In My View

India’s Day Out

Christmas is the time when Hollywood studios usually release the important movies of the year – the feel good ones – when American good always proves victorious over Evil. One such movie a few years ago was “Baby’s Day Out.” Readers might recall the superhuman things a baby in a crib did to emerge triumphant at the end – and all coincidentally. More specifically, each circumstance presented such specificities that they all worked out in the baby’s favour. Some may call it providence; others would simply say that it was being in the right place at the right time.

For some strange reason, while writing this column on India’s engagement with the world on the nuclear issue, one remembered about the film. Like the baby in the film, Indian elite too wanted to have their day in the world stage. They wanted to be one of the Big Boys. And they wanted to be seated at the same table where the sole superpower of the world holds sway. So George W Bush decided to give Indian a chance. “What’s the big deal? Its no skin off our nose,” he must have thought.

But the nuclear realm has complicated rules, not just to maintain the monopolies of those who are mostly the propounders of such rules that exempt them; but also to ensure the interests of those allies who have foresworn the nuclear weapons option for various reasons. So in the current negotiations with the USA for a civilian nuclear agreement, India is not just dealing with the USA, but sizable sections of the world – mostly belonging to the West– who are tied to each other and the USA by umbilical chords of interests and obligations.

But who constitute the Indian elite that were so desperate to engage the world? In terms of social anthropology, this is a blend of upper caste, upper and middle classes, who have achieved the most of what comprises the material Shangri La and seeking a sort of spiritual actualisation that social mobility affords. But in the nuclear realm, there is a little twist in the tail. For in nuclear arena of science and policy, the leadership is in the hands of upper castes from southern India and from Punjab.

The southern Indian upper caste is a dispossessed lot, to an extent even disenfranchised in their homesteads because of the social reform movements that overtook that part of the country in the early 20^th century. They flocked to the nation’s capital and by the dint of their sheer merit and a little nepotism; they created spaces for them in seats of national power. They are mostly politically powerless in popular terms, but are great wielders of political power attained due to their key positions, thus holding certain disdain for the world at large.

The Punjabis are seemingly intellectual contrasts of the former. Kings of good times, they are bothered primarily with their patch of land or their trade. Ingrained in their trait is a distrust of the local ‘outsider,’ so given a choice they would rather side with the real ‘outsider’ only to keep at bay the local threat. In one critical aspect, they are similar to the southern upper caste gentry. Right from the British times, they have seldom rebelled against foreign intruders, but have instead sought to work within the system put in place by the intruder and try to make it work for themselves – in some cases that meant, for India also.

So they did not want to buck the trend by seeking to negotiate with the USA on the nuclear issue. What they wanted was a little accommodation. They wanted to keep the nuclear bomb because (a) it created a reason for their sustenance; (b) it symbolised ethereal power to be exhibited internally and sometimes, externally. But they also wanted to be acknowledged as India’s scientific masters by their international peers. And that was being denied to them by the technology denial regimes.

When the BJP-led NDA government decided to fulfill their supremacist dreams for parity with the more powerful nations of the world through a series of nuclear explosions, there was a coalescence of interests with the above groups. The latter did not find fault even when the NDA went to Washington almost on its knees (India’s ambassador to the USA then, Naresh Chandra made the first contact with the Americans after Pokhran II not through official channels, but through an American researcher then in India, George Perkovich) seeking ‘accomodation.’

But power, even devolved power, is not so easily obtained. That fact was in evidence a fortnight ago when India’s key negotiator on the civilian nuclear deal, S Jaishankar, addressed a gathering of mostly Western strategic community in New York. Irrespective of what he spoke – much has been written about it in the newspapers since – the terms of reference in the room was India’s “strategic restraint.” When Jaishankar argued that India’s ‘no first use’ policy and ‘minimum deterrence’ posture – and the unsaid voluntary moratorium on testing – were all elements of ‘strategic restraint,’ his listeners were not convinced. They wanted more.

Clearly, for most of India, the negotiations would be an interesting byplay to watch as it deals with the politics of floods, flood relief and the inevitable rehabilitation, the next few days. Of course, there is that little statistic of about 500 farmers – middle peasantry, thus recorded – committing suicide in Maharashtra alone.

Pinaki Bhattacharya, currently located in Kolkata, is a Special Correspondent with the Mathrubhumi, Kerala. He writes on Strategic Security issue. He can be contacted at pinaki63@dataone.in