Saswat Blog

The lesson that China provides is simple, yet very revealing. True that the old guards of the left haven’t had a say in decades, during which periods, puppets of free markets, like Jiang Zemin have only created a “privatized” communist party by allowing business houses to have a say in the country’s governance. It’s also true that the current president Hu Jintao has proved no better with his pro-market initiatives whereby China allows FDIs worth billions in its continued commitment to the World Trade Organization, the single biggest global testament of capitalism.

Alongside, Wen Jiabao, who can be called the Manmohan Singh of China, in that both the prime minister are famous for their constant adoration of a brand of liberalization that promotes national growth only to increase rich-poor divide, has also kept the official policies of China in line with free market than socialist economy.

Clearly it signals two things: after its official differences with the erstwhile Soviet Union following Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin in early 60’s and of the Soviet-Chinese border clash in the mid-60’s (following Czech crisis), the US of A has grown to be a bigger player in determining Chinese future courses. It became apparent also recently with the unfolding of Nixon archives , where it was found that the US was clearly subverting the subcontinent region by playing China and Pakistan against India in Indira Gandhi’s pro-Soviet decision to liberate Bangladesh. If not in relative types, in certain degrees more or less, the bipolar world (highly ideology driven, and entirely governed by conspirators who were no mythical then as active they are today) has continued to exist.

I would argue that from an entirely Eurocentric view, the end of cold war may have signaled an end to bipolarism and hence led to the demise of the ideological battles. But from an international peoples’ viewpoint, this is entirely untrue. First, the cold wars were never cold—the obsession to contain communism from spreading caused to numerous mass-scale wars initiated by the pro-capitalist lobby of western militarists in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Secondly, after the demise of Soviet Union, the philosophy and practice of communism never withered away. Rather quite a few places in the world started grappling with the fact that the power of capitalist lobby that they were in constant tussle with, in cooperation with the erstwhile Soviet Union, were looming yet larger without the union. It led even Fidel Castro to buckle under pressure, letting Cuban economy go liberal (a topic not often discussed, lest it becomes another classic case of study to see the disparities in economy during and after a socialist economy). Likewise, just about the same time that his long time friend Nelson Mandela had declared emancipation of working class in the South Africa, to avoid a further escalation of peoples’ armies, the world body “granted” immediate power to the African National Congress, not to lead a revolution by no means, but to conduct structural adjustments with the oppressor class of the country and simmer down the power of its revolutionary peoples forever by singing the garb of newly declared (and never found) freedom. The 90’s heralded the so-called liberation of Eastern European economies too—Czech, long considered as occupied (by the western media), the Poland of its Pope, who never lost interest in ranting his anti-communist views in every trip to his land, and in his enthusiast trips to all lands the then communistic. In other words, the economic pressures, after the systematic downfall of the Russian communism definitely led to (in)voluntary end of many socialist economies in the world. The capitalism had succeeded to intervene in many countries, by sheer intervention, blackmailing, and economic hijacking.

But what had not ended was the bipolarity of the world. What had never ended was the battle of ideologies. With the much less publicized, way less talked about hundreds of events of protests against the world trade organization (the holy cow of capitalism, considering the fates of people who voiced anything undesirable about it) in several countries of the world, where millions of protestors clearly represented the unified voices of the billions of underrepresented people of the world, the private media industry refused to acknowledge these contradictions of its ‘free world’.

With the homegrown crises of capitalism rocking its world, increasing the poverty circles in the so-called western societies, the ruling elites (who also call themselves G-7) decided to shift focus from their unique needs (a la Nato) to massive onslaughts on the economies that still refused to partake in its expansion mode (a la Wars). What we saw in the early 90’s throughout the world was a with-the-enemy-or-with-us approach to free trade agreements. By the mid 90’s, several of those poor yet dignified countries of the so-called third world had already succumbed to the papers. Those who did not, or did so partially, (like India’s yes to markets, and no to NPT), there have been pressures which would eventually make them do so. Recently, Indian PM’s overly enthusiastic agreement to everything that was on the offing is one indication. Not only during the late 90’s, the partners in crime of global militarist lobby, the Indian right wing party BJP was allowed to conduct the N-test, thus leaving behind a corpse of past glories of disarmament advocacies, but with the present Singh government, the unabashed partner in crime of the global capitalist lobby, it was allowed to enter into nuclear pact –very soon it will also sign the NPT. Ha! Don’t be surprised—and go have a dance of death on the debris.

Again, not to say that the entire country of India was dancing on the deathbed of its dignity. Indeed a huge majority of people in China or India –that comprise the majority of people in the world, by the way—work in agrarian sector (if that helps to shatter the myth of a “great Chinese consumer class”, a “great Indian middle class” or “the hi-tech India/China”) and they did not dance to the tunes of mantras that would bereft them from whatever they still have—a home in the forest they do not want to give away to the industrialists, a village by the river they do not want to sacrifice, a low rent apartment in the cities they do not want to let go for their inability to pay higher on the same, a medical bill that continues to spiral by global price rise, a grocery bill that rises in price for essential commodities. This refusal to buckle under pressure to the high price rise of essential commodities, a avowed disapproval to any moral deviation from the disarmament pledge, an economic decision to live cooperatively, a social rejection of the conditions leading to disparities between the elites and the poor—this is an ideology that’s shaped to counter its only one opponent—the high priests and missionaries of corporate capitalism.

The most glaringly obvious example today can be found in China today. The introduction of a bill to usher in right to privileges to the private property owning class, has been challenged highly and mightily by the minority left law makers, making it almost difficult to bridge away from the main question. The question, that was being taken for granted for so long as a non-existent one. A question when answered will show not the predictable fall of communism, but the predictable trends of market economy that result in greater divide between the rich and the poor. In the resurgent neo-capitalist China of 10% annual economic growth, the disparities between the rich and the poor has in fact grown in the proportion of 3.3:1. The case for every capitalist economy is more or less same or worse today in the world, with the flagship country US reeling under economic crises of the poor majority which it refuses to officially acknowledge. But the crack, beginning with China, has started to show and the pundits of market reforms better watch out.

The national economic growth does not have anything to do with the poorest section of the society, purely because the line of development, until taken in the direction of cooperative economic emancipation, will not broaden its base to be inclusive; rather from a purely economic sense of competitive market economy in a capitalist or neo-capitalist society what will prevail are monopolistic trends, bringing in more profits alone, to stay exclusively elitist. For all we know from our basic standards of education, profits are differentiated from welfare in that, they are hoarded for personal greed, not distributed for social benefits.

Exactly 21 years ago, Indira Gandhi was assassinated.

And as the war mongers have triumphed ever since, her character sketches are being redrawn.

Latest one is related to the Mitrokhin papers. Vasili Mitrokhin is no more, but the defected ghost continues to hunt the lesser politicians of India and even prompting some right wing nick pickers to demand that they want to see the Supreme Court inquire into the allegations. Apparently the press world over have taken uncanny interest in his work, claiming that he is the most credible source to speak on KGB.

Of course, the serious observers know that Mitrokhin is a disgraced KGB man. Even at the peak of Soviet era, he was being assigned to accompany the Soviet team to Olympic Games. In 1956, he was removed from any field work related to KGB after his mishandling of operational assignments. That was the reason why he was shifted from operational work to archives work and told that he would never be able to work on field again (this indicates his failure as a operative of any worth, and not again, being relegated to the job, not an archivist anyway to begin with or skilled with). Even as an archivist, he was known to be one who stole documents. Traveling (not escaping or anything) to Latvia, well after the era of communism was over in USSR, his first door was CIA. Even in 1992, CIA did not consider him credible and no one believed his fake documents. Clearly American intelligence agency which had outwitted KGB scores of times before leading to the demise of the communist state, was dismissive of this man.

Finally he found a buyer in M16, an agency which is less active than Indian RAW in the post-world war period. And he found a publisher too. So much ado about nothing.

The issues he espouses about India (that Indian politicians have taken money from KGB) are pretty stale and unimportant. Even if they were accurate, there is no reason why anyone in the Congress Party need to be ashamed. In the era of the Cold War, it is an open knowledge that India was on principle supportive of many Soviet stances than the American. The way his book has now snowballed into a major political controversy in India with the opposition BJP demanding that the government should come out with a white paper on the sources of funding of political parties from abroad and set up an inquiry by Supreme Court judge into the allegation contained in the records of the disgraced KGB official, it seems the right wing leaders of India are yet to mature.

Unless of course BJP and the family support what President Nixon and Henry Kissinger were speaking about Indians during the period. Of course during the 70’s, the right wingers were all so glued to the Americanization. Decades later, what seems obnoxious must be sounding so just and sane to the right wingers in India.

Is the issue at hand something about money that the Soviet Union’s Ambassador in New Delhi from 1977 to 1983 Yuri Vorontsov has publicly declined? “It’s rubbish! Indira Gandhi or her Congress Party never took KGB money,” he said recently ridiculing the Mitrokhin Papers. He has even further logic:
“Gandhi and the Congress as the ruling party could have raised any amount of money through Indian business houses and were not in need of foreign funds. Yes, I know that the Communist Party received funds from the CPSU (Soviet Communist party) like any Communist Party of the world. It was never a secret for anyone. They (funds) were transferred through non-diplomatic channels, so I am not aware of any transactions,” Vorontsov said.

Or is the real issue about Indira Gandhi’s decision at that point: to support Soviet Union or to submit to the United States?

Here are excerpts from Gandhi’s letter to Nixon:

New Delhi, August 7, 1971.

It is not for us to object to the United States maintaining, as you, Mr. President, have put it, “a constructive relationship with Pakistan” so that the U.S. may “retain some influence in working with them towards important decisions to be made in that country.” We have waited patiently and with restraint, hoping for a turn in the tide of events which the Government, Parliament and people of India could recognize as a step towards a political settlement.

I believe that the Government of the United States supports the view that the posting of U.N. observers on either side of the frontiers of India and East Bengal could solve the problem of the refugees. We regret that we do not see the situation in this light. India is an open democracy. We have a large diplomatic corps and many representatives of the world press. We have had visits of parliamentary delegations from various countries. All are free to travel and to visit the refugee camps. They see for themselves that although we are doing all we can for the refugees, life in the camps is one of deprivation and acute discomfort. Hence it is unrealistic to think that the presence of a group of U.N. observers could give any feeling of assurance to the evacuees when every day they see new evacuees pouring in with stories of atrocities. Would the League of Nations Observers have succeeded in persuading the refugees who fled from Hitler’s tyranny to return even whilst the pogroms against the Jews and political opponents of Nazism continued unabated? In our view, the intentions of the U.N. Observers might be more credible if their efforts were directed at stopping the continuing outflow of these unfortunate people and at creating conditions which, to any reasonable person, would assure the safety of life and liberty of the refugee who wishes to return to East Bengal.

I should like to mention one other matter. Our Government was greatly embarrassed that soon after our Foreign Minister’s return from his Washington visit and despite the statements made by Ambassador Keating in Bombay on April 16 and by the State Department’s spokesman on April 15, 1971, came the news of fresh supplies of U.S. arms to Pakistan.

It was a sad chapter in the history of our subcontinent when the United States began to supply arms to Pakistan in 1954 and continued doing so up to 1965. These arms have been used against us, as indeed we feared they would be. And now these arms are being used against their own people whose only fault appears to be that they took seriously President Yahya Khan’s promises to restore democracy.

In the midst of all the human tragedy, it is some relief to contemplate the voyage of the astronauts in the Apollo-15. These valiant men and the team of scientists supporting them represent man’s eternal longing to break from the constraints of time and space. As I write this, the astronauts are heading homewards, back to our earth. We pray for their safety and success. Please accept, Mr. President, our warm felicitations.

I was glad to have your message regarding your initiative to normalise relations with the People’s Republic of China. We have welcomed this move and we wish you well.

And here is what Nixon and Kissinger were upto:

President Nixon and Henry Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House on the morning of November 5, 1971, to discuss Nixon’s conversation with Prime Minister Gandhi on the previous day. Kissinger’s overall assessment was that “the Indians are bastards anyway. They are starting a war there. To them East Pakistan is no longer the issue. Now, I found it very interesting how she carried on to you yesterday about West Pakistan.” He felt, however, that Nixon had achieved his objective in the conversation: “While she was a bitch, we got what we wanted too. She will not be able to go home and say that the United States didn’t give her a warm reception and therefore in despair she’s got to go to war.” Kissinger judged that Gandhi had been thwarted in her objective: “She would rather have had you give her a cool reception so that she could say that she was really put upon.” Nixon agreed: “We really slobbered over the old witch.” Kissinger felt that on matters of substance, nothing of importance had been conceded: “You slobbered over her in things that did not matter, but in things that did matter, you didn’t give her an inch.” Nixon and Kissinger agreed that in the upcoming conversation with Gandhi the approach to take was to be “a shade cooler” and allow her to do more to carry the conversation than had been the case in the initial conversation. (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Recording of conversation between Nixon and Kissinger, November 5, 1971, 8:51-9:00 a.m., Oval Office, Conversation No. 615-4)

Now if there would have any reason for outrage, Indians very well have one. When will the BJP, keeping aside its hawkish mindset, get it straight.

Maybe this time. Here is the telephonic conversation between President Nixon (P) and Kissinger (K):

/1/ Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box 370, Telephone Conversations, Chronological File. No classification marking. The President vacationed in Key Biscayne, Florida, December 3-5; Kissinger was in Washington.

December 3, 1971, 10:45 a.m.

K: Two matters I want to raise. It appears that West Pakistan has attacked because situation in East collapsing. State wants to use it as a pretext not to put out statement/2/ at noon. I think it’s more reason to cancel programs. State believes and I agree that we should take it to the Security Council once actions are confirmed. If a major war [develops] without going to the Security Council it would be a confession of poverty.

/2/ Reference is to a statement announcing the cut-off of military assistance to India.

P: Who will object?

K: India and the Soviet Union.

P: So we have to.

K: Apparently no one else will. Even the liberal papers are supporting that.

P: I am for that. We have to cut off arms aid to India. We should have done it earlier. Allow India bias.

K: Yes.

P: Sisco’s part? He isn’t pro-Indian. It’s what they want below.

K: Sisco has no convictions. Liberal, [omission in the source text], socialist syndrome. The Indians will just add-

P: I have decided it and there is no appeal.

K: I also think-

P: I wrote it independently of anyone and I am surprised it hasn’t been done.

K: It won’t reach the UN tomorrow or late today. We shouldn’t make a catastrophe of everything we have done and why Indian actions unjustified.

P: So West Pakistan giving trouble there.

K: If they lose half of their country without fighting they will be destroyed. They may also be destroyed this way but they will go down fighting.

P: They will have enough for a few days. It puts the Soviets on the spot.

K: I think I should give a brief note to the Russians so that they don’t jump around about conversation yesterday and say we are going on your conversation with Gromyko./3/ A strong blast at their Vietnam friends and behavior on India. We are moving on our side but they are not doing enough on theirs.

P: On India certainly but on VN I wonder if it sounds hollow.

[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to South Asia.]

P: Pakistan thing makes your heart sick. For them to be done so by the Indians and after we have warned the bitch. Their [omission in the source text] and that but they have brought it on. We have to cut off arms. Why not? Because attacked by W. Pakistan. Tell them that when India talked about W. Pakistan attacking them it’s like Russian claiming to be attacked by Finland.

K: They will do it or we will do it from Key Biscayne. It’s a hell of a way but we can do it and I will get that message to the Soviets.

Following is my critique of an article on Chinese Cultural Sphere.

The Net is the world’s only functioning anarchy but it could soon become a major tool for democracy. By allowing anyone, everywhere access to the information and opinions of anyone else, anywhere else, a morsel is being given to mankind with one instruction: “Eat Me, so that we may grow.” (Fenchurch, 1994, p. 11)

Goubin Yang assistant professor in sociology at University of Hawaii in Manoa, who authored and presented a paper “The Internet and the rise of a transnational Chinese cultural sphere” at a conference in New York, on China’s Environmental Discourse, makes case for two premises: one, that the internet for Chinese population, has facilitated global mass protest movements, and two, inside China, online ‘spaces’ have influenced civil society development. The paper appeared in ‘Media, Culture & Society’ (Vol 25, Issue 4, 2003) with the underlying assumption that online media have given birth to a transnational Chinese cultural sphere.

Read the entire article here.

Very Interesting Chinese Blog here
Just some students at Berkeley. I think its a great job, folks! But what I always keep seeing is China’s obsession with Japan, at least as seen by the Chinese scholars abroad. Must have been such a break for Indian politicians of late. No news is good news.

Chinese restriction on political contents on Internet is not news. The latest release of Liu Di who had been arrested since November 2002 for having criticised the jailing of internet dissident, Huang Qi brings the issue back to focus. What however intrigues, is the interest China shows when it comes to marketing on the Internet. Marketing its Internet community versus Marketing for its Internet community sure are two different things. I guess China is doing pretty bad on the former.

India and China have eased visa restrictions. Great going guys. Both on the same route to be American puppets. And finally recognize the common grounds!

Indo-Sino Bhai Bhai!