It is highly unlikely that the CPI leaders and their friends in the Congress seriously believe that the movement led by Mr Jayaprakash Narayan is being supported in any way by the CIA. They cannot be so naive as to think the US administration either wishes to throw India into a worse confusion than it is already in or thinks that there is a viable alternative to the present set-up headed by Mrs Indira Gandhi. On the contrary, they must know that America has a stake in India’s stability because a power vacuum in South Asia can only hamper its efforts to promote peace in the region and that Mr Kissinger has indicated in no uncertain terms that Washington is not interested in a change of regime in New Delhi.
The CPI leaders must also have an extremely low opinion of Mr Narayan if they believe that he can be so foolish as to have anything to do with any foreign agency. He could be careless about such matters when he was a non-controversial figure. As the leader of a major movement he is bound to be extra careful. Why then are they repeating the charge day in and day out?
Failure
The most obvious explanation is that they continue to take the view that anti-American feelings and the fear of the CIA are so widespread among a fairly significant section of the intelligentsia that it is enough for them to repeat the charge to discredit Mr Narayan. But they cannot be oblivious to the fact that their campaign has been a total failure. Instead of being discredited, the Sarvodaya leader has gathered support month after month and among no section of society more than among the students who are normally more susceptible than others to this kind of xenophobic campaigns.
This may not quite clinch the issue. It is not inconceivable that some of the CPI leaders have become prisoners of their own rhetoric to such an extent that they are no longer able to recognise its futility. But the same cannot be true of those who plan the strategy. They would not have stuck to the present approach unless they were hoping to achieve some other objective or objectives.
One major objective is to reverse the process of improvement in Indo-US relations. The CPI and its supporters in the Congress were visibly rattled by the success of Mr Kissinger’s recent visit to New Delhi and have since been working overtime to see to it that the government drops the policy of reaching better understanding with Washington.
They calculate that their campaign will create an atmosphere in which Indian ministers and officials will be chary of dealing with their American counterparts and businessmen, who may still be interested in making some investment in this country. They will only be too glad if the sceptics in the US administration and Congress get confirmed in their view that it is just not possible to have normal relations with India and are sufficiently provoked to resume sale of even limited quantities of weapons to Pakistan. The former can then be assured of victory over the pragmatists in the government who seek improved ties with the United States in this country’s larger and long-term interests.
Simultaneously, the CPI and its allies in the Congress are sparing no effort to convince the Prime Minister that, as in 1969, a fairly large section of the ruling party is not with her, that it has sneaking or in some cases not so sneaking admiration for Mr Narayan and that only a vigorous “anti-rightist” campaign under their auspices can prevent an open defiance by this group of Congressmen.
This does not mean that the CPI and the pro-CPI left genuinely trust Mrs Gandhi. They do not because they cannot possibly convince themselves that Mr Swaran Singh and Mr TN Kaul could have engineered Mr Kissinger’s visit without her explicit consent or that the so-called rightward shift in economic policies could have taken place without her approval, if not initiative. But they think that the policy of appearing to line up behind her has paid dividends in the past and would do so in the future.
As in 1969, the Soviet mass media have also endorsed the CPI line, apparently in the belief that this can assure for the Soviet Union a victory over the United States in terms of vocal Indian public opinion and that, as in 1969, it will not be called upon to raise its assistance to this country. But 1974 is not 1969. India was then more or less self-sufficient in food. Even if it was importing two to three million tonnes from the United States under PL 480, the success of the new high-yielding varieties of wheat had created an atmosphere of easy optimism regarding the future. This optimism applied to industrial development as well. It was then widely assumed that the nationalisation of leading banks, followed by a shift in credit policy in favour of the small man and curbs on big business houses, would release vast productive energies. Needless to say, the dream has turned into a nightmare and India is face to face with the gravest economic crisis in its history since independence.
Danger
This is not to suggest that the United States can be expected to meet India’s food deficits as it did in the ’fifties and the ’sixties but that those who seek to foster an anti-American atmosphere should be aware that they are providing it an alibi for avoiding the moral responsibility of doing what it can, in concert with other rich nations, to help in a bad year. The Soviet leaders, on their part, would also do well to remember that their unwillingness or inability to meet expectations which they will be arousing in the very act of approving of the anti-American campaign will rebound on them.This has not happened yet. But it is bound to. As people feel inhibited in making demands on the United States in view of poor political relations with that country, they will turn to the Soviet Union. It is no secret that Mr Swaran Singh first met Mr Brezhnev before he called on President Ford in search of food supplies.
Anti-Americanism is also incompatible with the policy of friendship with Iran. In this regard the CPI is wholly consistent. It does not approve of any kind of larger political understanding with the Shah. But one has only to examine the likely consequences of a lack of rapport with him to realise that the CPI is proposing a dangerous course. India will find it virtually impossible to replace Iranian credits. Even if that is possible, it cannot hope to establish the same kind of extensive economic relationship with any other oil-producing neighbour because of the absence of complementarity on the same scale. Above all, New Delhi will be in dire straits if it finds it necessary to compete with Teheran in respect of sophisticated weapons.
Crises
As a community we are not psychologically ready to face up to the fact that our economy has moved from one crisis to another since 1963 when we greatly increased the defence expenditure in the wake of a limited and unnecessary defeat at the hands of the Chinese in November 1962, that the talk of combining growth with a substantial outlay on security has turned out to be dangerous nonsense and that there is little hope of coping with the problems of inflation and stagnation unless we can reduce unproductive expenditure which, above all, means defence expenditure. Much less are we prepared to acknowledge that a wrong assessment of Chinese intentions, capabilities and priorities has been responsible for this sad state of affairs. But we should at least be careful lest we invite a fresh disaster as a result of mistaken policies.
Mrs Gandhi cannot but be sensitive to these risks and would no doubt wish to avoid them. But the time is past when foreign policy could be insulated from the atmosphere that prevails in and around the corridors of power. Thus even if she does not either participate or endorse the present anti-American campaign, she cannot hope to avoid the adverse consequences partly because she herself will be put on the defensive to some extent, partly because her ministers and officials will feel inhibited in doing the right things and partly because the other side can become at best indifferent and at worst hostile. The risk could be ignored at the height of the cold war in the ’fifties because India had good relations with Peking at the time and in the ’sixties because the United States was still obsessed with the fear of Chinese expansionism. It cannot be ignored any more.
The Times of India, 4 December 1974