BBC asked – Should the world trust Iran?


Recently, BBC posted a question for readers’ comments – Should the world trust Iran?

As an answer, I posted the following alternative questions for the BBC readers’ to ponder upon (I don’t know whether they will publish it or not):

“Why is it that we never ask such questions in ‘reverse’ whenever it comes to the ‘Orient’ – in this case, for example, should Iran trust the world? The ‘oriental’, ‘southern’ countries, who represent the majority world population too can have their own interests to preserve, considering that they have more responsibilities. Why do we limit “the world” to a few ‘hegemonies’ and dub their psychotic fear of “others” or their “obsessional neurosis”, as Freud would say, as the concern for ‘international security’?”

However, many of us do know the answers, don’t we? This is the way hegemonic ideologies rationalise the hegemonies. Questions determine the way we answer them, and the function of mass media, and all other educational ‘institutions’, is to school us in this mode of problem solving – don’t go beyond what is asked, as anything “beyond” is irrelevant, incoherent, and hence unpublishable.

The 12-point Agreement and the Future of Democracy in Nepal


Pratyush Chandra

ML INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER (JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 2006)

Four Phases of the Democratic Movement in Nepal

The present-day Nepalese democratic movement has perhaps entered its fourth phase now. The first ended with its partial victory in 1990, with the accommodation of the “democrats” in the power structure, which eventually frustrated the movement’s vigour, alienating its committed vanguards and grassroots. It was also at that moment that the Nepalese “long march” started to re-base the people’s movement among the people – peasantry, working class and other downtrodden sections – and look for the occasion to rise again as a contra-power rather than being glued to the old power structure, becoming its agency for manipulating ‘demos’ to preserve the ‘cracy’. This second phase saw mobilisation and dispersal of the movement beyond a few urban centres. The cry for democracy – for “self-determination” – reached hitherto untouched zones of the society. It is not strange that Mao’s model of strategy-formulation – of re-building the democratic movement from below in peasant societies like those in Nepal formed the guidelines for the revolutionaries there. This phase ended with the announcement of the ‘people’s war’ beaconing a new phase, of the rise of dual power.

The history of the third phase is well accounted in two recent collections – of the reports by Li Onesto (1), and of Baburam Bhattarai’s writings (2). They provide graphic descriptions of the fast-changing Nepalese polity embedded in the ever-dynamic post-cold war international political economy. Bhattarai’s works, especially, reflect the Maoist revolutionaries’ ability to dialectically cope up with the unfolding of the multivariate reality that always reveals itself in a piecemeal manner, never in totality. A historicist may find the Maoist strategies and tactics as frequently shifting. This is true for most of the political analysts – journalistic or serious. They are, however, ignorant of the pains of a revolutionary movement that bases itself on a continuous critique of international capitalism, its subordinate political economic structures and their diverse manifestations in deeds rather than simply in words. The movement itself is the epitome of this multi-level critique.

The Maoist’s ability to establish and flourish as the counter-power against the local state formation nurtured by global imperialism has perhaps heralded the fourth phase in the new democratic transformation in Nepal. The consistency and strength of the Nepalese revolutionaries, have rendered a fatal blow to the corporatist-monarchist-landlordist alliance with petty-bourgeois parliamentarism. In a way, this alliance was sponsored and nourished by imperialists to gain a decisive control over the region. India’s decision not to renew the 1978 treaties on trade and transit rights in 1989, leading to a major strangulation of the Nepalese economy, enforced this ‘nationalist’ compromise in 1990. It allowed the imperialists to check the arbitrariness of absolutism and radicalisation of the democratic movement, and gear up the local political economic arrangements in their own favour. However, the energy that was released in this process could not be fully confined in this official arrangement. On the contrary, as mentioned earlier, it allowed the radicals a freehand to reorient the democracy movement towards the oppressed masses independent of wavering petty bourgeois democrats, afraid of any drastic structural transformation. A decade long success of this grassroots movement today seems to have reoriented the aspirations of the Nepalese petty-bourgeoisie too forcing the “democratic” parties to form an alliance with the revolutionaries against “the autocratic monarchy”. The 12-point agreement between the Maoists and seven parliamentary parties, along with the unilateral ceasefire by the revolutionaries, perhaps, marks the beginning of the new, fourth phase in the Nepalese democratic struggle, in the Nepalese struggle for self-determination.

The 12-Point Agreement and The Success of People’s War

The text of the agreement shows the willingness of the democrats – both parliamentarian and revolutionary – to rethink their respective strategy to save the coordination achieved so far. Although it is hard to prognosticate all the implications of this agreement, the contradictory aspirations are clearly reflected in the text. The unwillingness of the moderates to go beyond constitutional monarchy is reflected in the criticism of “autocratic monarchy”, instead of monarchy itself. On the other hand, the agreement talks about absolute democracy, too. Only time will determine where this Cartesian unification of spirits of ‘democracy’ will lead. However, the major breakthroughs are the refiguring of the issue of “constituent assembly” on the agenda for the ‘unified’ people’s movement, with that of sweeping away the ‘royalty’ of the Nepalese armed forces (however, the latter is not clearly spelt out) (3). Independent statements from the revolutionary leaders indicate that they are willing to rethink their stand on “constitutional monarchy”, if a constituent assembly is formed.

The post-agreement political scenario may perhaps seem quite unclear, but it will be wrong to make a mechanical interpretation of it. Some “radical” outsiders want to think that the Maoists are using the agreement simply as a tactic, as such compromises go against the spirit of revolution. However, one must realise the truth of Mao’s pronouncement that the complete victory of revolution will take hundreds of years, and a revolutionary force needs to be prepared for all eventualities in “the process of continuous revolution and counter-revolution”, and it cannot rely on formulas. The Nepalese revolutionaries’ understanding on “relationship between the Party, Army, State and the People” is significantly based on the basic idea of “the rights of self-determination of the masses” (4). Throughout the history of people’s war, they have built on coordinating with various ‘autonomous’ movements even if they have not frequently been conscious of it. There have been occasions where they have faltered, but have readily rechecked themselves. Hence, identifying only the militarist aspect of people’s war in Nepal is reducing its history, experience and logic to nought, to mere formulas derived from “teachings” and “preaching”, themselves generalisations of past experiences. It amounts to making people’s war and sacrifices goals in themselves, against their function to unleash the people’s “creativity and energy, making them the new rulers with more responsibilities” (5).

The documents of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) along with Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai’s remarks on the situation in both their statements and interviews reveal their distinct “pessimism of intellect, optimism of will” regarding the Nepalese situation. Bhattarai in his recent interview clearly stated the constraints in which the Maoists are operating:

“We are not attempting a final military victory right now, but are working for a negotiated political settlement either directly for a democratic republic or for the election to a constituent assembly. That is basically for two reasons. First, given the vacillation of a large section of the urban and rural middle classes toward revolutionary change, we find it prudent to go through the substage of a democratic republic. Second, due to the sensitive geopolitical setting of the country sandwiched between the two huge states of India and China, and both hostile to a revolutionary change we feel constrained to settle for a compromise solution acceptable to all.”(6)

The ability of the Nepalese revolutionaries to transcend any metaphysical idealisation of particular practice distinguishes them from other revolutionary movements and insurgency, and brings them closer to the temperament of Mao and his comrades, despite the vast difference in the national and international scenario in which they are operating. Whatever be the future results, which are not dependent on the Nepalese revolutionaries but, as noted by Bhattarai, on the amalgam of international and national factors, they have created a crisis of legitimation for the monarchy, alienated its middle class support-base gathered during its alliance with parliamentary forces, and brought the exploited and oppressed labouring classes to the centre-stage. It is clear that any future political arrangement will have to deal with the alternative participatory institutions and popular aspirations that they have helped in generating during the decade of people’s war.

Global Imperialism and Democracy in Nepal

The international interventionist forces are afraid of the evolving pattern out of the present fluidity in the Nepalese situation. India, especially, is deeply worried. It came to its senses immediately after its ambitious and phoney embargo in the aftermath of the “February coup”, after having been chastised by its own corporatist interests in Nepal. Although it says it has still not restarted supplying arms to Nepal, it admits of providing military training to the Nepalese army. In fact, it is desperately using all tactics to keep the monarchy in the scene. Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran during his visit to Nepal explicitly stated on December 13 that the “constitutional forces [monarchy and political parties] should be working together… This is our view” (7).

Recently, China has been supplying arms to the Nepalese monarchy. One may suspect that there might be evolving an understanding between India and China, in this regard, to complement each other. Since the former is constrained by the domestic left forces who are against re-supplying arms to Nepal, however allowing it to train the RNA personnel, China can take over the complementary role. Both countries are not comfortable with the elimination of the institution of monarchy, and, as Shyam Saran puts, “to the extent that our objectives are the same, it is better for us to work together” (8).

Other imperialist interests – the UK and US are largely involved through India. On the other hand, the EU’s desire to become an independent pole of international relations (despite its militarist irresolution) motivated it to applaud the revolutionaries’ unilateral ceasefire and the 12-point agreement, and to call upon Gyanendra to reciprocate the ceasefire.

In this context of consensus and division among the imperialist forces globally, the democratic tasks in Nepal become furthermore complicated. This context proves decisive at least with regard to the mobilisation of the wavering democrats. The extent of the success of the democratic movement depends on the counter-balancing of this imperialist opinion and interventionism by the internal cohesion among working classes, semi-proletarians and petty bourgeoisie. This cohesion seems to have evolved to some extent, but it needs to be sustained and promoted consistently. Another factor that can help in disarming the imperialist support to monarchy is the anti-imperialist mobilisation in the interventionist countries, especially India.

References:

(1) Li Onesto, Dispatches from the People’s War in Nepal, Pluto Press, 2005

(2) Baburam Bhattarai, Monarchy Vs. Democracy: The Epic Fight in Nepal, Samkaleen Teesari Duniya, New Delhi, 2005

(3) Parties, Maoists announce 12-pt agreement, Kathmandu Post, November 22 2005

(4) Present Situation and Our Historical Task, Adopted by Central Committee Meeting of CPN (Maoist) in June 2003
(5) Parvati, People’s Power in Nepal, Monthly Review, Vol 56 No 6, November 2005

(6) Maoists eye multiparty democracy, Interview with Baburam Bhattarai, Washington Times, July 30 2005

(7) Media Interaction by Foreign Secretary Mr. Shyam Saran in Kathmandu, Nepal on December 13 2005, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India

(8) Ibid

Indian Politics in the context of the Iranian Crisis


Pratyush Chandra

The postponement of the decision to refer Iran to the UN Security Council has given the Indian rulers temporary relief. A few days back, India’s Foreign Secretary denied giving away any inkling about India’s stand if voting on Iran issue took place on November 24. (1) But did he or his superiors themselves have any hint of what they were going to do?

1 India and the Iranian crisis

Ever since India joined the Western powers led by the US in backing an IAEA resolution calling on the agency to consider reporting Iran to the UN Security Council if it does not meet its nuclear obligations, the Indian government has been going out of its way to explain its vote being in accordance with not only national but also Iranian interests. Its leftist allies are doing everything to make it apologetic for what it did on September 24, and to ensure that they do not repeat it again whether on November 24 or after. When the rightist opposition was in government it did not miss any opportunity to run behind the US wagging its tail. In fact, the consistency that we see today in the Indo-US relationship and its general acceptability are their gift to Manmohan Singh. However, the parliamentary logic forces even this spineless opposition to talk about non-alignment and anti-“imperialism” in its efforts to mobilise the alienated forces under its fold, and regain its spirit after last year’s electoral shock.

The government had always expected some international political development to take place that would help it avoid the voting. Increasing its pain was the Iranian endeavour to mix up the issue with the pipeline deal, which is still halfway. During the project’s Joint Working Group’s meeting in Tehran, Iran’s Deputy Petroleum Minister for International Affairs M H Nejad Hosseinian told the Indian delegation on October 24 “Iran expects that the esteemed government of India would compensate the past default by supporting Iran in the next meeting of the IAEA board of governors in November.” (2) Petroleum Secretary “had then replied that Iran’s demand was political in nature and it was difficult for him to comment on a political issue.” (3) Since then the desperate Indian government has been trying hard to convince Iran of its neoliberal lessons on the depoliticisation of economy learnt under the guidance of an Economist who happens to be the present Prime Minister, too, “to keep nuclear politics out of the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project and consider the latter as a purely commercial deal.” (4)

Finally, the US agreed to the Russian proposal allowing Iran to refine uranium at a key nuclear facility as long as more advanced work on the material was completed in Russia. Iran too promised to consider it. It is a face saving exercise for every party in the discussion. The Bush administration recognises “that its Iran policy, both tactically and strategically, was failing to resolve” the crisis and that it has been unable to persuade other Western powers, not even its otherwise faithful allies to refer the case to the Security Council. (5) Any unilateralism in these circumstances will be dangerous for the US. Militarily irresolute EU powers too wanted a resolution that did not force them to take a stand. However, the only negative aspect of such resolution for the US and other Western interests seems to be the strategic boost to Russia and China that this resolution entails – their ability to negotiate.

A similar face saving exercise was on in India – the possible resolution of the nuclear crisis or even delay in any decision in the IAEA in sight was a great respite. The international political exercise apparently seemed to second the government’s main argument in its efforts to convince its partners and others that what it did on September 24 was in national interest and in the interest of Iran too – giving time to Iran and others for negotiations. On the other hand, the official Left which has been trying hard to balance between saving its own independent political image and its desperate need to keep rightists out of power by supporting the government too will be able to continue balancing them consistently for some more time. When everything seemed safe, the government informed the Left what everybody already knew by then:

“At the eighth meeting of the United Progressive Alliance and the Left parties here, two days ahead of the crucial IAEA meeting in Vienna, the Government apprised the Left leaders of the progress made. The indication is that there is a possibility that there will be no voting and till now there has been no draft resolution suggesting that the matter be taken to the United Nations Security Council.”

As expected the government sought to convince its critiques that the postponement was the success of the diplomatic efforts to which it became a party by voting affirmatively on September 24. Finance Minister told the media, “The Government informed the Left parties of the progress made through diplomatic efforts. It was noted that the Government’s intention was to ensure that the matter remains within the jurisdiction of the IAEA”. (6)

2 Neo-liberal consensus and the foreign ministry

Ambiguity and opportunism have always constituted the bedrock of Indian foreign policy. Even during the Cold War, India’s choice for “non-alignment” was opportunistic rather than a matter of principle. Non-alignment allowed it a space to manoeuvre and bargain in the bipolar atmosphere. On the one hand, the already established strong capitalist interests in the country motivated the Indian state to establish channels that could facilitate their integration in the world market dominated by the West under the US. But, on the other hand, the lateness of capitalism in India kept it devoid of a systematic infrastructure for domestic capitalist expansion on the basis of which its capitalist interests could integrate and compete in the world market. The required support for this could come only from the Soviet camp, which envisaged a similar model for “national capitalist development” in third world countries. This dualism on the part of the Indian State made it opportunistic par excellence.

This opportunism has acquired new dimension in the post-Cold War liberalisation phase. The uneasiness that India feels today when it has to take a clear stand on international issues derives from the multi-layered, often contradictory, nature of its integration in international political economy. Its apparent opportunism is starkly reflected throughout its international dealings. Ever since it did nuclear tests in 1998, India seems to be caught in a schizophrenic existence, unceasingly oscillating between over-confidence and desperation. Events in the year 2005 evidence this eccentricity at least twice, earlier on the issue of Nepal and now on Iran.

Political analysts generally take this political behaviour at their face value. They fail to grasp the underlying stress and strain. Since Rajiv Gandhi’s open avowal to ‘neo-liberalise” the Indian economy with his New Economic Policy, there have been opportunities to test the words and deeds of almost all the major political fronts in the country. Since Rajiv Gandhi’s defeat in 1989, we have seen 8 Prime Ministers taking over (if we include the 13 days rule by Vajpayee in 1996). All these leaders despite their diverse political and ideological allegiances have been consistently wed to the basics of neo-liberalism. Finance Ministry has been remarkably consistent in its attitude throughout the two decades since 1985. Ideologies and ‘politics” have served to divert their social fallouts rather than to guide the overall policy designs.

The interior or home ministry along with the external affairs or foreign ministry takes on the tasks of making the ground fertile for the practice of neoliberalism. The Home Ministry has always been important for smoothening the track for capital accumulation by securing property relations and bringing material and “cultural” commons into the fold of these relations. However, less recognised is the fact that since the neo-liberalist economic policy is fundamentally designed to facilitate the entry and exit of capital and to administer the process of international capitalist integration, the External Affairs or Foreign Ministry eventually becomes the most active in this phase. Synchronising the global market dynamics and political reality is the major task undertaken through this ministerial coordination. The motivational glue is provided by keywords like pragmatism and the trans-political (de-politicised) notion of national interest. This pragmatism is nothing but a sanctified discourse to justify the “realpolitick” of making best of opportunities, or opportunism.

3. The crisis of mainstream left nationalism in India

The so-called experts on international relations and security issues have divided India’s international activism in two phases – the idealist phase and pragmatist phase, Rajiv Gandhi’s reign being generally considered the turning point. Despite being superficial and meaningless, this division sufficiently indicates at its purpose, which is simply to disparage the principle of non-alignment as utopian and to justify the pro-US tilt. Similarly these self-acclaimed ‘security intellectuals’ have redefined the all-accommodative notion of “national interest” in “Social Darwinian” terms. They have succeeded sufficiently in derailing the task of a serious inspection of the real context in which the Indian foreign policy is taking shape, of understanding it in terms of the continuity and change in Indian capitalist development.

Even the Left in India has been mesmerised by this ‘realpolitick’ definition of national interests, not trying to reinterpret them in terms of class and class interests. Eventually they too become prisoners of the supra-class nationalist ideology. This has been starkly evident in the ongoing debate on India’s “interest” in the Iranian nuclear crisis. The Leftists tried to assess India’s “national interest” in terms of ‘national’ material gains, the same basis on which the ruling elites are grounding their defence. Asking for an independent foreign policy in general, on this particular issue Prakash Karat, the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said, “If the Centre decides to vote against Iran, it should be viewed seriously as the focus should be on Indian interests, without succumbing to outside pressures”. And, hence, “India, which imports 70 percent of its oil, should maintain good relations with Iran and be alert of the designs of the ‘imperialists’”.(7) So the “focuses” are national sovereignty, “national interests” and pragmatism. Does any mainstream political formation differ on the primacy of these “focuses”? Does the Indian state deny them? In fact, by retelling all the known facts leading to India’s September 24 vote, the Indian government has been repeatedly showing that whatever it did was its own sovereign decision. Further, on the question of national material interests too, Indian policies pro-US tilt can be explained on the basis of India’s dependence on the Western (especially the US’) market and investment.

The mainstream presentation of ‘national interest” allows the hegemonic political economic interests to homogenise the ‘nation’ behind their designs. In a class divided and stratified society any such homogenisation ultimately harnesses the ‘people’ for the royal ride of the state and the ruling classes in pursuit of a “national” political economic expansion. Instead of recognising and sharpening the class conflict underlying the neo-liberal polity, while fighting its ideological transcendence in the discourse of nation and “national interests”, the Indian Left in its eagerness to become part of the ‘national mainstream’ is helping in conserving the national pomposity that characterises the Indian foreign policy, which politically sustains the Indian capital’s global pursuit. It seeks a nationalist compromise that can synchronise its “interests” with the State’s “national interests”. In the event of this uncritical acceptance of the political philosophy that underlies the Indian state policies, even anti-Americanism in the Indian leftist discourse is well utilised in supplying versatility and strength to the Indian state’s manoeuvrings and bargaining.

Notes

(1) Stand at Vienna will be in national interest, says Saran, The Hindu, November 17, 2005

(2) Iran’s armtwisting begins: fix Vienna mistake or else, The Indian Express, November 13, 2005

(3) Delhi will tell Iran: Keep N-politics out of pipeline, The Indian Express, November 16, 2005

(4) Ibid

(5) US backs Russian Plan to resolve Iran Crisis, The Washington Post, November 19, 2005

(6) Left apprised of stand on Iran issue, The Hindu, November 22, 2005

(7) PTI, India must have independent foreign policy: Karat, posted on November 20, 2005

Volcker’s Report Reread: Business, not Corruption


Pratyush Chandra

The Report on Programme Manipulation (Volcker Report) brought out by the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) into the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food Programme provides a graphic account of how Saddam Hussein’s regime struggled to “launder” a meager sum of 1.8 billion dollars in the span of more than two years. The Report seeks to demonstrate how Iraq had to manipulate the sanction regime and play on various companies and agencies involved in the OFFP to obtain that amount.

I Saddam meant business!

The timing of the Volcker Report makes it an efficient tool for providing legitimacy to the American occupation and delegitimizing the UN’s ability to act as a multilateral world power opposed to the unilateralist US. Despite this, one may commend Volcker and his associates for describing Saddam Hussein’s scheme in such minute details. It seems that they used every real, half-real fact to complete this picture, putting many politicians and businessmen, who shook hands with Saddam Hussein when he was Iraq’s head-of-state, in the range of ‘suspicion’. However, a brief scrutiny shows that the whole exercise is an exposition of what every petty businessman does to survive in the world of competition, monopolies and surveillance. Of course, the Iraqi ruling elite and its “national” oil bourgeoisie had to be smarter as, on the one hand, the eyes of the competitors in the fellow oil economies and Western corporate oil companies were constantly watching the effect of Iraq’s primitive “in kind” oil sale on their own “in cash” transactions; while, on the other hand, any slack would have only hastened the execution of “what was already written” – the pending invasion by the US.

Iraq tried to make good use of its only privilege under the OFFP, choosing its oil buyers. The Volcker Report complains:

“Yet the decision to allow Iraq to choose its buyers empowered Iraq with economic and political leverage to advance its broader interest in overturning the sanctions regime. Iraq selected oil recipients in order to influence foreign policy and international public opinion in its favor. Several years into the Programme, Iraq realized that it could generate illicit income outside of the United Nations’ oversight by requiring its oil buyers to pay “surcharges” of generally between ten to thirty cents per barrel of oil.”

Only this privilege provided Iraq a degree of economic sovereignty, which other countries enjoyed more amply. And what it did with this privilege was nothing different from other countries. Every country requires a friendly international atmosphere to survive and grow, and it utilizes every means under its command to build it, and Iraq had only one way to mobilize “international public opinion in its favor” – by selecting oil recipients. Others, too, do have this privilege, but they have more than simply this.

The Volcker Report notes that Iraqis started by appeasing US companies, but found no effect on the US government’s attitude towards Iraq. So they had to approach other Security Council members to influence international bodies, like Russia and France. But this did not mean that the US companies didn’t gain by these arrangements. The report itself finds, “a substantial volume of oil under contract with Russian companies was purchased and financed by companies based in the United States and other countries.” So it was really, business as usual!

As far as “surcharges” are concerned, they were ‘illicit’ because Iraq was exceptionally segregated from involving itself in the ‘licit’ price war in which its competitors were engaged. And even the Bretton Woods institutions (WB/IMF) would admit it is not illegitimate to ‘curb’ the laws if they put hurdles in the ‘natural’ dynamics of market and capital. What Iraq did was nothing exceptional for a businessman facing a legal system adverse to his business interests. It was doing what was best for it in the face of UN induced ‘market imperfections’.

The other source of illicit income obtained by Iraq was “kickbacks paid by companies that it selected to receive contracts for humanitarian goods under the Programme”. The Volcker Report notes that here too “political considerations influenced Iraq’s selection of humanitarian vendors”. Interestingly, the Report itself accepts the legitimacy of this kickback policy by stating that it “began in mid-1999 from Iraq’s effort to recoup purported costs it incurred to transport goods to inland destinations after their arrival by sea at the Persian Gulf port of Umm Qasr”. However, the Report complains that Iraq could have sought approval from the United Nations for compensation of such costs, without noting that under normal circumstances any intermediation in such bilateral arrangements are abhorred. So why will Iraq like any other country or even business entity not covet sovereignty in its contractual engagements? Why will it allow UN surveillance in whatever it does? Why cannot it have its own business secrets? Why will it not engage in profiteering in the limited ‘market’ and opportunity that it is granted?

What Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and agencies dealing with it did were the only ‘rational’ business options before them under the exceptional regime of politico-economic sanctions. Its few loopholes were the only source of opportunities available for them, from which, even the Volcker Report admits, Iraq could not gain much except a few billion dollars. Whatever else it could acquire under the Oil-for-Food Programme was just enough to survive in destitution – food, medicines etc. The Programme was not meant for the reconstruction of the economy destroyed by bombs and isolation.

II Committee’s Unintended Conclusion

Less known is another report brought out by a Working Group instituted by Volcker’s Independent Inquiry Committee, The Impact of the Oil-for-food Programme on the Iraqi People (7 September 2005), which explicitly puts the very purpose of the OFFP as its main negative aspect:

“The short-term approach of the OFFP, essentially as a relief operation, led to many missed opportunities for greater impact, and indeed to some actual harm. A more effective humanitarian approach would have aimed to restore productive capacity, repair infrastructure, generate employment, and use the extensive capabilities of the Iraqi people to support their own livelihood. The basis for the “relief” approach was presumably at first the perceived urgency of the deteriorating situation – food had to be supplied – but the opportunity to move towards support to livelihood was not taken, for reasons such as the policy of reducing the Government of Iraq’s access to hard currency.”

The so-called “corruption” in the OFFP was fundamentally linked with the struggle over the “access to hard currency”. The UN and the hegemonic forces were hell bent upon enfeebling the Iraqi economy by making it cash-stricken; while Iraq was determined to utilize whatever limited opportunities the loopholes in the OFFP granted it. It even went on offensive by attempting to cut on dollar’s seigniorage by selling its oil in euro. (The Observer, 16 February 2003) Against all these, the OFFP’s realpolitik was rendered ineffective.

Hence, the dual purpose of the Programme was to allow the Iraqi population survive, while inciting them against the ‘intransigent’ regime of Saddam Hussein by providing opposed images of this intransigence against the “humanitarian” external forces. When the lingering sanctions and hardships seemed to homogenize the society furthermore making the possibility of any internal revolt very remote, and Iraq was able to “corrupt” the realpolitik of the Programme, the Security Council’s bosses began finding it obsolete. As the Report on the OFFP’s impact clearly states, the Programme as a “relief operation” was a marvelous success on almost every humanitarian account despite administrative problems and “corruption”. But this success could never be a reason for its continuance. Hence, the invasion took place.

Defining "National Interests" in Indian Foreign Policy


Pratyush Chandra

There has been a tremendous growth in politico-intellectual interest in interpreting Indian foreign policy. On the one hand, journals and newspapers are overflowing with analyses of India’s international activism, and on the other, we find a rise in institutions or ‘think-tanks’ specializing in it, both within India and abroad. However, it can be effectively contended that there is rarely any novelty in the approaches taken by these intellectuals, institutions and politicians on the issue. Most of them are restricted to producing permutation and combination of preconceived and ill-defined notions of “national interests”, “security interests”, “terrorism”, “pre-emptive measures” etc. Even progressive and ‘counter-hegemonic’ discourses are unable to go beyond conceiving the Indian policies as those of a ‘comprador’ third world ruling class, submitting to external pressures. This leads to analyses limiting themselves to mere tautological descriptions of the policies, different only in tone and of course in humanist tenor, but rarely disputing on the basic foundations of policy-making, that inform even the rightist jingoism and centrist pragmatism.

1. Indian “National Interests” – the Left-Right-Center Combined

The domestic opposition to Indian rulers’ intervention in international politics today is broadly confined on the following lines:
(1) They are compromising on the “national interests”,
(2) They are coming under the “American pressure”,
(3) As the consequence of (1) and (2), they are betraying their erstwhile “Non-Aligned Movement” (NAM) comrades.

Such tenor of opposition itself provides the Indian state a viable framework to rationalize its position. It can restrict itself to demonstrating how “national interests” are being served and sovereignty is not compromised, that it is taking its own decision and is being treated as an equal partner in the international strategic forums; further, that it is “leading” its erstwhile NAM comrades by actively representing them and supporting their political and economic sovereignty. This is effortless defense since there exists no need to defend the basic premises of the Indian foreign policy. There is unanimity across-the-board over the sanctity of “national interests”, sovereignty, the principle of “not coming under any external pressure” and India as a leader of the “third world” or “NAM” countries. The opposition counts on the evidences on which these sanctified principles are being violated, while the government in power provides counter-evidence on the same lines.

Recent debates “on the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP), the July 18 Agreement with the United States, the September vote in the IAEA and the recent deliberations of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)” are typically confined to this mode of discourse – whether led by the leftists, rightists or centrists.

Seemingly, there is no disagreement on India’s right to be a “Nuclear Weapon State” while remaining “committed to the goal of complete elimination of nuclear weapons”. Not long ago, when with the rightist Vajpayee government’s nuclear tests in 1998, political forces of all hues and colors not only refrained from criticizing the act, but on the contrary they fought to take the credit for promoting researches which led to India’s nuclear capability. Nobody apparently denies the ideal “that the best and most effective nuclear non-proliferation measure would be a credible and time-bound commitment to eliminate nuclear weapons from existing arsenals, including India’s own nuclear weapons” and that we should “have no desire to perpetuate the division between nuclear-haves and have-nots”. However still, the left, right and center all are guilty of aspiring to see India as “a permanent member of the Security Council”. They all want India to demonstrate “a growing capability to shoulder regional and global responsibilities”, and “focus … increasingly on trans-national issues that today constitute the priority challenges – whether it is terrorism or proliferation, pandemics or disaster relief”. Further, “we cannot sit out the debates on the big issues of our times. Our interests demand a vigorous and articulate diplomatic effort that explains our positions and advances our interests.”

The quotes above are taken from a single lecture by the Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran on “Nuclear Non-Proliferation and International Security” (1), wherein, despite its usual diplomatic nature, he eloquently presents the unanimous aspirations of the Indian political elites. Everybody (left, right and center) will agree with him that India’s approach to nuclear non-proliferation [or on everything] should be “a consistent one, a principled one and one grounded as much in our national security interests as in our commitment to a rule-based international system.”

While defending the recent decisions by the Indian government and its agreements with the US, he says,

“There is a continuity and consistency in our approach that may sometimes be masked by the particularities of a specific decision…. What appears to some observers as inordinate external influence over our decision-making in sensitive areas is, in fact, rooted in our own well-considered and independent judgment of where our best interests lie. This is in keeping with our tradition of non-alignment… We must adjust to change, change inherent in our emergence as a Nuclear Weapon State, change inherent in the sustained dynamism and technological sophistication of the Indian economy, and, as a consequence, change in global expectations of India as an increasingly influential actor on the international stage.”(2)

As a bureaucrat who is supposed to be “above politics”, Shyam Saran is not wary of making it a point to stress on the continuity and consistency in the policies of the Indian state, always reminding of the consonance of the present left-supported ‘centrist’ government’s policies with those of the erstwhile rightist Vajpayee government. In his defense of the Indian vote on the IAEA resolution on Iran, he stressed in his press briefings:

“I do not think that you should interpret India’s position as being aligned on the Left or on the Right or aligned with this group of countries or that group of countries. I think India has all along taken decisions on issues of concern to itself on the basis of its own assessment, and on the basis of its own national interest. So, the question of this representing a shift in India’s policy does not arise.”(3)

And he is obviously not wrong. All depends on how you define the “national interests”. And on their definition there is hardly any difference between various parties involved in the debate. One side says the government serves them, other side denies it; but nobody seeks to describe what those interests are and which sections of the society determine them.

2. “Uses of Domestic Dissent”

This fact of unanimity makes all mainstream approaches on the Indian foreign policy merely repetitive. They rarely question the basic foundation of the policy decisions. One says “compromises”, other notes “cooperation”; one notes “subjugation”, other says “equal partnership” etc. But this discursive exercise has a definite ideological role. Howsoever, this exercise seems futile, it significantly emasculates any decisive domestic opposition to the Indian state as they combine in unity on making it evermore “stronger” in the name of challenging ‘external pressure’, giving ‘international leadership’, and serving ‘national interests’ etc. It is this unanimous ‘nationalist’ tone in the Indian politics that has left the Indian hegemonic [militarist] exercises complementing and supporting the expansion of ‘national capitalist’ interests internationally unchecked.

The Indian interventions in the politics and economy of its neighboring countries and elsewhere are universally termed self-conceited and ‘big-brotherly’, but not imperialist. Hence what is seen as required is simply correcting this ‘aberration’, making the Indian policy towards these small and weak neighboring countries more ‘responsible’. The preconceived notion of a ‘third-world’ country imposed on the late capitalist countries does not allow the analysts to perceive their leadership as serving ‘national’ political economic interests by maneuvering internationally.

Further, any gesture of confrontation with the First World is termed ‘anti-imperialist’. This ‘anti-imperialism’ stresses the importance of the reconstruction of a ‘non-aligned movement’ and ‘south-south’ cooperation. But it does not take into account the material basis of a state-to-state cooperation between the “third world” countries. It does not consider the contradiction inherent in the ‘nationalist anti-imperialism’ in countries like India. At the juncture when India owns 35 percent of the FDI in Nepal, when it is the biggest investor in Sri Lanka since 2002 and has Bhutan and Maldives as perfect clienteles, do we expect India to lead another NAM? And if it does, what will be its role? Will it not be similar to that of Germany’s in EU, howsoever subservient to the US or any other global hegemonic power? Backwardness or lopsidedness of the Indian capitalism and society does not stop it from becoming expansionist and imperialist.

The indigenous corporate capitalist interests (immaterial of the adjectives we might choose to characterize them) today frame the agenda for the Indian state in the international scenario, whether pro-US or otherwise. These interests are formidably conscious and mature, as can be seen from the way the Indian state and capital combines their various strategies – a militarist combination with the US-Israel nexus, supposedly “progressive” alliance with various “third world” powers in WTO, independent oil dealings with varied forces, investments in oil fields, offer of lines of credit to developing countries in Africa and Tsunami affected countries, pipeline diplomacy and readiness to militarily-politically support all these. We cannot simply isolate one aspect of the Indian capitalist interests and generalize it to grasp their hydra-like nature. Competition and collaboration are inherent in the capitalist political economy. Will it not be just and appropriate to use this same principle to assess the “Indian designs”? Or else, we will only support them asking the Indian state to be “stronger” and will convert the opposing voices to mere instrument in its international bargaining. (4)

References:

(1) Lecture on “Nuclear Non-Proliferation and International Security” by Foreign Secretary Shri Shyam Saran at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, October 24, 2005, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.
(2) Ibid.
(3) “Press Briefing by the Foreign Secretary on the events in UN and IAEA”, September 26, 2005, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.
(4) In fact in a recent article by Harish Khare such use of dissent has been proudly advocated. See Harish Khare, “Uses of Domestic Dissent in Foreign Policy”, The Hindu, October 26, 2005.

For a different interpretation of Shyam Saran’s lecture, see Siddhartha Varadarajan’s India submits to the Bush doctrine?

India’s “Persian Puzzle” – A Possible Solution


Pratyush Chandra

[The recent Indian vote on the IAEA resolution is being generally interpreted as a sign of the Indian state’s subservience to the US. However, the reality belies this simplistic analysis. At the risk of being labelled economic determinist, this article brings out some facts that indicate towards the growing expansionist interest of the Indian capital. It is this expansionism that drives the Indian state to defy its ‘non-alignment’ past and design its own game-plan, which at least for now coheres with the US global strategies.]

India has finally voted in favor of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolution on Iran. Everybody was speculating that at last an issue has come up that will break the pace and uniformity of the growing Indo-US relations. But India has made its choice clear in the world market of strategies and alignments. There are various lines of explanation that dominate the discussion on the rationale of India’s choice on the issue. The most prevalent one is of course based on the belief that the “third world” states are congenitally incapable of taking such decisions except under the pressure from the West. This view generally presumes these states to be ‘soft’ and their ‘national’ hegemonic interests to be weak, which can easily be swayed by the external pressures. Further, any gesture of confrontation between these states and the Western states especially the US is generally taken as potentially anti-imperialist. However, this view cannot explain the Indian case as it does not capture the basic political economic processes that are increasingly integrating the Indian hegemonic interests within the global strategic alignments and realignments.

The Official Justification

Even before voting for the resolution, the Indian government had been categorically stressing that there was “no difference in objectives between India and the United States vis-à-vis Iran even if the two sides differ on tactics”.(1) Further, even when India stressed on “diplomatic consultations to evolve an international consensus on how to deal with Teheran’s decision to continue its uranium enrichment programme”, it never wanted “another nuclear weapon state in its neighbourhood”.(2) Under these circumstances India’s vote must not be taken as a surprise.

The Indian foreign ministry is not wrong when it says that India’s vote on the resolution was actually in line with whatever had already been happening. This continuity is what constitutes the “evolutionary” foreign policy of India, as envisaged by its present Foreign Minister. The Indian leadership has consistently expressed all its international dealings in terms of “national interests”, “security interests”, etc. Once again, with regard to its vote on the IAEA resolution, the justification given by the Indian state is based on an ideological depoliticization of the so-called “national interests”. In the words of the Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran:

“I do not think that you should interpret India’s position as being aligned on the Left or on the Right or aligned with this group of countries or that group of countries. I think India has all along taken decisions on issues of concern to itself on the basis of its own assessment, and on the basis of its own national interest. So, the question of this representing a shift in India’s policy does not arise.” (3)

However, it all depends on the way you define the “national interest” which under neoliberalism (the professed ideology of the Indian state at least since 1991) means nothing but what provides leverage to the Indian businessmen and their businesses.

The Context

While analyzing India’s strategic maneuverings internationally, the analysts very rarely note their economic dimensions. It is scarcely admitted that India’s relationship with other developing countries after 1991 has been increasingly based on the export of capital and the Indian investment abroad. And in most of the cases, such economic relationship has been simultaneously equipped with militaristic aid to those states. India has been offering credit lines to many Afro-Asian countries that they can utilize for infrastructure building and other business purposes with a condition that they will employ Indian companies. India’s ‘non-aligned’ past has allowed it to have a major share in the capitalist subordination of the backward economies in Africa and Asia. In fact, the rhetoric of non-alignment (“South-South cooperation”) plays an efficient ideological role in rationalizing the expansionist drive of the Indian capital. Recently after India refused the foreign aid for its own Tsunami victims, the Indian External Affairs Minister, Natwar Singh, while offering Indonesians “concessional credit for reconstructing roads, buildings, harbours, ten units of fully equipped hospitals”, rattled proudly that “they were lumping us with the others but now we are seen separate offering our help and assistance”. (4)

Definitely, since 1991 India has been consistently endeavoring to be recognized as a faithful ally of the US. Its nuclear graduation and global politico-economic interests have shown the US leadership that it is a force to be reckoned with, and its subordination provides one of the most reliable allies to oversee the Indian Ocean and meet up with China. In recent years the growing energy needs of the Indian capital has forced the Indian State to invest in the oilfields abroad – India has operating assets in Sudan, Vietnam, Iraq, Iran, Myanmar, Libya, Syria, Sakhalin Islands, etc. It has been acquiring competitive amounts of shares in foreign oil companies. All these make India a player in the global oil politics too both as an investor and a consumer.

The Indo-US relationship is thriving in this context, and has a clear-cut ‘material’ semantics. India requires not having a confrontation with the “global police” state when its capital is struggling to stabilize its share in the global pool of surplus value, of which a major portion comes from the American market and the Indian investment in the US. Further, by providing dual citizenship to the Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) recently, the Indian state has further increased its own responsibility of protecting NRI capital in exchange of ‘rent’ and the assurance of repatriation of profit.

In this scenario, apparently one may interpret the Indian vote on the IAEA resolution as an appeasement of the US-led ‘coalition’. But here too there is a vital interest of the Indian capital that is playing an important role. The recent pipline diplomacy between Iran, India and Pakistan is quite well known. It is impossible to interpret the Indian vote, which is unequivocally affirmative (not even abstention!) on a resolution that is meant to isolate Iran, without connecting it to the facts of the Indian ‘oil politics’ in general and its pipeline diplomacy with Iran in particular.

The Nature of India’s Oil Interests and the Global Coalition

Recently, while rationalizing the Indian nuclearization, the Indian Defense Minister noted:

“India is a heavily energy deficient country. Of all the variables that could hinder India’s economic progress, energy scarcity and dependence are probably the most serious. Seventy percent of our crude oil is imported. Per capita energy consumption presently is only 1/5th of the world average. Considering a high growth rate of around 8 percent of GDP per year in the coming years, growth of oil demand is projected to be 6 percent per annum. If so, dependence on oil imports could rise from 70 percent to 80 (percent), to 85 percent over the next two decades. It is therefore imperative for us to look for cost-effective and long-term alternatives to meet our energy requirements. Indian oil companies are currently actively involved in a search for energy in the form of oil and gas fields, pipelines, LNG, and other new and non-conventional sources. But most hydrocarbon resources underline our dependence on limited reserves and others for this critical requirement. They also carry scope for avoidable strategic energy rivalries.” (5)

The clue to India’s alignment with the US hegemony in the Middle East lies here. Its energy deficiency, yet the desire and ability to proactively make up for it, makes the Indian rulers a player in the Middle East conflicts. Major, yet low productive oil producing industrialized countries, including the United States (6) and oil deficient industrialized economies can influence the global oil price only by appeasing or isolating OPEC countries. Since a major determinant of the oil price today is the differential oil rent appropriated by the highly productive oil economies like those of the Middle East, “cost effective” energy appropriation requires reducing this rent. The bully tactics (“either with us or against us”) of the US and other Western powers in the Middle East has been mainly geared towards this purpose.

The increasing Indian investment in the oilfields abroad was definitely triggered by the need to satisfy the domestic energy requirements, but ultimately as it happens with all capitalist ventures, these investments eventually develop their own logic of earning profit. With increasing divestment in the state owned oil companies of India and intrusion of private capital, this becomes furthermore true. Hence, the need to minimize the differential oil rent, which the oil companies have to pay to the oil producing countries, becomes an important aspect of India’s international political intervention, too. So this unity of ‘economic’ interest serves as the background for the increasing Indian intervention in the Gulf politics and that too in consonance with the US hegemony and other non-OPEC powers. India’s readiness to refuel the American warships during the First Gulf War and later during the Afghan War all point out that there exists an Indian consciousness of possible material gains from its subservience to the US led coalition. However, because of a formidable domestic anti-imperialist opposition, until now the capitalist preference in India could not come out as openly as it has in the vote on the IAEA resolution.

It is worthwhile to note that that a major hitch in the Indo-Iranian negotiations on the proposed pipeline was also related to pricing. “India has taken the position that any price above the US$3 per million British thermal units (BTUs) currently being paid by its power and fertilizer sectors for gas on the international market is unacceptable. Iran, in contrast, appears to be seeking more than US$4 per million BTUs, a rate that will only go higher if Pakistani transit fees are added.” (7) This might have been one of the major reasons in persuading the Indian state to go with the scheme of the West, since the isolation of the Iranian regime and its consequent desperation to earn revenues in the midst of enveloping sanctions can make the Iranians more compliant to the Indian demands and increase the weight on the side of the Indians in the negotiations for the pipeline.

References

(1) The Times of India, September 16, 2005
(2) The Hindu, September 21, 2005
(3) “Press Briefing by the Foreign Secretary on the events in UN and IAEA”, September 26, 2005
(4) Indian Express, January 8, 2005
(5) Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s Talk on “India’s Strategic Perspective”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC, June 27, 2005
(6) Cyrus Bina, “The Economics of the Oil Crisis: Theories of Oil Crisis, Oil Rent & Internationalization of Capital in the Oil Industry”, Merlin Press, London, 1985.
(7) A.J. Tellis, “India As a New Global Power: An Action Agenda for the United States”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC, 2005

Pre-1990 ‘Democratic’ Experiments in Nepal


THE EVOLVING PATTERN

Pratyush Chandra

ML INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 2005)

“Democracy refers to a system of governance in which the elite elements based in the business community control the state by virtue of their dominance of the private society, while the population observes quietly. So understood, democracy is a system of elite decision and public ratification. Correspondingly, popular involvement in the formation of public policy is considered a serious threat. It is not a step towards democracy; rather, it constitutes a ‘crisis of democracy’ that must be overcome.”(1)

Recently, political developments in Nepal have started getting considerable attention throughout the globe. The past negligence has been partly due to reading of the Nepalese situation as inherent in the so-called global process of democratisation triggered by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even the stark instability of the Nepalese democracy did not attract attention as it was thought to be a general characteristic of what was happening in all the newly ‘democratised’ nations, and was considered to be a birth pang. But it is commonly forgotten that this birth pang of democracy in Nepal is tremendously long drawn. In this short survey of pre-1990 ‘democratic’ experiments in Nepal, I wish to indicate a recurring pattern of ‘royal regression’ (2) accompanying these experiments, which seeks to de-legitimise the democratic aspirations of the people of Nepal, and all in the name of democracy. It shows that what followed after 1990 was scarcely different. Every time there is an increased people’s assertion from below, emergency measures are taken to overcome the ‘crisis of democracy’. Unlike advanced bourgeois democracies, which have created numerous self-sustaining mechanisms of dealing with such crises by reducing militant opposition to debates and lobby groups, the democratic farce in Nepal is quite evident at the wake of continuous refusal of the downtrodden classes to be reduced in that manner. Hence, Nepal faces a perpetual ‘crisis of democracy’.

Episode 1: 1951 Democratic Revolution

Nepal’s flirtation with democracy has been continuous since the fall of Ranas in 1951. The Democracy Day that is commemorated every year on Feb 18 was in fact the day in the year 1951 when King Tribhuvan was reinstated with the help of India. It was the day that marked the transfer of absolute power from the dynasty of Prime Ministers to that of the Kings. It so happened that after the withdrawal of the British from the Indian soil, the Ranas of Nepal, the unique dynasty of Prime Ministers found themselves without any support in the subcontinent and faced an energised force of insurgents, whose leadership was trained in the Indian Freedom Struggle. Sensing the insecurity of the Ranas, King Tribhuvan found it opportune to gather India’s support to buy off the lost glory of the Shahs, the dynasty of the Kings. The Indian rulers (still struggling to outmanoeuvre the Communist revolt against Nizam, the democratic revolt against Hindu royalty and landlordism in Kashmir) were too ready for such a deal, as they were alarmed by growing radicalism among insurgency with the birth of the Nepalese Communist Party (in the year of the great Chinese Revolution) and evolving socialistic tenor of a section within the Congress. Hence, this “Delhi Compromise established the palace as paramount over a basically unchanged state machinery and class regime and subordinated the Ranas to the palace within a cabinet consisting of a combination of the old rulers and the compliant leadership from among the insurgents (the insurgent leadership was nearly all from landholding families of the old regime as well).”(3)

Nothing changed except the promise for a constituent assembly, which remains unfulfilled to this day. And of course, neighbouring the theatre of a continuous revolution, China, Nepal could be sold off as a strategic location to check the spread of socialism in the subcontinent. The American aid came showering in – “this began the creation of a whole class of commission agents and contractors who took their tithe of the foreign aid… [Further] Indian advisors arrived to expand India’s corrupt and unwieldy colonial bureaucracy to Nepal, which set about in turn to extending its control over local communities to undermine their autonomy, dispossess them of their natural and biological resources, and generally destroy their social and ecological viability and productive base.”(4)

Episode 2: The First Congress Government and the Coup

Nepalese people waited 6 years to see a constitution drafted by the royalty in 1957 and in 1959 they experienced the miasmic electoralist democracy, but to be vanished soon. Shrewd as he was, King Trubhuvan’s son Mahendra knew the meaning of a democratic government in Nepal – howsoever weak – a rise in democratic aspirations. The Congress Government under B.P. Koirala swept the first elections in Nepal on the platform that included abolishing Birta land tenure system (under which individuals were granted land on an inheritable and tax-exempt basis by the king), on the motto that “As long as land was not in the hands of the tiller…industrial development was infeasible”. It was not important whether the state machinery was equipped and consistent enough to undertake such a step, since the rise in democratic aspirations in an agrarian society is enough to disturb the patrimonial state apparatuses and superstructure that sustain the agrarian relations nurturing the absolutist state. Mahendra found his natural allies among shivering landlords. He had every means to undermine the first democratic experiment. As Nepali kings always know that power flows from the barrel of a gun, they never relinquish their control over armed forces and other coercive state apparatuses. But Mahendra needed an appropriate moment to draw the curtain on this first democratic drama. This moment came right away – India was beginning to engage itself in border conflicts with China and could not afford to see troubles right on its nose despite its democratic rhetoric, and the US aid was always ready to maintain the status quo for its own interest in the Cold War. For internal legitimacy, violent riots against the Koirala government were staged especially “in Bajhang, a feudal rajya in the midwestern Hill region with some degree of local autonomy, and in Gorkha, the ancestral home of the Shah dynasty (Mahendra’s forefathers)”.(5) In a night time palace coup d’etat in December 1960 the parliament was dissolved, its members were arrested, and subsequently all parties were outlawed for introducing divisions in the country.

Subsequently, the Constitution of December 1962 installed a system, which formalised the ‘cut and commission’ hierarchy in the society perpetuated through foreign aid along with stabilising the landlordist interests and absolute monarchy. “In the Royal Proclamation promulgating the new Constitution, King Mahendra inferred that the parliamentary system, being a foreign creation, was not as much in “step with the history and traditions of the country” as the panchayat system.”(6) Land reforms too were introduced imposing land ceilings. However, they allowed parcellization of “family plots in the names of brothers, sons, household servants, retainers, and even dogs to make it seem that no one individual owned all the land”(7).

Episode 3: Referendum

In 1970s with increasing commercialisation of the economy and society in Nepal, new ‘modern’ interests and economic relations arose. On the one hand, the statisation of the commons – forest and pasture lands – led to a privileged access to these lands allowing land monopolisation in the hands of the people close to power and bureaucracy. Rural poverty increased. This led to the ‘illegality’ and incrimination of land ‘encroachment’ by the rural poor resulting into rural tensions, which were frequently channelled into regional conflicts and some times into open class struggles. On the other hand, growing commercialisation led to an increased urbanisation and diversification of economic activities in urban centres. There was a tremendous growth in informal non-production sector especially with tourism and road linkages between different locations within Nepal and with India. There was an unprecedented increase in urban unemployment and especially educated unemployment, which led to the radicalisation of campuses and radical organising. Jhapali Khand of the Nepalese Communist Party along with other radical groups (in the All Nepal Communist Coordination Committee) reorganised under CPN(ML) systematically developed its organisations among rural and urban working classes. It was at this juncture, when ML had launched its student movement in 1979, that the ruling class under King Birendra agreed with the Congress leadership to hold another democratic drama – a referendum on the panchayat system. “Military and bureaucratic control of the ballot boxes along with violent intimidation of the voters under the then Prime Minister Suraya Bahadur Thapa allowed the pro-panchayat forces to swing the election by adding far more ballots than there were registered voters to quash the referendum”.(8)

Conclusion

The next episode of the ‘democracy’ drama in Nepal began in 1990. However, one might say that things after 1990 are different, but are they so? The backbone of the royal regression and aggression has always been the control over coercive state apparatuses, and of course, the non-implementation of land reforms, capable of destroying the rentier control over the rural economy. Further, why do the ruling classes of Nepal remain wary of forming a democratic constituent assembly? Seeing the levels of polarisation in the Nepalese society and political consciousness of the rural and urban poor, the Congress and the parliamentary left, which has been able to get accommodation within the evolving power structure, too have muted their opinions on the constituent assembly. The only purpose that all these democratic experiments in Nepal have fulfilled is time-to-time refurbishing of power structure by accommodating newer elements in the ruling class, while consistently marginalizing the working classes. Further, the royal ‘regression’ or takeover, on the one hand, asserts the hegemony of the rent-oriented classes and big corporates and on the other hand, demonstrates the weakness of the petty bourgeois political formations which have consistently been utilised for the competitive and corporatist interests of various sections of the ruling class, which includes the articulated interests of the multinational capital, irrespective of its origin.

References

(1) Noam Chomsky, “On Power and Ideology”, 1987

(2) Baburam Bhattarai, ‘Royal Regression and the Question of a Democratic Republic in Nepal’, Economic & Political Weekly (EPW), April 9 2005

(3) Stephen Lawrence Mikesell (1999), “Class, State and Struggle in Nepal: Writings 1989-1995”, Manohar, Delhi, pp 94

(4) Ibid.

(5) Nanda R. Shrestha (2001), “The Political Economy of Land, Landlessness and Migration in Nepal”, Nirala, Delhi, pp 156

(6) Frederick H. Gaige (1975), “Regionalism and National Unity in Nepal”, University of California Press, Berkeley, pp 137

(7) See (3), pp 97

(8) See (3), pp 100

State, Economy & Class Struggle in Nepal


Pratyush Chandra

ML INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER (JULY-AUGUST, 2005)

1. Monarchy & Democracy in Nepal – Myth & Reality

The foremost reason that is cited in support of monarchy in Nepal is to ensure politico-economic stability. Inherent in this thesis is a criticism of the Nepali society that democracy by itself cannot sustain stability there. Parliamentary democracy that enlivens various local interest groups has to be tempered and controlled by an overseeing authority that can police them. Both the monarchists and ‘legal’ democrats in the country uphold this bias against the Nepali ‘demos’. The latter perhaps will counter this assessment by saying that they support constitutional monarchy, as in Britain, where monarchy is simply allegoric. But, this is not what was established in Nepal with their agreement in the 1990s – the arrangement to which they agreed keeps monarchy as the final authority. Given the internal class dynamics in Nepal and international scenario, is their any reason to hope for a successful reformist road to Nepali democracy, even in the pattern of constitutional monarchies in some European countries?

The comparison of Britain and Nepal is not only hilarious but mischievous too. A sense of being equal to the royal whites placates many hearts in Nepal. After all, many times in the 19th and 20th Centuries the Nepali royalty struggled to be treated equally. In the world of big powers, where Nepal is evidently powerless and on the receiving end, it gives some Nepalis an easy sense of national pride, history and identity. Understandably, it gives them a heart in this heartless world of competition and race. A handful of Nepali middle class immigrants and children of Nepali high and low nobility in Europe and the US may get a source of emotional and even material sustenance through the exotic image of a Hindu Nepal.

Britain in the 16th-19th centuries as the pioneer of world capitalism was going through tremendous internal transformations as a result of fierce struggle for hegemony between the rentier interests and profiteers – between landlords, merchants and industrialists. It was this struggle that determined the fate of monarchy in Britain. The situation in Nepal is obviously nowhere near Britain. Definitely like in Britain, in Nepal too the rentier interests are the most consistent support bases for monarchy. But the comparison has to stop here. These rentier interests are not complemented and countered by the forces rising from trade and industry within the country as in Britain. The formidable presence of foreign economic interests in the case of Nepal destroys any scope of such internal ‘class’ struggles among the exploiting classes for hegemony. These foreign forces find Nepali rentiers, at least till now, better equipped to regulate the superstructure to sustain their interests on the Nepali soil.

The class base sustaining monarchy in Nepal is that of the financial ‘capital’/moneylenders/landlords, ‘corporate’ interests in many joint ventures with Indian and other foreign capitalists, the mercantile establishments and the upper crust of civil servants and armed forces. The mass base for monarchy is constituted by sections of rich and middle peasantry, petty bourgeoisie and urban intellectuals who waver according to the strength of the working class struggles and their own class-conscious elements. Most of the ‘legal democratic’ forces at grassroots’ level represent this mass base. However, the post-1990s political economic development has developed a ‘democratic’ elite who has consistently interacted with the new institutions and has formidable interest in sustaining them. It is this section that today constitutes the leadership of all the mainstream ‘democratic’ forces in the country. The post-February development this year characteristically attests this fact. Even when the younger generation of democrats occasionally displayed republican sentiment, the leadership almost consistently refrained from attacking the institution of monarchy in their criticism of the monarch. In fact, many of them called for the preservation of the ‘heritage’ of monarchy.

2. Nepali Economy – Problems & Prospects

In order to understand the Nepali situation we must look at its economic contours. In 2003, Nepal’s population was around 24.7 millions, of which around 86% resided in the rural areas, suggesting their dependence on agriculture. The per capita income (PCA) is US $240, which is far below the average PCA in low-income countries ($430) and in South Asia ($460). The share of agriculture in the total Gross Domestic Product has come down from 60.3% in 1983 to 40.6% in 2003. On the other hand, the services sector has increased its share from 26.9% in 1983 to 37.8% in 2003, while the industrial sector too has increased its share in GDP from 12.8% to 21.6%. Even though the increasing share of services and industrial sectors in GDP in comparison to the agriculture sector is a universal trend, it is a peculiar South Asian phenomenon that this is not accompanied with a proportionate shift of the working force from the agriculture sector to the other two sectors. As mentioned above, 86% of the population is directly dependent on agriculture and allied activities, while 80.2% of the labour force is employed in this sector. The services absorb 17% of the labour force, while the industrial sector employs just 2.8%. This situation is aggravated by a tremendous sluggishness in average annual growth (AAG) in the overall productive sectors (agriculture and industrial) and stagnation in services sector. The AAG in agriculture decreased from 3.4 in 1983-93 to 3.3 in 1993-2003 (2.2/2.5 in 2002/03) and in the industrial sector for the same periods it decreased from 9.2 to 4.9 (-2.8/2.3 in 2002/03). In the manufacturing sector, specifically, the AAG declined from 10.1 in 1983-93 to 4.3 in 1993-2003, while it was –10.0 in 2002. On the other hand, in the services sector it remained constant during both decades at 4.9 (-1.7/3.2 in 2002/03).

These facts have several grave implications for the Nepali society. We can enumerate some of them here. Firstly, there is a tremendous rural/urban divide, which provides the topological glimpse of poverty in Nepal – an immense sea of rural poor encircling a few islands of urban affluence. Officially, people living below poverty line amount to 42%. The lowest 20% of population gets 11.5 % of national income whereas the highest 20% gets 44.8%. Taking into consideration the extent of rural inequality and the persistence of semi-feudal forms of exploitation in an increasingly monetised rural setting one can only imagine the state of the poor peasantry, the semi-proletarians and the landless. In 1994, 43.1% of rural household were marginal farmers (less than 0.5 hectares) occupying just 11.3% of the total land, 45.9% were small farmers (0.5-2.0 hectares) owning 46.8% of the total land, and 11% were large farmers (more than 2.0 hectares) owning 41.9% of the total land. Even the World Bank admits that the poverty cannot be reduced in Nepal since “growth has been concentrated primarily in the urban areas and particularly in Kathmandu valley, largely excluding 86 percent of the population who live in rural areas, where per capita agricultural production has grown minimally and the overall level of economic activity has been sluggish”.

Secondly, the disproportion between the share of industrial sector in the GDP and the amount of employment generated there demonstrates that whatever growth we find in this sector is in capital-intensive industries controlled by foreign capital collaborating with a handful of Nepali mercantilist corporates. (A major section of this Nepali big capital is in fact from the Indian business community of Marwaris who migrated a hundred years ago. Since Marwaris are largely endogamous, they have strong familial ties with their Indian counterparts.) In the post-liberalisation phase in the Indian subcontinent, where the Indian big capital overwhelmingly dominates, the employment-generation potentiality of the profit-driven industrial growth is very limited. Whatever employment is generated in the peripheral small scale industries fall in the informal sector, with rampant casualisation, no job security and very low wage. The extent of informalisation in the overall Nepali economy can be gathered from the fact that, even if the “market agricultural workforce” employed in commercialised farming activities is excluded, the informal sector employment, officially, comes to 90.7% of the total labour force. Further, in Nepal unemployment is at 4.89%, which by the head count methodology goes up to 15%, and underemployment is 45% of the total man-days.

Thirdly, the stress on the services sector, especially on tourism, has led to critical consequences. On the one hand, it too has been unable to absorb workforce proportional to its share in GDP, and the labour market in this sector is rampantly informal. Further, the Shangri-la image of Nepal that is sold in this sector, especially in tourism, has degenerating fallouts with a tremendous increase in drug abusage and prostitution. There are people in command who seek to sustain Nepal’s image as South Asia’s Las Vegas or even Bangkok.

Fourthly, the impoverishment in rural and urban areas has resulted in sluggishness in domestic demand for industrial goods, which has further eroded the possibility of an increased industrial growth in Nepal. This fact coupled with the backlash of liberalisation (export-oriented production) has made the industries in Nepal increasingly dependent on external markets – depleting internal resources to feed external demand. This further perpetuates the need for capital-intensity and an import of technologies to compete globally. The World Bank, in 2002, itself provided the glimpse of Nepali dependence while prognosticating slower growth in non-agricultural sectors and a contraction in manufacturing. It speculated that this sluggishness would be due to “(i) drop in domestic demand due to falling agriculture growth that especially affects small industries and services; (ii) decline in export demand as growth in both OECD countries and India has decelerated; (iii) cancellation of export orders caused by trade disruptions and higher insurance costs after the events of September 11th; and (iv) rising costs and uncertainty due to power disruptions, bandhs (general strikes) and direct terrorist attacks by Maoists and other groups on carpet and garment factories and on the liquor business” (these industries are most exploitative, and are heavily dependent on casualised workforce). Hence, there is not much in store for the Nepali industrial sector due to service sector-based (rent-oriented) development strategy and turbulent external market. Moreover, the Indian Multinationals in Nepal have added another dimension to the Nepali economy, they prefer employing Indian labour instead of Nepalis to avoid any investment in human resource development and, of course, class-conscious native proletarians.

3. Finance, Foreign Aid & Politics in Nepal

Interestingly, the fastest growing sub-sectors among services are financial/real estate and community/social services. Moreover, these are the areas that concern the rentier interests (in and out of the State apparatuses) the most. They have been trying everything to make these sub-sectors stable and rewarding. It is the financial sector that is the force behind the neoliberal revolution throughout the world, which motivates the commercialisation of economies and breaks every boundary even if it is meant to attain a degree of self-reliance to be able to compete in the market. While, on the one hand, it helps in the capitalist control over local resources by funding economic activities, on the other hand, it rewards the peripheral agencies who facilitate such acquisitions.

The financial sector in these efforts is complemented by foreign aid driven ‘social sector’, the other sub-sector that has never slackened in Nepal since the initial American efforts under the Truman Doctrine to buy off the Nepali rulers to counter the ‘second world’ influence in South Asia. A foremost radical political economist from Nepal, Nanda R. Shrestha rightly concludes in his “The Political Economy of Land, Landlessness and Migration in Nepal” (Delhi, 2001), “This is what so-called development or foreign aid had achieved: mesmerization of the restless Nepali intellectuals into submission to the reality of consumerism and family sustenance.” It has created a slavish middle class fully trained in protecting and serving the imperialist interests on the Nepali soil. It has created a vast population of “development victims”, too. While enticing the rural producers into commercial ventures without providing them training and peripheral infrastructure, and motivating them to a reckless utilisation of fertilisers, chemicals and genetically transformed seeds for immediate profits regardless of their ecological repercussions, they have made their survival dependent on the ups and downs of the market and on creditors, thus enforcing a form of archaic primitive accumulation and mercantilist exploitation. Once again quoting Shrestha from “In the Name of Development: A Reflection on Nepal” (University Press of America, 1997):

“Development funds have proved to be not only a fantastic boon for the elites, but also a powerful tool of control in their class (power) relations with the poor, an instrument that helps to keep the poor in check while issuing themselves fat checks…To wit, some of the development money has certainly trickled down to a few poor, mainly in the urban-commercial contexts. Consequently, one can find a few poor who have become rich, thus providing good anecdotes of development (capitalist) success. And development advocates are quick to hail such anecdotal rags-to-riches stories to stress their message that the development works. For instance, a poor butcher in Kathmandu has become the owner of a relatively large supermarket-like grocery store which is quite popular among Kathmandu’s elites and Westerners. But what they fail to announce openly is that, for the poor, development is a lottery game and that buried under every success story are scores of tragic stories of development victims. Simply put, poverty remains the stepchild of development, with foreign aid now acting as its sponsor.”

4. Political Changes in Nepal

We provided an overview of the Nepali economy above, and briefly touched upon the various processes in its formation. But underneath these processes one must recognise the semi-conscious designs of hegemonic forces to stabilise their hegemony – their struggle to sustain the roots that gave birth to them. Hence, the people who talk about stability and peace at this juncture must clarify whose stability and peace they want. If they say the forces that came to power in the 1990s must be stabilised to be able to deliver goods, then one must identify who came to power during that time. Did they do anything to curb the continuity and ‘stability’ of the above-mentioned economic processes, which have sustained the rule of the people thriving on foreign aid and squeezing the indigenous productive sectors? The liberal inflow of imperialist capital has been further smoothened. The overstress on attracting aid has become another government enterprise. A finance minister in 1993 while enumerating the Nepali Congress government’s successes added – “there has been a noteworthy increase in the volume of foreign assistance after the formation of the elected government”, even when most of this assistance were in the form of loans, increasing Nepal’s indebtedness. Further, data presented above clearly shows the deepening of dependency of the Nepali economy during 1990s after the ‘democratic takover’, rather than any move to counter it. The contribution of the 1990 ‘revolution’ was simply that it served to bring the neo-rich rural and urban gentry close to the state power, which was earlier monopolised by the royalty and armed forces directly representing the Nepali rentier-corporate class and negotiating with the global capital. In fact, the 1990 ‘revolution’ was a culmination of the Panchayat system and commercialisation of the economy undertaken during that time, which created numerous local facilitating agencies and elites. In their urge to find a sustainable political accommodation, they utilised the general unrest and eventually compromised its revolutionary potential by agreeing to the arrangement that kept the monarch at the helm. It was this intermediate ‘class’ representing neo-rich and petty bourgeois interests in the society that entered the parliament. So, effectively the Panchayat System was repainted as parliamentary democracy, leaving the institution of monarchy to play the same gimmicks of diminishing the vitality of the forces of change by accommodation and repression.

However, this 1990 incident can be called a revolution only in this respect that it was only after it that for the first time in the history of Nepal that the labouring classes – proletarians, landless and poor peasantry – could nationally and independently organise themselves, independent of the wavering petty-bourgeois leadership. The successes of Maoist revolutionaries, despite the news about their recent errors and ‘sectist’ infightings, show that the exploited masses of Nepal can be organised above localism and beyond reformist concessionary movements. What the spontaneous Sukumbasi (landless) movement of 1979 in Tarai lacked, and thus was suppressed brutally and quickly, the Maoists have provided – an organisation with a clear political vision.

When we talk of the working class’ struggle against exploitation in societies like Nepal, which is predominantly an agrarian society with a few enclaves of industrialisation, we need to avoid the schematic ‘pigeon hole’ framework of class analysis. In fact, class boundaries in sociological sense are always fuzzy and their solidification (in a sense, of ‘class solidarity’) depends on the level of class struggle. The level of class struggle in turn depends not only on local production relations, but also on the locus of these production relations in the overall national, regional and global political economy. An agrarian society in South Asia, where agriculture is heavily dependent on seasonal variations, where low technological development and population pressure characterise the whole economy, there is always an organic linkage between the proletarian and rural poor (poor peasants and the landless). This linkage if, on the one hand, depreciates the overall wage-levels and perpetuates casualisation of workforce, on the other hand, it allows a self-organisation of the labouring masses across the rural-urban divide. If on the one hand, villages act as depositories of cheap labour, to be pulled out and pushed forth, whenever capital needs it, on the other hand, these same villages act as the zones of political and economic solidarity among labouring masses. The experience of the Chinese Revolution, the glorious history of Latin American workers and peasant movements and the ongoing struggles in Nepal attest the presence of such potentiality in agrarian societies.

(Note: The data utilised here are taken from various World Bank reports on Nepal and from the studies published by a Nepalese trade union, GEFONT, available on its website, http://www.gefont.org)

For an analysis of the February “Coup”: The Royal Coup in Nepal

Ways of Waste Management


Economic Times, Sunday, August 7, 2005

Even the most rabid globalist would admit that globalisation, too, has its “discontents”, although most likely he would reason them to be due to insufficient effort towards globalisation on the part of governments, or ignorance on the part of the general public or its inclination towards immediate results.

In fact, there has been an increasing trend in social researches, coming out of premier First World institutions, of moralising social conflicts. They see them as “greed disguised”. But at least this much everybody will admit that the dream of a peaceful, post-Cold War global village has not materialised.

…

This leads to a general apathy towards legal political processes as they do not allow the “multitude” even the illusion of influencing the institutions that affect their economic well-being. The recent nos against the new EU constitution are symptomatic of the general mood against such depoliticisation.

That apart, the general unrest in Latin America against free-trade agreements originates from similar political consciousness. And though one should not draw up any definitive blueprints and conclusions for the future, history does force us to imagine limited possibilities.

Full Text:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1193605.cms

Advani’s Jinnah Drama


Advani’s Jinnah Drama – An exercise in Goebbelsian parliamentarism

Advani’s recent visit to Pakistan was quite meaningful. Perhaps the most apparent reason was to assuage his aggressive communalist image, which is seen as a hindrance in posing him as a ‘national’ leader of a ‘secular’ India. Vajpayee’s image of a moderate rightist made him more acceptable, despite Advani’s unique popularity among the ranks and files of all the rightist forces in the country, due to the latter’s leadership in the movement that led to the demolition of the Babri Mosque and communal riots across the country (although he denies his own participation in the actual demolition). If we understand this purpose, the total game plan behind the just finished Jinnah ‘controversy’ seems deliberate and well designed. It shows the strength of the fascist forces in India and their ability to manipulate opinions and coordinate their own organs skilfully. How does it matter, at least, to BJP, VHP and RSS whether Jinnah was secular or not? Taking into consideration their perception regarding the state and the role of religion in defining it, it is highly suspicious that they are reacting against Jinnah being called secular. They could have made it an occasion to tell people that Pakistan is the result of what they call ‘pseudo-secularism’, as they are always ready to reinterpret their leaders’ meaningless utterances. But they did not choose to do that, or rather they wanted to take time in doing so. It was only after the drama that BJP started convincing its bewildered cadres that Advani was actually suggesting that despite Jinnah’s secular speech at the time of independence, he created a theocratic state. However, the collaboration between the different organs of the ten-headed (dashanan) RSS was perfect as always, and it corroborates the Italian anti-fascist leader Togliatti’s characterisation of fascism as a chameleon –
1. Advani calls Jinnah secular,
2. VHP’s Togadia croaks immediately in his regular spirit of mindless denunciations,
3. RSS too does some chastising,
4. Advani is defiant; he resigns and calls for an open debate,
5. BJP is in temporary crisis,
6. “Secular” toadies in NDA, like Nitish Kumar, come in support of Advani, and threatens to pull out of the coalition,
7. Vajpayee and the BJP leadership soothe Advani and,
8. Advani withdraws his resignation.

Logical Conclusion: Within a few days of drama, Advani has become fit for leading a ‘secular’ India. Togadia’s abuses, RSS’ chastising and Nitish’s mediation all are necessary for such qualifications.