how US media and security propaganda against Muslims is being reflected in Indian security, media and general public’s own profiling of Indian Muslims.
P. Chidambaram, India Home Minister’s instant intervention in ordering release of the Imam, shows how India is still independent in assessment of the profiling of its own terror suspect and is not needlessly and blindly following US dictates.
It is unimaginable that US President Obama, generally painted as proto-Muslim, would have reached out publicly and intervened to save any such innocent Muslim arrested in the State, over such flimsy pretext of Muslim profiling. News of such unwarranted arrests all over US are becoming very common and no human rights group has taken cudgels in earnest against such spurious profiling and demonizing of Muslims in the US that borders on hate crime by US authorities.
Indian authority should be rightly more vigilant to protect their freedom being eroded by their overbearing strategic partner, the USA.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
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