Comrades with a Chinese accent

After keeping the nuclear option open for over two decades, India has at long last had the courage to free itself from the shackles of this ...

After keeping the nuclear option open for over two decades, India has at long last had the courage to free itself from the shackles of this self-defeating stance. Within two days of the conduct of five crucial nuclear tests at Pokharan, India has been in a position to declare itself a nuclear weapons power. This is a resounding assertion of India8217;s freedom of action at an important turning point in the era of nuclear politics. Nothing else could serve national interests better at this juncture.

According to a group of Indian Marxist ideologues, however, all this is a worthless display of pseudo-nationalism8217;. They have indeed been consistently firm opponents of that nationalism which the overwhelming majority of the country8217;s politically active middle class and in fact the electorate as a whole have nurtured. This was so throughout the Indian National Congress-led struggle for independence as well as in the succeeding five decades since the achievement of this goal. For these oft-mislabelled radicals, thepopular notion of nationalism has always been a bourgeois disease. Their faith, instead, in the so-called proletarian internationalism remains unshaken. Their most notable contribution to the promotion of this overriding principle was, of course, their infamous united front with the British rulers when Gandhiji launched the Quit India movement in 1942. Likewise this was behind the Marxists8217; support to Beijing during China8217;s border war with India in 1962.

The same mindset has inspired not merely these apparently unattached Marxists but even the CPI and the CPIM to condemn the Indian nuclear tests. It goes against the grain for them to accept that these tests represent a vital breakthrough in the quest for credible security against blackmail in the new environment created by China8217;s acquisition of a sophisticated nuclear arsenal. Even if there were no Sino-Pakistan axis in existence and no Kashmir problem, this development would be of grave concern to India8217;s security planners. Both these dimensions onlyserved to heighten the need for New Delhi to put in place a new strategy without further loss of time.

The long-time ideological opponents of Indian nationalism are also trying to paint a frightening scenario as a result of India8217;s decision to base its security on nuclear deterrence. This view of nuclear deterrence is indeed a new ploy on their part. They had greeted with a deafening silence each of the 45 declared nuclear tests carried out by China since 1964. How come that throughout this feverish pursuit by China of the means of nuclear deterrence, the Indian communists never showed the slightest anxiety about a possible outbreak of a nuclear war in Asia? The answer lies in their conviction that China8217;s policy stemmed from genuine nationalism as distinguished from India8217;s alleged pseudo-nationalism.

Again, this convenient distinction is based on the great principle of proletarian internationalism. What, in other words, strengthens China8217;s nationalism, should be accepted by all true revolutionaries asthe latest manifestation of this canon enshrined in the Marxist-Leninist lexicon. When Pol Pot, a staunch Chinese ally against Vietnam, put at least a million Cambodians to the sword in the mid-seventies, then, too, the Indian communists showed supreme unconcern. That was yet another instance of solidarity, even if undeclared, with China as a duty enjoined by proletarian internationalism.

It must be said in fairness here that the Chinese ideologues, unlike their Soviet counterparts earlier, do not seem to have sought to manipulate their admirers in India. Such rectitude could have been dictated by Chinese pessimism about the future of the communist movement in India. For one thing, the Chinese are aware of the deep divisions even among those who swear by Maoism in this country.

More relevantly, the Chinese communist theoreticians cannot have failed to notice that the CPIM and the CPI have not yet managed to gain even ten percent of the seats in the central parliament in the twelve general elections heldso far. This has only underlined the party8217;s essentially regional rather than national influence. The Chinese leadership, therefore, cannot afford to ignore the fact that the vitality of Indian nationalism remains unimpaired.