[PEN-L:11174] Re: India's International Independence

["James Michael Craven" <CRAVJM@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Jim Craven writes:>>the notion that the governments of India have been in
> any position to leverage U.S. vs USSR rivalries for the benefit of India is
> simply not in accordance with the known historical facts. <<
>
> I was reporting what is commonly said about India's status in the context
> of the cold war, but I am perfectly willing to be corrected. It seems to
> me, however, that India's ability to co-found the "Non-Aligned Movement"
> and to engage in a certain amount of economic planning indicates that it
> had a certain autonomy during that era, despite the US success in messing
> with its policies. Currently, if I am not mistaken, India is pursuing the
> free-market uber alles strategy pushed by the US/World Bank/IMF axis.
>
>
>
> Jim Devine   jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Jim_devine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "A society is rich when material goods, including capital,
> are cheap, and human beings dear."  -- R.H. Tawney.
>
Jim,

I think actually we are not far off here. The so-called "planning" in
India is like the "planning" one finds in the U.S. The State "plans"
and "manages"--even "constrains"--certain inter-capitalist rivalries
in the interest expanded reproduction of the system as a whole. The
"State- owned/controlled" sectors and enterprises always represented
essentially "socialization of costs" necessary for returns that are
increasingly privatized and concentrated; the fist Constitution of
India was almost a carbon copy of the 1938 Constitution written by
and for the British and the first Five Year Plan did nothing to
challenge--in fact it enhanced the interests of--the Tatas, Birlas
etc or the ruling monopoly capitalist families of India (see Charles
Bettleheim's India Independent for one view from the outside of
someone who knew India very well).

On the "Non-Alligned Movement", the Government of India did exercise
some "independence" and they gravitated toward forming and building
the movement partly as a result of their experiences with not only
the U.S. and Britain, but also as a result of their experiences with
the USSR. The U.S. took the position that the so-called "Non-Aligned
Movement" was in fact very much alligned--with the USSR--and was a
not-so-covert proxy for the USSR and as a result India and other
States suffered denial of IMF/World Bank loans, embargoes and non-
access to critical technologies (perhaps "suffered" is not the right
word as it is clear that whenever the U.S. "transfers" technologies
or grants, loans, credits or investment, they take out much more than
they leave and what they leave is essentially relations/institutions
for continuation and expanded reproduction of imperial relations and
structures). Further, the arming and actions of the various regimes
in Pakistan and the covert arming of anti-Government groups inside
India was part of a classic social-systems-engineering and
destabilization campaign aimed at keeping India divided and weak by
having to devote precious resources to deal with border and internal
campaigns; this left India squeezed between the superpowers and
certainly without any real leverage viz a viz the USSR vs US
rivalries. Further, it has been only recently that any kind of
political/economic rapproachement between India and the U.S. has been
initiated (the late 60s and 70s and even 80s witnessed all sorts of
States--even formally defined as "terrorist" by the U.S.--being
granted loans, credits, technologies, forms/levels of foreign
investment routinely denied to India by the U.S. and allies of the
U.S. as a result of U.S. pressure. Notice that to-date Clinton has
not even bothered to visit India (the second and about-to-be most
populated country in the world) or have top-level representation from
India.

                              Jim Craven

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