The Gulf War and India

Author(s): Sumit Sarkar

Source: Middle East Report, No. 170, Power, Poverty and Petrodollars (May - Jun., 1991),
p. 41
Published by: Middle East Research and Information Project, Inc. (MERIP)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3013250
Accessed: 15-03-2018 05:47 UTC

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 case most people failed to understand
The Gulf War and India why India should help transport "hu?
manitarian" cargo for US troops while
doing nothing for the civilians being
Sumit Sarkar bombed day and night in Iraq.
This policy generated massive pro?
tests, adding to the unpopularity of an
already discredited and unstable re?
the whole extremely critical. Roadside gime. Rajiv Gandhi's Congress (I),
From the
aroused a levelbeginning, thecon?
of interest and Gulf crisis which has propped up Chandrasekhar
conversation quite often made Saddam
cern in India unusual for an interna? into a hero. Protest movements because it is afraid of early polls, also
mounted, with numerous demonstra?
tional issue not directly involving this condemned the refueling. Only the
country. Much of our oil comes fromtions outside the US embassy andBharatiya
con? Janata Party, the principal
the Gulf region, and "Gulf money" insulates organized by every sectionHindu
of thecommunal political formation,
the form of remittances from Indians left, along with Singh's Janata Dal. preferred to remain silent.
working in Iraq and the Gulf states has There were, at the same time, some The Gulf war, first fruit of a world for
become a significant source of upward discordant tendencies. Sections of the the moment turned unipolar by the cri?
mobility in recent years. Then thereIndian urban elite, caught by the video- sis in international socialism, confronts
was the major problem of evacuation ofdish antenna bug, eagerly turned into decent people everywhere, and particu?
Indians from Kuwait and Iraq, whichdinner party chitchat a war trans? larly Third World countries, with new
the government of V.P. Singh managedformed for the first time into a live threats, difficult choices, and respon?
fairly efficiently. spectacle, made "vicariously delectable" sibilities. The temptation to seek short-
Until the outbreak of the war, con? in "glorious technicolour" (as Arvind term, maybe even personal or factional
cern seldom translated into marked Das put it in the Times of India). Hindu gains by falling in with an apparently
chauvinist groups, which have become all-powerful US will be considerable.
partisanship for any side. Iraq's seizure
formidable in recent years, are trying Refueling a few US planes at Bombay
of Kuwait was generally felt to be unjus?
tified, and economic sanctions on hard
the to depict Saddam as a typical could not have had much military sig?
Muslim
whole legitimate. But Iraq had been a tyrant and aggressor. In the nificance. The US just wanted to make
friend, supportive?unlike Saudi Ara?
surcharged communal atmosphere built clear who is master, and the most un?
bia?even on the endemic Indo-Paki- up in recent months, such propaganda scrupulous section of the Indian ruling
stan dispute over Kashmir. Among the did have a certain impact. But present? elite succumbed without a whimper.
ing Saddam as villainous, because ar- Provocations like Iraq's seizure of Ku?
politically aware, there was also a sense
of double-standards in the context of chetypically Muslim, was not easy. wait will have to be avoided, for no
the Palestine issue, numerous examplesSaudi Arabia has a far more funda? other great power will be willing to bail
of US aggression, and decades of West? mentalist reputation, and Hindu com- out a small state from considerations of
ern soft-pedalling on South Africa. munalism cannot afford to give up alto?
Cold War logic. Conversely, though, the
The massive US-led assault on Iraqgether its image as defender of "true," US could never have effected a military
comeback on this scale in West Asia
has changed things qualitatively, sharp?"national" values against the corrupt,
ening and polarizing sympathies. As modern West. without such a pretext.
American officials boasted of quick and The reaction of the present Indian Only the US, it would seem, can af?
easy victory, and news came of ruthlessgovernment, though, was quite unex? ford to be irresponsible in today's world.
bombing of civilians in Iraq, sympathy Yet the prospects of a stable and pro?
pected. Non-alignment, friendship with
mounted for a small Third World coun? the more independent-minded Arab longed Pax Americana seem extremely
try, unprincipled and errant no doubtstates, and a varying but always evident
dubious, and not just because the US is
opposition to Western imperialism a relatively declining economic power
when it grabbed Kuwait but fighting
have been central to Indian foreign pol?
heroically now against an alliance of 28 among the capitalist giants. The extent
states spearheaded by the mightiest icy since the mid-1950s. The minorityof world-wide popular protests right
military power on earth. The contrast,government of Chandrasekhar, resting from the beginning of the Gulf war were
highlighted by the international media,on the direct support of no more than unprecedented. As bombing became
between negligible early US combatantone-tenth of parliament, contradictedeven more barbaric?including the de?
losses and round-the-clock bombard? liberate missile attack on a well-known
this entire tradition by secretly allowing
ment of Iraq embodying the last word USin military planes to refuel in Indian air-raid shelter?solidarity spread, even
technological efficiency served to con?airports. No one took seriously though Saddam's record was far from
firm suspicions here that white racism Chandrasekhar's lame excuse that re? unsullied. No one can mistake him for
had gone on a rampage. fueling had been allowed on "humani?another Ho Chi Minh, yet the dream of
Indian newspaper comments were on tarian" grounds, since the planes werePax Americana may end in an awaken?
not
Sumit Sarkar, a historian, teaches at fielhi Univer? carrying military supplies. Theing as rude as that administered by
sity. Vietnam 15 years ago. ?
planes were not searched, and in any

Middle East Report ? May-June 1991 41

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