Volume 6, No. 11, December. 2005

{In the light of the Indian Expansionists wild ambitions in South Asia we are presenting a brief history on this issue. This has particularly become more relevant in the light of the recent 13th SAARC Conference and the Indian ruler’s blatant intervention in the internal affairs of Nepal/Sri Lanka. Set up exactly two decades back SAARC has been used by the Indian rulers primarily as an instrument to promote the market of the big business houses in India (both comprador and foreign). At the present SAARC conference the Indian PM shamelessly pushed for the setting up of the SAFTA (South Asian Free Trade Zone) and to jointly fight so-called terrorism (i.e. the nationality and revolutionary movements in the region). At this meeting the PM went one step further calling not only for free flow of trade but also investments. In both Nepal and Sri Lanka the India rulers are giving vast amounts of military help to the local governments to crush the on-going movements there. While this article gives the background to Indian Expansionism, in a future article we shall give its recent developments…… Editor}

The expansionist ambitions of the Indian ruling classes and their political representatives began to take shape in the 1930s and 1940s when the Indian big bourgeoisie looked towards extending their business activities to countries outside India under the umbrella of British power and influence. Likewise, their political representatives also betrayed a ‘Great Power’ syndrome in no uncertain terms in their writings and letters even when some of them were still in prison. These expansionist ambitions of the Indian big bourgeoisie were closely tied up with the interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie and the role of the former as sub-exploiter was conditioned by their role as compradors—a role that had endeared them to and made them the most trusted lackeys of the British raj. When the ‘transfer of power’ was in sight, the Hindu compradors consisting, among others, of the Birlas, Thakurdases, Sarabhais, stood for a strong centre where they could dominate over others. The Muslim compradors consisting of the Ispahanis, Adamjis, Haroons etc, demanded a separate unitary state where they could thrive, being free from competition with the more powerful Marwari, Gujarati and Parsi business magnates. The Hindu comprador opted for a divided India with a strong centre, rather than an undivided India with a weak centre. The decision to partition the country along communal lines was taken mainly because of the Congress leaders’ pursuit of a monopoly of whatever power the British would concede before their departure. The ‘Big Power’ syndrome was reflected in their uncompromising demand to set up a strong centre under their control.

In fact, the Indian big bourgeoisie had a large stake in the British colonies in South-east Asia and East Africa. Their role was that of a sub-exploiter in other British colonies as in India. In Myanmar, Indian businessmen controlled about two-fifths of the value of imports and about three-fifths of the value of exports. The Indian Imperial Citizenship Association, of which Gandhi was a founder, and with which Thakurdas and many other Indian business magnates were actively attached, estimated total Indian capital investment in Myanmar in 1941 at Rs.250 crore. The Nattukottai Chettiyar group of Tamil Nadu alone owed one-fourth of the cultivable land in South Myanmar in the early 1930s. The Birlas, too, owned a starch factory there. In Malaya, the Chettiyar groups, besides other Indian groups, set up their trading and money-lending firms and made investments in rubber plantations and coal mines. In Sri Lanka, the import of trade in rice, flour, sugar and textiles was dominated from about 1908 by the Memon merchants from India. Claude Marcovits writes that "prior to the 1920s, Indian capitalist interests in Mumbai wanted to transform Kenya into an Indian sub-colony" (Indian Business and Nationalist Politics, Cambridge 1985, p.187). In East Africa, a Parekh family and a Patel group had big cotton trading concerns and set up cotton mills. Of the major groups, at least Mafatlal, Sarabhai and Thakurdas had considerable interests in Uganda. Thakurdas had important interests also in Tanzania. In this way, Indian big capital, protected by British guns, spread its tentacles to other British colonies to squeeze people of other lands and serve the British raj to serve itself.

The Indian big bourgeoisie, which prospered mainly because of its role as intermediaries to imperialist capital, wanted an India with a strong centre by their control over different national regions, by curbing the forces of genuine nationalism and suppressing various nations and nationalities of India. Before transferring power, the British imperialists also wanted to keep the unity of India in tact. They seriously wanted to have a ‘United India’ to serve their global strategy—political, economic and military. Moreover, the Indian big bourgeoisie aspired to become a zonal power in the Indian Ocean region as junior partners of the Anglo-American powers. The closing period of the second world war enabled them to see rosy visions of its future. This class minted gold out of the sweat and tears of the people of India during the war. The defeat of Japan in Asia, the decline in the power and prestige of the old imperialist powers like France and the Netherlands etc. whetted the appetite of the big bourgeoisie. They started dreaming of dominating not only South Asia, but also the entire Indian Ocean region.

These predatory aspirations of the Indian big bourgeoisie were voiced by one of their top political representatives—the man who was destined to be the first prime minister of ‘independent’ India. Jawaharlal Nehru was one of those who, irrespective of what his public statements were, abhorred the right of nations to self-determination. While in jail, he wrote: "…Whether India is properly to be described as a nation, or two, or more, really does not matter, for the modern idea of nationality has been almost divorced from statehood. The national state is too small a unit today and small states can have no independent existence" (J.Nehru, The Discovery of India, London, 1956, p.545). Statements such as these are in clear contravention of the UN Declaration on Fundamental Rights. He held: "…the small national state is doomed. It may survive as a cultural, autonomous area but not as an independent political unit" (The Discovery of India,p. 550). Again, he stated: "The right of any well-constituted area to secede from the Indian federation or union has often been put forward, and the argument of the USSR advanced in support of it. That argument has little application, for conditions there are wholly different and the right has little practical value" (p.548). Nehru’s wild ambitions knew no bounds. He asserted that it was Nehru’s ‘manifest destiny’ to become the centre of a "super-national state" stretching from the Middle East to South-East Asia and to exercise "an important influence" in the Pacific region (p.550). Nehru asserted, "So it seems that in the modern world it is inevitable for India to be the centre of things in Asia (In that term, I would include Australia and New Zealand too, being in the Indian Ocean region. East Africa comes into it also)….India is going to be the centre of a very big federation…"(Nehru, Selected Works, Vol.XV,pp.562,566). Nehru was quite prompt in affirming that "India is likely to dominate politically and economically the Indian Ocean region". In August 1945, he stated: " I stand for a south Asia federation of India, Iraq, Afganistan and Burma…In the world of today there are two big powers, Russia and America. In the world of tomorrow, there will be two more, India and China—there will be no fifth" (Nehru, SW, pp.440,441-2). That is not the end of such tall talks and wild dreams. Nehru considered Sri Lanka to be "really part of India" and wanted her to be "an autonomous unit of the Indian federation"(SW, vol.XIV, p.450; vol.XV,p.458;vol.X,p.32;vol.XI,pp.788-89). He also claimed that Nepal was "certainly a part of India", though she was a nominally independent country (ibid, 2nd series vol.II,p.470). Like Nehru, Patel too was afflicted with this ‘Great Power’ syndrome. He said: " Let India be strong and be able to assume the leadership of Asia, which is its right"( P.D.Saggi, Life & Works of Vallabhbhai Patel, Bombay n.d.p.89). On 7 November 1950, he wrote to Nehru: "the undefined state of the frontier (in the north and north-east) and the existence on our side of the population with its affinities to Tibetans or Chinese have all the elements of potential trouble between China and ourselves…Our northern or north-eastern approaches consist of Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Darjeeling(area) and tribal areas in Assam…The people inhabiting these portions have no established loyalty or devotion to India". So he proposed that "political and administrative steps" should be taken "to strengthen our northern and north-eastern frontiers. This would include the whole of the border, i.e., Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Darjeeling and the tribal territory in Assam"(Durga Das,ed. Sardar Patel’s Correspondence, vol.X,pp.337-8,340). Toeing in the line of Nehru that small nationalities are bound to be doomed to pave the way for the creation of the ‘Indian nation’(which is but a myth), Patel advocated the establishment of Indian domination over all these countries and regions in the north and the north-east.

The north-eastern part of India consisting of seven small states namely, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura is the home of many small nationalities like the Assamese, the Nagas, the Mizos, the Khasis, the Bodos, the Khamtis, the Karbis etc. and many other ethnic groups of people. They were ruled by some independent feudal kings and tribal chiefs. This region is rich in such natural resources as oil, tea, gas, coal etc. The British imperialists pursued a ‘forward policy’ in these regions, suppressed by force and other means the hopes and aspirations of the people living there and sought to integrate the north-east with the central administration. They were successful only in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Mehgalaya, while the peoples of Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura raised the banner of rebellion against colonial rule. In the post-1947 phase, the Nehru-led government, installed by the British, continued the same colonial legacy of national subjugation and what followed was the forcible mergers of these regions with the Indian state.

In March 1947, the maharaja and the ruling council of Manipur drafted a constitution for independent Manipur. Turning a deaf ear to the aspirations of the Manipuri people, Vallabhbhai Patel, the then home minister of India, compelled king Bodhachandra Singh to sign a document for the merger of Manipur with the Indian state. The maharaja sought to get some time to discuss the matter with his council, but was disallowed by Patel. The merger agreement was signed on 21 September 1949 and it became effective from 15 October that year.

Regarding Nagaland, Nehru wrote: " It (the Naga territory) lies between two huge countries, India and China…Inevitably, therefore, this Naga territory must form part of India and Assam…the excluded areas should be incorporated with the other areas"(Nehru, SW, vol.XV,p.279). As part of its‘forward policy’, the British annexed one part of the Naga territory and created the Naga Hills territory and created the Naga Hills District. The British followed a policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of the Naga Hills District, and the land bordering Tibet and Myanmar inhabited by the Naga people were left un-administered. But the Indian expansionists did not allow the Naga people to take their destiny in their own hands. They wanted to annex the whole of the Naga territory. On 7 August 1951, Nehru’s principal private secretary wrote to A.Z.Phizo, the leader of the Naga National Council, that "the Indian government would not allow any attempt by any section of the people of India to claim an independent state"(S.Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru, vol.II, Delhi 1979,p.208). Such was the plea given by the Indian expansionists to justify their annexation of Nagaland even though the Nagas had never been a section of the people of India.

Assam historically was never a part of present-day India. The Assamese nationality, consisting of such human groups as Ahom, Moran, Matak, Koch, Deurie, Chutia etc. rather grew in isolation and endowed with a racial and cultural heritage totally distinct from that of metropolitan India. Assam was annexed by the British on 24 February 1826, by virtue of the Treaty of Yandaboo, entered into with the government of Myanmar and was brought under unified Indian administration. Neither did this treaty have the concurrence of the Assamese people, nor was it ratified by the then rulers of Assam. The Indian expansionists took Assam over as if by natural right and thus Assam became an integral part of the Indian state in 1947. The same is true of other nationalities living in Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya etc.

Jammu & Kashmir: The Indian expansionists also sought to grab Jammu and Kashmir. On 14 June 1947, V.K.Krishna Menon, Nehru’s trusted emissary, appealed to viceroy Mountbatten to ensure that on the lapse of British paramountcy, Jammu and Kashmir should be allowed to be acceded to India in the interest of the ‘free world’, i.e., a world dominated by the imperialists and their accomplices (A. C. Bose, "J&K’s Accession-II", Statesman, 20 December 1995). On 17 June that year, Nehru sent a note on Kashmir to Mounbatten. After pointing out that the Muslims constituted 77.11 percent of the population of the state, Nehru stated that it should join India( N. Mansergh,ed. Transfer of Power Documents, vol.XI, pp. 446-48). In Nehru’s scheme of things, there were only options before J & K: one was the accession to India, which naturally, as the facts will testify, was Nehru’s heart’s desire; the other was accession to Pakistan. The third alternative, i.e., the right of the Kashmiri people to remain separate and independent was never acceptable to the Nehrus. In a document adopted at a conference held in 1944, known as Naya Kashmir, the National Conference led by Sheikh Abdulla envisaged the future state of Jammu & Kashmir as "an independent federation…like a Switzerland of the East"( See Bose’s article). In November and December 1947, Nehru declared that there should be a referendum on the issue of the merger of Kashmir with either India or Pakistan. Speaking in Indian Parliament on 7 August 1952, Nehru again declared: "We do not want to win people against their will and with the help of armed force; and, if the people of Jammu and Kashmir State wish to part company with us, they can go their way and we go ours. We want no forced marriages, no forced unions. I hope this great Republic of India is a free, voluntary, friendly and affectionate union of the States of India" (Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru’s Speeches, p.361).

However noble the ideal may appear to be, it contained not an iota of truth, as the following would testify. Within a few days—on 25 August 1952—Nehru sent a note to Abdulla, the then prime minister of J & K, in which he stated: "…our general outlook should be such as to make people think that the association of Kashmir state with India is an accomplished and final fact and nothing is going to undo it…I have held these views concisely and precisely for the last four years…What has sometimes worried me is what happens in Kashmir, because I have found doubt and hesitation there, and not clarity of vision or firmness of outlook"(Quoted in S. Gopal, op.cit,p.122). It was through cunning, deceit and coercion that the Indian expansionists annexed J & K to the Indian state.

Language has been used as an instrument of domination of the Indian big bourgeoisie over different nationalities of India. In fact, to promote the growth of ‘Indian nationalism’ and suppress ‘sub-nationalism’, the Indian ruling classes have tried for a long time to foist Hindi in Devanagari script as the common language of the whole of India. The mastermind behind this project was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. In order to solidify ‘Hindu India’, he proposed an ‘All-India script’ in Young India of 14 July 1927. He wrote: "before the acceptance of Devanagari script becomes a universal fact in India, Hindu India has got to be converted to the idea of one script for all the languages derived from Sanskrit and Dravidian stock…If these scripts(Bengali, Sindhi, Gurumukhi, Oriya, Malayalam, Kannarese, Tamil, Telugu and so on) could be replaced by Devanagari for all practical and national purposes, it would mean a tremendous step forward. It will help to solidify Hindu India (Gandhi, CW, vol.- XXXV,p.357). It was also his desire that Hindusthani should "become the language of the whole of Asia"(Gandhi, CW, vol.- LXXXVII, p.216). Quite revealing indeed!

In fact, Gandhi had been voicing the aspirations of the Indian big bourgeoisie whose political representative he was. The goal of the Indian ruling classes was to have a powerful centre in a unitary Indian state in the interests of the Hindu and Parsi business magnates. The ruling classes avoided open debates on the language question fearing that that would consolidate opposition and thwart the plan of imposing Hindi. Selig Harrison wrote: " Language provisions were pointedly omitted from the Draft Constitution of October 1947, as well as from all subsequent versions until the very last. In fact, Article 115 in the Draft Constitution, which dealt with the Hindi question, generated more heat than any other. Hindi was ultimately imposed as the national language by a margin of one single vote (78 against 77).

We have already referred to the letter from Patel, the home minister, to Nehru on the northern and north-eastern regions like Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan etc. where he suggested that administrative steps be taken to exercise control over them. In the case of Sikkim, India seized the opportunity of a local uprising against the ruler to send in troops and bring the state into closer dependence as a protectorate than it had been under the British. Annexing Sikkim has been the widely known ambitions of Indira Gandhi and her father Jawaharlal Nehru. After turning Sikkim into its protectorate and emboldened by Soviet social imperialist backing, the Indian expansionists became more unscrupulous than ever before. In 1973, the Indian government openly marched into Gangtok, capital of Sikkim, to take over Sikkim’s administration by force. In 1974, the Indian Parliament, in the teeth of strong opposition of the Sikkimese people and world public opinion, carried out the colonialist annexation of Sikkim by making it an "associate state" of India through an amendment to the Indian Constitution. . On 9 April 1975, the Indian government under the prime ministership of Indira Gandhi let loose its troops and forcibly disbanded the palace guards of Sikkim’s Chogyal. The very next day, Sikkim’s cabinet and national assembly, manipulated by the Indian expansionists, adopted "resolutions" demanding the removal of Chogyal and the turning of Sikkim into a constituent state of India. The fig-leaf of "protectorate" and of "associate state" had been completely cast aside, and Sikkim was turned in no time into a constituent state of India. Renmin Ribao commented: "It is indeed the height of arrogance for the Indian government to commit so outrageous an aggression in the 1970s" (Peking Review, no.16,April 18,1975).

In 1949 again, India signed a treaty with Bhutan, in which she took over Britain’s right to guide Bhutan in foreign affairs. However, to the Indian expansionists, Nepal was more important than many others in their imperial quest for regional hegemony.

The US ambassador to India, Chester Bowles wrote in 1954: "So India has done on a small scale in Nepal which we have done on a far broader scale on two continents" (Ambassador’s Report, London 1954,p.280). What did the Indian expansionists do to Nepal? The question is all the more important in the context of the Maoist offensive in recent years against both US imperialism and Indian hegemony. We would be brief.

The present state of Nepal—a mountainous region of about 500 miles and 100 miles in size was established in the second half of the 18th century through the forcible annexation of nearly 60 petty tribal and ancient states under the leadership of one chief, Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha. The process of state expansion continued till the early 19th century when semi-colonial position was thrust upon the state by the British colonizers with the signing of the Sugauli treaty of 1816 and had been further buttressed by a set of ‘unequal’ treaties forced to sign with ‘free’ India in subsequent years. The Indian ruling classes followed in the footsteps of their former British masters and continued with their expansionist designs. The outcome was the Indo-Nepal Treaty of 1950, the most objectionable provisions of which are as follows: so-called security commitments towards each other, restrictions to purchase arms by Nepal, "national treatment" to be given to the nationals of the other in one’s territory and the virtual scrapping of the political border between the two countries. Constant political manipulations exercised by the Indian rulers to put their puppets in power, armed intervention to crush rebellion in Nepal (e.g., Indian army operations to put down peasant uprisings led by Bhim Dutta Pant in 1953 etc.) clearly showed what the ‘Nehru doctrine’ actually stood for. This political control was matched by the almost total control of the Indian ruling classes over the economy of Nepal, including industry, trade and finance. The Indian expansionists have also established control over the vast water resources of Nepal. The Koshi River Agreement (1954), Gondak River Agreement(1960) and the more recent Mahakali River Treaty(1996) clearly reveal how the Indian big bourgeoisie is plundering the massive hydro-electric potential of Nepal. Accompanied with it is the social and cultural domination through fanning Hindu jingoism or corrupting the young minds through pornographic Hindi films.

The sovereignty of Nepal and other Himalayan states has actually been trampled underfoot to serve the interests of imperialism and their lackeys. In an article in the Times of India dt.2 February 1960, Prem Bhatia wrote that as the need arose to protect Nepal from Chinese "invasion or subversion", "the USA and India came to realize that their aims in Nepal were identical".

The Nehrus had a keen interest in Tibet also. As early as 25 April 1947, when India was yet to attain formal independence from the raj, Nehru, as a member of the viceroy’s ‘interim government’, informed the British secretary of state for India that "Government of India now wish to be represented in Tibet…and should be grateful to know whether His Majesty’s Government desire to retain a separate mission there in future. If they do not, it would seem feasible to arrange transition from a ‘British Mission’ to an ‘Indian Mission’ without publicity and without drawing too much attention to change, to avoid if possible any constitutional issue being raised by China"(N.Mansergh ed, Transfer of Power Documents, vol.X,p.430). At that time, a civil war had been going on in China when all the forces of progress joined hands with Mao Tse-tung and the Communist Party of China against the lackeys of imperialism and feudalism led by Chiang Kai-shek. Nehru started to develop a liaison with the Dalai Lama’s government in Tibet, which, as the London Times reported on 29 July,1949, was "a gratifying indication that an important new bulwark against the spread of communism westward is being created". Meanwhile, the Sino-Tibetan agreement guaranteeing the auto-nomy of Tibet within the People’s Republic of China was signed on 27 May 1951.

On 18 November 1950, one year after the birth of the People’s Republic of China, Nehru wrote: "We cannot save Tibet, as we should have liked to do, and our very attempts to save it might well bring greater trouble to it…It may be possible, however, that we might be able to help Tibet to retain a large measure of her autonomy. That would be good for Tibet and good for India. As far as I can see this can only be done on the diplomatic level and by avoidance of making the present tension between India and China worse"(Durga Das, op.cit,p.346).

Why was Tibet so important for Nehru? The successful accomplishment of the Chinese revolution, the spread of communist and national revolutionary movements in the countries of south-east Asia alarmed the Indian ruling classes as those had alarmed the imperialist forces. There was the fear—mortal fear that India would go the China way. This spectre of communism was voiced in the statements made from time to time by the Indian bourgeoisie as also by the representatives of the US imperialist state. As early as 1949, the Engineering Association of India, on which Indian tycoons were represented, stated: "…industrially-advanced countries like USA and UK should undertake the obligation of making India industrially great. The exigencies of the situation in South-East Asia require it and comparative inability of the Western powers to be of effective help in South-East Asia demands that India should be made strong in order that she may act as a bulwark against the rising tide of Communism in this part of the globe"(GOI, Report of the Fiscal Commission 1949-50, Vol.III Written evidence,p.80).

The Indian big bourgeoisie felt that India’s entente with US and British imperialism was essential not only for her becoming a big power, but also to combat their mortal enemy, i.e. Communism. Chester Bowles, the political representative of US imperialism also showed his deep anxiety when he stated: "…If the communists should win the struggle of Indo-China,…the consequence for India would be ominous. The Communists would then be in a position to bring overwhelming pressure on both Thailand and Burma, whether politically or by physical occupation of those countries…The continued presence of Chinese Communists on its northern border makes what happens in Nepal all the more important to India, and to the whole non-Communist world. If Nepal should fall before an invasion from Tibet, or from an internal Communist revolution, the Communists would be poised right on the Indian border, above the great heartland of the country and less than four hundred miles from Delhi" (Ambassador’s Report, op. cit,pp.247-48, 270). Bowles has made it amply clear that the spread of Communism would spell the doom of the imperialist system itself. So he sought to project Nehru as the role model defending Asian democracy in opposition to Asian Communism. The attitude of US imperialism was manifested in no uncertain terms in the Life magazine which stated: "Nehru is the greatest Statesman and diplomat, a man with vast qualities of courage and leadership. If we can find the right formula for joining our strength with his, the future of Asia and the World will become much brighter. We owe it to ourselves and all of non-Communist Asia to put heart into Nehru for the ordeal that lies ahead’(Cited in Editorial, ‘What Communist China means to India’ in Engineering News of India, Vol.I,No.6,September 1949,p.395). The New York Post wrote in October 1949 that India was "America’s hope in Asia"( Cited in J.Nehru, Inside America A Voyage of Discovery, Delhi, n.d.p.71). Another organ of US imperialism, the New York Times was more straightforward when it stated in August 1950: "He(Nehru) is in a sense the counter-weight on the democratic side(sic!) to Mao Tse-tung, to have Pandit Nehru as ally in the struggle for Asiatic support is worth many divisions"(Cited in R.P.Dutt, India Today & Tomorrow, Delhi 1955,p.275).

Nehru was quite willing to play the role for which US imperialism cast him, as he himself told Col.Louis Johnson, the then personal representative of US president Roosevelt back on 6 April 1942 that "India wanted to hitch her wagon to America’s star"(Nehru, SW, vol.XII,pp.194-5; TOP, vol.I,pp.665-66).

The border between India and Tibet—vast, mountainous, sparsely-populated, icy and desolate areas never under Indian administration—had remained undefined and undemarcated when the direct rule of India by the British ended in 1947. In April 1947, Nehru held that the McMahon line was the boundary in the eastern side of the India-China border and from November 1950, started to claim unilaterally that "…the McMahon line is our boundary and that is our boundary—map or no map"(Quoted in S.Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru, vol.II, Delhi 1979,p.176). Nehru simply brushed aside the unassailable fact that the Simla Convocation of 1914, where the McMahon line was drawn, was never ratified by the parties concerned, including the British-Indian government and China objected to it from the beginning.

To cut a long story short, the Nehrus were engaged in a dirty game to stir up revolt of the serf-owners in Tibet by training the Khamba tribes of Tibet in collusion with the US and the CIA with USA engaged in anti-China espionage from a base set up in Kalimpong in Darjeeling. Clashes with the Chinese border guards started from August 1959 when Indian soldiers crossed the McMahon line. Nehru made the greatest blunder of his life when he mistook Chinese restraint and Chou En-lai’s offer for talks as a sign of China’s weakness. What followed in late 1962 was Indian aggression against China and the ‘Himalayan debacle’ suffered by the aggressors. The Indian expansionists and their behind-the-scene American accomplices thus suffered one of the most stunning defeats in history. Nehru’s much-publicized ‘forward policy’ turned out to be an abortive one.

Very recently, it has come to light that at a meeting held on 9 May 1963, attended by President John F.Kennedy, General Maxwell Taylor, Foreign Secretary Dean Rusk, Deputy Secretary John Bell and Defence Secretary Robert McNamara, the US imperialists were considering the pros and cons of making an atomic attack on Red China in order to help India. In Taylor’s opinion, lending a helping hand to India was an integral part of the US global strategy of fighting Chinese Communism( The Statesman, 26-8-2005). Such wild ambitions harboured by US imperialism, however, did not materialize and President Kennedy himself fell to assassin’s bullets in November that year.

While the people of then East Bengal had the full right to secede from the oppressive Pakistani rulers the Indian rulers had designs to make it another Bhutan or Sikkim. In 1971, backed by different imperialist powers, especially the Soviet social imperialists and condemned by all the progressive forces of the world, the Indian expansionists attacked Pakistan and occupied the whole of East Pakistan. This war of aggression was the culmination of more than a decade-old imperialist conspiracy to force Pakistan to join India as a subordinate in an alliance directed against Socialist china and World revolution. Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister of India declared on 2 January 1972 that India would supply all the needs of Bangladesh( Ananda Bazar Patrika, 3 January 1972). For the supply of all the needs of the "new-born state" the Indian compradors had not only kept the army there, but had also sent a substantial number of civil and police officers. They rebuilt East Bengal’s damaged roads, railways, bridges, power houses, ports and even printed currency note for Bangladesh. They dumped textiles, coal, cement, petroleum and other shoddy products of theirs in the East Bengal market at high prices and bought raw jute, hide and skin, newsprint, paper etc. at cheap prices. Dhaka was visited not only by D.P.Dhar, Indira Gandhi’s special envoy, but also by economic, shipping, insurance and aviation delegations from India. Not only Indian vultures but also vultures from different imperialist countries flocked to have a share of the watermelon that is ‘liberated Bangladesh’. The US monopolists, too, were represented by the World Bank chief, that notorious McNamara and others. The so-called liberation of Bangladesh had brought cruel suffering, shame, humiliation, semi-starvation and slow death to the hundreds of millions of peasants, workers and other toiling people.

That is why the Indian rulers are hated in Bangladesh, not only by the masses but also a section of the Bangladeshi ruling classes. Many were assasinated including India’s chief stooge Sheikh Mujibur Rehman.

That the aims and interests of US imperialism and the Indian ruling classes were identical became evident with the passage of time. As the imperialist forces seek to globalize its forces to exercise their control over and plunder the underdeveloped countries of the world, it depends on such lackeys as the present Congress leaders at the national level and CPM leaders and other parties at the state levels. Besides building up defence agreements and conducting joint military exercises with the USA, Russia, France and other countries, the Indian expansionists have also quietly beefed up arms ties with Israel. In fact, Israel has emerged the second largest military hardware and software supplier to India after Russia. Recently, India has signed a $11.6-million contract with the Israel Military Industries to jointly manufacture 125-mm tank shells. In 2003 alone, India procured an estimated 42.7 billion worth of armaments from Israel (The Times of India, 17-2-2005). The wide array of Israeli high-tech equipment inducted into the armed forces ranges from the Barak anti-missile systems and Searcher-II and Heron UAVs to Green Pine and Aerostat radars. One major deal was, of course, the $1.1-billion contract for three airborne Phalcon early warning radar and communication systems to fulfill IAF’s long-standing requirement for AWACS (airborne warning and control systems). Not only that, the Indian army commandos, an elite force, could be used to help friendly governments. They can be used to rescue hostages, in anti-terrorist operations and to help friendly governments. This could be done in the name of national interests, as in the case of an operation in the Maldives (The Statesman, 25-10-2004). In these ways, the imperialists and their stooges in India and other countries are making frantic preparations to save themselves from the people’s wrath.

However, history has shown more often than once that it is not the weapons, but the people who are motive forces of change. The enemies, to use the words of Mao Tse-tung, are lifting rocks only to drop them on their own feet. The armed revolutionary warfare launched by the revolutionary masses of India will certainly bring this oppressive and man-eating system to a decisive end in the days to come.

10. AIPRF, Symphony of Freedom Papers on Nationality Question presented at the International Seminar held in New Delhi, February16-19, 1996.

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