Ready for World War III?

As with ‘‘the first war of the 21st century’’, so did the first war of the 20th century begin with an isolated act of terrorism: the assassination of the heir apparent to the Habsburg throne, Archduke Ferdinand, in remote Sarajevo. The second world war completed the unfinished business of the first. Sixty million people perished in the two world wars; many millions more were killed in the hundreds of conflicts that engulfed the world in the next half-century. The bloodiest century in human history covered virtually every country in North America; North Africa and large swathes of sub-Saharan Africa; Australia and the Pacific; all of Europe, east and west; much of northern and central Asia from the Urals to Vladivostock and from Turkey to Tokyo; west Asia, east Asia and southeast Asia.

India, too, had its share of sudden death, notably during the Partition. But if in relation to most of the globe, India in the 20th century was substantially isolated from worldwide mayhem, that was largely the consequence of the non-violence of the Mahatma and the non-alignment of his principal pupil. The Vajpayee government has jettisoned non-violence. It is now readying itself to jettison non-alignment. Our land is in danger of becoming the killing fields of the 21st century’s first war.

It is argued that India is not seeking out terrorism, it is India which has been sought out by terrorism. And as India is part of the world which as a whole is menaced by terrorism, we must be part of the worldwide struggle against this new form of warfare. The flaw in the argument is that terrorism is not a homogeneous threat. The terrorist threat which most parts of the world face is not the same as that the western world faces. Certainly, the terrorist threats India faces, and has for decades faced, are not the same which stare George W. Bush in the face. Indeed, many of the most serious threats to us and our people have arisen and been sustained in North America and Europe: Khalistan, the LTTE, Kashmiri insurgents, and cross-border terrorism in both the northwest and the northeast. To this day, home-grown terrorism and cross-border terrorism against our country are funded and supplied from the West, sometimes actively encouraged, more often winked at, and never, never acted against with the determination which the US and NATO today expect, indeed demand, of India. And her neighbours.

And because the minatory tone which the US has adopted against our distant neighbour is music to Vajpayee’s ears, the Indian prime minister thinks he is adding to Musharraf’s discomfiture by proving New Delhi more loyal to Washington than Islamabad. Foolish. For Pakistan has its own compulsions to cooperate with the Americans. And Peshawar is a much more useful base for invading Afghanistan than the Agra airforce base, of which Musharraf has such annoying memories. Moreover, Peshawar is where the Americans pleaded with the Pakistanis to nurture the Taliban; history’s ironic smile is going to witness the same US-Pak collaboration in smashing the Taliban. The coming attack — carpet-bombing an entire nation to swat one Osama — will cement Musharraf’s ties with the American Dhritarashtra. We will be back to the SEATO and CENTO of Ayub Khan’s day and the resurgence of USA’s benediction to Bhutto’s assassin, Zia-ul-Haq, in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

There can be concerted international action against international terrorism only if the international community is of one firm mind and resolve as to what is terrorism, who are the terrorists and how they are to be fought. Will George W. Bush insist that Musharraf’s reward for joining hands with him in tracking Osama is that Musharraf must henceforth stop referring to the terrorists in Kashmir as ‘‘freedom-fighters’’? Will Bush tell the Dutch government that harbouring Isaac Chisi Swa and T. Muivah of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland in Amsterdam is no longer acceptable international practice? Will George W. convey to his British, French and Canadian lapdogs the message from the Sri Lankan president that succour and safe havens to the LTTE must end forthwith? Will Washington promise to nuke Beijing if China’s assistance to the Maoist terror groups in Nepal does not cease forthwith? Are the insurgents of the Chittagong Hill Tracts people who must be eliminated — or freedom fighters who must be helped? Should Bhagat Singh and Chandrasekhar Azad be celebrated or denounced?

Will George W. tell Ariel Sharon of Israel that sending helicopter gunships into Gaza to target bomb the Al-Fatah headquarters of President Yasser Arafat is terrorism of the same order that destroyed the World Trade Center? Or swear they will never again bomb someone else’s palace as they did when Muammar Gadhafi’s three-year old daughter was killed by the US Air Force sleeping in her cot? Or a pharmaceuticals factory in Khartoum pummelled because the CIA thought (oops, wrong again!) that it was Osama’s munitions manufacturing facility?

Does Washington regard the Chechnians as terrorists, as Moscow does? If Spain moves to do a Guernica on Basque separatists, will US marines be landed landed at Biarritz? Do Tibetans of the Dalai Lama’s persuasion qualify as terrorists, as Beijing insists? Are Altaf Hussain’s people in Karachi mujahirs struggling for justice — or terrorists, as the Pakistan government sees them? Is Aung San Suu Kyi a noble rebel, as we believe, or a dangerous subversive, as the Myanmar government perceives her? Why go so far? Will the US president crack down on Catholic and Protestant Irish Americans who have been relentlessly stoking terrorism in northern and southern Ireland?

Yes, it is a terrible tragedy that 5,000 innocents lost their lives to terrorism at the World Trade Center. But is it not worse that 500,000 infants have died in Iraq because the Americans orchestrated a blockade of essential medicines for over a decade? George W. will retort that it is Saddam, not Bush, who has brought this terrible retribution on the Iraqis. In which case, of course, we have to ask the president’s father, Bush Sr, why the Allies did not move on to Baghdad to eliminate Saddam. The answer, we all know, was the need to save American lives. In which case, will the ground war against Osama bin Laden be pressed with the loss of American lives — or is it only passing Pakistani shepherds who have to pay with their lives for American missiles that do not quite find their target?

There is a time for mourning. And in that time we ask not for whom the bell tolls. But when the bell starts tolling for our children still alive, we owe it to them, lest they die in someone else’s war, to ask whether the struggle is against all terrorists — or only those who are against Uncle Sam. Till the answer is received, Vajpayee has no right to drag us without our consent into World War III. That is what Gandhi told the Brits at the start of WW II.

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