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Clinton’s quick trip to South Asia no quick fix By Eric Margolis March 19, 2000 President Bill Clinton’s trip to South Asia will focus world attention on this long-neglected subcontinent which contains 20% of mankind and is fast becoming the globe’s newest crisis zone. Clinton will spend most of his time in India just as this great nation is facing the most hopeful and most dangerous period since independence in 1947. India’s relentlessly growing population reached one billion last fall; within two decades, it should surpass China’s, which has stabilized at 1.24 billion people. India’s unrestrained population increase consumes much of the significant growth in economic output and development it has achieved over the past three decades. When Clinton arrives in New Delhi, he will find himself in two Indias. His hosts will proudly display `new’ high-tech India, a nation of 100 million highly-educated urban dwellers in powerhouse cities as Bombay(Mumbai), Delhi, Ahmadabad, and India’s Silicon Valley, Bangalore. India is now a world leader in computer software; its powerful industrial base produces everything from space technology and aircraft to advanced pharmaceuticals. `Bollywood,’ aka Bombay, churns out a flood of movies, videos, and music heard around the world. Indian culture is becoming world class. American exporters hunger for India’s vast market, which is being slowly opened and liberalized by the BJP government after decades of official anti-business socialism, a legacy of British rule that still afflicts another ex-colony, Canada. Still, India’s economic output was only US $469 billion in 1998, roughly equal to South Korea, a nation of 47 million, and well below China’s $703 billion. Happily, the old era of famines and plagues is long gone. But India’s per capita income lags at $1,700 versus China’s $3,700. The reason: Communist China ditched marxist economics twenty years ago, democratic India has just began. . The second India, which Clinton will not see, is ancient Mother India, a vast agricultural land of 900 million peasants in remote, dusty villages held in thrall by rapacious money lenders, feudal landlords, and the pervasive caste system that condemns many Indians to a life of inherited indentured servitude. Successive governments in Delhi have battled against the pernicious caste system , but its deep roots in traditional Hindu culture are tenacious and unyielding. Mother India is an embarrassment to many hip urban Indians, rather like poor relatives are to nouveau-riches. Yet while urban India booms, at least 400-500 million Indians live below even India’s frugal definition of poverty, subsisting in the streets, utterly destitute, shattered by misery, sickness and despair. Conditions in neighboring Pakistan are only slightly better; in Bangladesh, even worse. Indians have long complained the world does not give them their due, both as heirs of a rich 3,500 civilization and as cultured, educated, talented people. They are still too often seen through the prism of British racist distortion and deprecation. Recall Churchill’s dismissing Gandhi, one of history’s great men, as ` a half-naked fakir.’ For too many westerners, India still equals abject poverty, disease, palaces and curry. India is determined to become a super-power, dominate South and Southeast Asia, and gain respect – or fear, if necessary – that Indians believe they deserve. Once Kashmir is peacefully resolved, India should be invited to join the Security Council. President Clinton’s avowed goal in visiting India is to convince Delhi to cease developing nuclear arms – though Washington previously turned a blind eye to India’s large nuclear arsenal while lambasting Pakistan. This column has long maintained India, a potential target of nuclear attack by China, has every right to nuclear arms. India correctly accuses the west of `nuclear apartheid.’ If France or Israel can have nuclear arms, why not India? But India’s rush for respect and great -power status has created dangerous tensions in Asia. In 1998, India’s nationalist BJP government rashly declared China `India’s number one enemy.’ The two geopolitical rivals are in a conventional and nuclear arms race. In 1999 the BJP staged atomic tests - nuclear -`Viagra’ - to boost its polls. India is deploying new nuclear-capable missiles, developing intercontinental and submarine launched missiles, and space warfare systems. Meanwhile, India’s ongoing brutal repression of rebellious Muslims in Kashmir and Sikhs in Punjab, is tarnishing India’s reputation as a vibrant democracy guided by high moral values. India routinely violates its own constitution under the pretext of `fighting terrorism and subversion.’ The hyper-sensitive BJP furiously rejects all foreign criticism, even by India’s old friends. India’s ambition to dominate South Asia has long been frustrated by arch-enemy Pakistan. The undeclared war being waged by the two sides over divided Kashmir could erupt into full-scale conflict – and go nuclear – any time. As threats and fighting mount, neither Islamabad or Delhi fully understands the amplitude of dangers they face. To intimidate Pakistan, India just announced a staggering 28% increase in military spending – the increase alone equals Pakistan’s total defense budget. China riposted, upping defense spending 13%. War clouds are gathering over the Himalayas. Hopefully, Clinton may help lessen tensions in South Asia. India and Pakistan two of the world’s poorer nations, are on a collision course. Pakistan is being crushed by the cost of confrontation with India. India, half of whose people lack indoor plumbing or clean water, is racing to develop ICBM’s and anti-missile systems. Both nations need a big blast of common sense. Copyright: E. Margolis, March 2000 War at the Top of the World – the struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet by Eric Margolis will be published in New York by Routledge – available mid-March 2000, also available through amazon.com
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