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FROM NON-ALIGNMENT TO PRO-IMPERIALISM: CLASS AND FOREIGN POLICY IN INDIA

Jayantanuja Bandyopadhyaya

The magnitude, sense, and direction of a state’s foreign policy are determined, in any given period of time, by both domestic and external factors. One of these factors is the exogenous inputs and stimuli received by the state from the international system, i.e., from other states and groups of states. For example, the foreign policy of the USA between 1945 and 1990 was based on the grand strategy of an ideological and strategic confrontation with the Soviet Union. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union around 1990, the USA and its strategic allies have adopted the strategy ofimperialist domination of the world through economic and military globalization. Similarly, relations between the USA and the USSR during the Cold War and their policies towards India were major external determinants of Indian foreign policy between 1947 and 1990. The nature of these exogenous stimuli changed after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the USA as the only superpower in the international system with the new global strategy of imperialist domination. India had to respond to the new exogenous stimuli through a reorientation of its foreign policy.

However, the new sense and direction of India’s foreign policy in the changed international context was not—and could not have been—mechanically determined. Not all states respond to exogenous stimuli over time in the same way. Every state has an inner structure that mediates between its exogenous stimuli and its foreign policy response. Changes in the exogenous stimuli generated by changes within the international system are therefore responded to differently by different states in a given period of time, or by the same state at different periods of time, according to the differences and dynamics of their inner structural characteristics. The changes in the grand strategy of the USA in response to the dynamics of its external environment were determined by its own structural characteristics and their dynamics. India’s foreign policy of non-alignment during the Cold War, and the pro-imperialist reorientation of its foreign policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union were also determined in the same manner by its structural characteristics and their dynamics.

Class Structure and Foreign Policy

The inner structure of every state can be deconstructed into a finite set of structural units or components, each of which performs a conceptually specific, though operationally overlapping,. function with respect to the making of foreign policy. Moreover, these structural units of the state have relations among themselves, which can be characterized by either coordination or control, or both. However, since the state by definition has a central and sovereign authority, the structure of a state is always and necessarily hierarchical, irrespective of whether its government is democratically constituted or not. This means that some of the structural units are dominant while the others are dependent. Obviously, it is the dominant structural units that play a decisive role in framing its domestic and foreign policy. These dominant structural units determine the goals of foreign policy at any given period of time in terms of ‘national interest’ as perceived by them, interpret the meaning and significance of the exogenous stimuli, and decide the sense and direction of foreign policy. Their foreign policy behaviour is constrained by certain domestic and external constraints and parameters. But these are also interpreted and adapted by the dominant structural units to suit their own class and sectional interests. A basic understanding of the behavioural characteristics of the dominant structural units of a state is, therefore, necessary for an explanation of its foreign policy in any given period of time.

The class structure of a state determines which sections will play a dominant role and which structural units will remain dependent. The class structure of a state with predominantly feudal relations of production, like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, is necessarily different from that of a state with predominantly capitalist relations of production, like the USA or the UK. The class structure of a state with semi-feudal and semi-capitalist relations of production like India is different from that of either Saudi Arabia or the USA. However, it should be remembered that a class permeates the entire state system in its economic, political and social aspects, and does not directly control the sense and direction of foreign policy. It operates through its auxiliaries or affiliates such as political parties, business groups, political and ethnic pressure groups, arms lobbies, political leadership, and bureaucracy. In the USA, for example, the transnational corporations including the big oil companies, the military-industrial complex, the Jewish lobby, the privately owned mass media, and the privately managed educational system have always acted as auxiliaries or agencies of the propertied classes to help shape foreign policy. In Pakistan, the armed forces, the clergy, and the political leadership have generally acted as the auxiliaries of the feudal class in determining foreign policy.

However, we should not take a simplistic view of the relationship between the dominant class and the dominant structural units of a state and their control over the sense and direction of foreign policy. Although the distribution of property is the central characteristic of the relations of production, the latter cannot be analysed or understood purely in terms of an unscientific economic determinism. Archaic social formations like caste or tribe, religious divisions and conflict, ethnic or regional separatism, state-inspired aggressive nationalism, and other sodahistorical forces often impart a complexity to the relations of production, especially in traditional and developing societies, that cannot be correctly explained through economic determinism. On account of such sociological complexity, the membership and leadership of political parties, for example, do not always have a one-to-one correspondence with a particular economic class. The same economic class may also be broadly represented by two different political parties. Therefore, the relationship between the ruling class and the dominant structural units of a state should not be viewed in a deterministic manner. Finally, it should be remembered that the dominant structural units of a state are human aggregates and, as such, possess cognitive, volitional, and heuristic capabilities that impart a measure of autonomy to their domestic or foreign policy behaviour. Given the class structure of the state, the sense and direction of its foreign policy can be predicted only probabilistically, rather than in a deterministic manner.

Subject to such complexities and analytic refinements, however, the class structure of a state is undoubtedly the most important determinant of its foreign policy. The ruling class operates through its auxiliaries, namely, the dominant structural units of the state, in interpreting national interest, deliberating on and responding to exogenous stimuli received by the state, and influencing the magnitude, sense and direction of its foreign policy. It is within this analytic framework that we shall discuss the strategy of non-alignment followed by the government of India from 1947 to 1990, and the strategic shift of Indian foreign policy to pro-Americanism and pro-imperialism since then, especially since 1998 under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance government.

Foreign Policy at Independence

The class structure of India at the time of Independence was predominantly based on feudal relations of production. A dual economy was, however, inherited from the colonial period, and a small capitalist and commercial sector had also developed mainly around the port cities. The vast feudal structure was characterized not only by the economic exploitation of the peasants by the landlords, but also by the socioeconomic oppression of the ‘lower’ castes by the ‘higher’, religious bigotry and superstition, communal divisions and conflict, and linguistic and ethnic differences. At the same time, a large section of the peasantry, and a small section of the big landowners had actively participated in the national liberation movement against British imperialism. Their class interests, therefore, transcended the property question at the national level. The small capitalist and commercial class that had grown in the urban areas also had a somewhat ambiguous class character. The primary interest of this class was, of course, to increase its wealth in independent India and was, therefore, antagonistic to the working class. However, the members of this class as a whole had also suffered economic disability and racial humiliation under British rule and, hence, had developed a strongly nationalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-racist ideological outlook. In fact, a section of this class, as well as a section of the landlords had financed the national liberation movement.

A small middle class had developed in the urban centres, and played a major role during the national liberation movement as well as after Independence. Its members had mostly received Western higher education either in India or in Westem countries, particularly Britain. Except for those few members of this Western-educated middle class who had embraced Marxism and organized proletarian class struggles within the fold of the national liberation movement, the rest were generally ambiguous with regard to their political beliefs and ideological convictions. They were acutely conscious of and sensitive to the political oppression, economic exploitation, and racial humiliation that they had been subjected to under British rule. This psycho-historical sensitivity imparted to the middle class a genuinely anti-imperialist and anti-racist behavioural characteristic. Many members of this class were also deeply impressed by the accelerated economic and educational development of the Soviet Union through state planning and socialism. At the same time, this Western-educated mainstream middle class had a strong empathy for Western political systems, values and beliefs, and shied away from proletarian class struggles at home and proletarian internationalism abroad.

By and large, the middle class, with the exception of its communist fringe, followed the strategy of class collaboration during the national liberation movement, and afterwards under the guise of radical rhetoric. While trying to draw peasants and workers into the freedom movement through the aggregative ideologies of nationalism, anti-imperialism, anti-racism, and religious emotionalism, the mainstream middle class refused to seriously disturb either the class structure or the caste structure of India, and it was this ideologically ambivalent, mainstream middle class that played a major role in shaping national politics and the foreign policy of India after Independence.

Given this class character of the Indian state at the time of Independence, it was natural that Indian foreign policy should take the broad orientation that it did from 1947 till the end of the 1980s. While being strongly anti-imperialist and anti-racist, it was also ambivalent towards the global ideological-strategic confrontation between the Soviet Union and the Western states led by the USA during the Cold War. However, this is only a preliminary and somewhat simplistic formulation of the relationship between the class structure and the broad orientation of the Indian foreign policy after Independence. As explained earlier, the nature and characteristics of the dominant structural units of the state, and the domestic as well as external constraints and parameters under which they operate, should also be taken into account for a scientific explanation of foreign policy. This is what we now proceed to do with reference to Indian foreign policy during the period mentioned above.

The Congress Party, Nehru, and Non-Alignment

The major structural units of the Indian state that were relevant to foreign policy in the first few decades after Independence were the political parties, political leadership, the Parliament, armed forces, and diplomatic bureaucracy. Pressure groups, business lobbies, arms lobbies, etc., were not sufficiently developed or organized to be able to exert any significant influence on the making of foreign policy. Needless to say, not all of these structural units of the state had equal weight with regard to their role in the making of foreign policy. The armed forces were sharply divided in their class composition. While the rank and file was generally recruited from the peasantry, the officers generally came from the propertied classes. They had received their military training under British officers, often in Britain. Although they had inherited the British military tradition of political neutrality and voluntary subordination to civil authority, their education, lifestyle, and ideological proclivities were decidedly Western. However, the representative character and legitimacy of the civilian government which came to power under the Prime Ministership of jawaharlal Nehru led to the marginalization of the armed forces in the making of the Indian foreign policy. The diplomatic bureaucracy, which was initially recruited from among the Indian Civil Service (ICS) officers and families of ex-rulers of the princely states, were pro-Western in their lifestyle and ideological outlook. But it was also effectively brought under the command and control of the political leadership with regard to decision-making in foreign policy.

Thus, the apparently dominant structural units of the state concerned with formulating the foreign policy were the political parties, political leadership, and the Parliament. Among the political parties, the Indian National Congress, which had led the freedom movement under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, dominated the political scene. Unlike in China and Vietnam, the Communist Party of lndia (CPI) had been unable to capture the commanding heights of the anti-imperialist struggle in spite of its dedicated work among peasants and workers. The communal forces, including the Hindu Mahasabha and its successor, the jana Sangh, were too insignificant to be able to exercise any influence on the sense and direction of the foreign policy. Muslim communal politics had also come to an end, at least temporarily, with the partition of the subcontinent. Equally insignificant were the small social democratic parties to the left of the Congress. Indian politics in the first few decades after Independence represented a one-party dominant political system. Since the Congress enjoyed a clear majority in the Parliament, it also exercised nearly total control over the government and its domestic as well as foreign policies. The leadership of the CPI and the social democratic parties did occasionally exercise some indirect influence on the foreign policy through parliamentary debates, agit-prop methods, and their personal relationship with Nehru. But the broad strategy with regard to foreign policy was formulated by the Congress in the light of its perception and interpretation of national interest, external stimuli received, and the constraints and parameters of the state, both domestic and external. Such a perception was undoubtedly coloured by the class character of the Congress and its leadership, but Nehru’s political leadership also played a somewhat autonomous role in giving shape to both perception and policy.

The Congress also had to take into account the basic constraints and parameters of the Indian state system in deciding the sense and direction of the foreign policy. The domestic constraints included the vast social, economic, political and cultural plurality of the state system, and the imperative of accelerated economic development through economic and technological aid from as many foreign states as possible, and the need for political aggregation for the purpose of state-building. The domestic parameters included the liberal-democratic constitution, the anti-imperialist and anti-racist tradition of the national liberation movement, and the Gandhian legacy of tolerance and non-violence. The most important external constraint was the ideological-strategic bipolarity of the international system into which the Indian foreign policy had to be projected. With Pakistan’s direct involvement in the Western military alliances, this central contradiction within the international system had in fact directly impinged on India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The manner in which the Congress responded to these constraints and parameters in foreign policy depended to a great extent on their class character.

The Congress Party basically represented the interests of the propertied classes, including the big landholders, the capitalist and the commercial classes. These classes had financed the party during the freedom movement, and continued to finance it after Independence. The party had, however, successfully created a measure of horizontal unity among the classes and masses through the ideologies of nationalism, anti-imperialism, anti-racism, and religious cosmopolitanism in the face of acute economic and social stratification during the freedom movement. It continued to follow the same strategy after Independence to create a mass following for itself, without in any way disturbing either the exploitative relations of production or the oppressive and crystallized prejudice structure of caste. This class character of the Congress manifested itself in the anti-imperialism and antiracism of the Indian foreign policy as well as ideological-strategic ambivalence as reflected in the strategy of non-alignment. Nehru’s leadership, representing as it did the class character and ideological ambivalence of the mainstream Indian middle class, was not fundamentally different from that of the Congress. Strongly anti-imperialist and anti-racist, Nehru organized the two Asian Relations conferences in 1947 and 1949 respectively, and the Bandung Conference of Afro-Asian states in 1955. He and the Congress also carried on a prolonged struggle against apartheid in South Africa. He was not only the leading architect of the Non-Aligned Movement, but was also mainly responsible for its fundamentally anti-imperialist orientation. However, his ostensibly strong empathy for the emancipation oflndian masses and socialist ideology was not reflected in any attempt at radical reconstruction of India’s relations of production or to seriously challenge the capitalist ideology through his domestic or foreign policy. His Western lifestyle, his Fabian socialism, and his commitment to Western political values and belief patterns persisted throughout his life, and apparently led India into becoming a member of the Commonwealth headed by Britain, and to economic, intellectual and cultural dependence on the West. While it was undoubtedly an antiimperialist strategy, non-alignment was ideologically ambivalent.

It should not be forgotten, however, that the strategy of non-alignment, in spite of being related to the class character of the Congress and its leadership, played a relatively progressive role in international relations during Nehru’s lifetime and afterwards, especially through its resistance against imperialism. India’s policy of non-alignment and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) enabled most of the newly independent states of the Third World to resist the machinations of the imperialist powers led by the USA to reestablish their direct political and military control over these states through imperialist military alliances. India and the NAM opposed big power chauvinism, the balance of power theory, and the militarist approach to international relations in general. In 1976, the Colombo NAM summit even passed a resolution demanding the abolition of the veto and the establishment of a new international political order. On the economic front, India and the NAM raised the demand for a new international economic order that would be free from both direct imperialist exploitation and post-colonial economic neoimperialism, particularly through the Group of 77 and the NAM summit conferences. They also worked incessantly for the promotion of South-South economic cooperation designed to free the developing states from the neoimperialist economic control of the advanced capitalist states. On the cultural front, India and the NAM raised the demand for a new international information order, especially at the UNESCO, in order to free the developing states from the cultural neoimperialism of the USA and the West. This impelled the USA, the leading imperialist state, to withdraw from the UNESCO.

Within a relatively short period of time the majority of UN members joined the NAM in a vast multidimensional anti-imperialist front in international relations. India stood at the vanguard of this Third World movement against international imperialism. Non-alignment became the grand strategy of the Third World against international imperialism, and India’s prestige, as the architect and leader of this movement, stood high. This is the reason why there was a consensus of political support behind India’s policy of non-alignment. The class character of the Congress and Nehru prevented them from making any ideological or strategic commitment to the cause of proletarian internationalism. It merely advocated the peaceful coexistence of conflicting ideologies and socioeconomic systems, and maintained close political and economic links with both the conflicting ideological blocks. Friendship with the Soviet Union was due more to Soviet diplomatic support for India at the UN, particularly on the Kashmir question, and India’s dependence on the Soviet Union for military supplies, than to ideological or strategic empathy for the socialist camp. Nevertheless, India’s policy of nonalignment, while it lasted, did to some extent stymie the progress of imperialism, accelerate the process of decolonization, and intensify the global struggle against white racism in general, and apartheid in particular.

Changes in Class Structure and Foreign Policy

The Class structure that was inherited by the Indian state from the colonial period and the national liberation movement has changed significantly during the last two decades or so, leading to corresponding changes in both domestic and foreign policy. The commitment to social democracy has been replaced by the open advocacy of capitalism and tacit alliance with feudalism. The policy of secularism, albeit in the perverse sense of open encouragement of all religions, had been abandoned by the BJP in favour of the goal of a Hindu Rashtra and the encouragement of Hindu religious fundamentalism by the state and the government. The policy of anti-imperialism in foreign policy had been abandoned in favour of a ‘strategic partnership’ with the USA, the leader of international imperialism. The Indian foreign policy had been made subservient to the concerted drive for economic and military globalization on the part of the imperialist powers, whose main objective is to destroy socialism and establish a structure of dependent capitalism across the world. The grand strategy of non-alignment has been abandoned and replaced by close alignment with the USA and international economic as well as military imperialism.

The ostensible reason for this turnaround in Indian foreign policy is the radical change in the external constraints of the Indian state brought about by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the USA as the sole superpower in the international system. The retrograde changes in foreign policy are generally justified by the camp-followers of imperialism in the name of a ‘new realism’ that is said to have become necessary in the changed international context. But as we have argued before, the foreign policy of a state cannot be explained without reference to its inner structural characteristics, particularly its class structure, although there is no mechanical or deterministic relationship between the two. The retrograde movement of the Indian foreign policy during the last two decades or so can be largely attributed to the changes that have taken place in the country’s class structure, particularly the sociological characteristics of the ruling class. Nor did the process of structural change start only during the BJP era. It had started about the 1980s during the last phase of Congress rule, and gathered momentum in the early 1990s during the prime ministership of Narasimha Rao. It was only accelerated, aggravated, and became more retrograde during the BJP era beginning in 1998. The changes in foreign policy more or less corresponded with these retrograde changes in India’s class structure. These structural changes during this period, with special reference to the class structure, can now be summarized.

Political Realignment of Caste Formations

Although the caste structure of India is conceptually and sociologically different from the class structure, there are considerable overlaps and links between the two. Moreover, there is a high correlation between low economic status and low caste status on the one hand, and high economic status and high caste status on the other, with marginal exceptions. Changes in the political loyalties of the different caste formations, therefore, induce sympathetic changes in the class structure, including the class character of the dominant structural units of the state.

The Congress, as we have noted earlier, was able to create a mass base for itself that cut across class, caste, and communal divisions with the help of nationalism and anti-imperialism, the syncretic ideology of democratic socialism, and a distorted form of secularism. But from the mid-1960s or so, the middle castes, which were relatively numerous and generally belonged to the propertied class, shifted their political loyalty from the Congress to other political parties. These castes constituted the main political base of the Janata Party, which came to power at the Centre in 1977 after the Emergency. Since the early 1970s, the scheduled castes and tribes, which constituted the most socially oppressed and economically exploited section of the Indian proletariat, also started shifting their political loyalties from the Congress to other political parties and started setting up their own political parties. The process gathered momentum after the publication of the Mandal Commission Report in 1980 and the caste violence that followed in northern India. The formation and rapid growth of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and the growth of tribal political movements leading to the formation of the Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Uttaranchal states exemplify this process of political realignment. Meanwhile, the rise of Hindu nationalism has led to a shift in the political allegiance of a large section of the upper castes away from the Congress and towards the BJP.

As a result, the Congress lost a large part of its traditional support base among the proletariat as well as the propertied classes, lost power at the Centre, and ceased to be the most dominant structural unit of the Indian political system. Although the realignment of political loyalties of the caste formations has not taken any single direction, and has had a somewhat fragmented look so far, the main beneficiary appears to have been the BJP. This undoubtedly has been one of the major reasons for the BJP coming to power at the Centre and the rapid replacement of the Congress by the BJP as the most dominant structural unit of the Indian political system in the late 1990s.

Rise of Hindu Fundamentalism

Around the mid-1960s the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and its political wing, the BJP, started rapidly spreading their organizational tentacles and increasing their propaganda on the fascist ideology of Hindu nationalism and Hindu Rashtra, in a bid to capture state power in India. Although the growth of the political influence of the BJP was not immediately reflected in its electoral performance, it enabled the party to become a major partner in the Janata government at the Centre during 1977–79. This stint in office enabled the RSS and the BJP to increase their financial resources and organizational strength further. This, in turn, enabled them to raise their bid for power to a new political level in the 1980s, mainly by taking advantage of the blind faith of a large section of the masses in the Hindi belt in the mythology of the Ramayana. This new organizational and ideological thrust culminated in the demolition of the Babri mosque in 1992, and the Hindu communal frenzy that followed enabled the BJP to capture power briefly in 1996, before establishing a stable government in 1998.

From its inception, the class base of the BJP, like that ofits predecessor, the Jana Sangh, consisted mainly of the feudal and trading classes. The big bourgeoisie generally supported the ruling party, namely, the Congress, with which it had no major ideological differences or conflict of interest. But with the rise of the BJP to a dominant position in Indian politics, particularly after its coming to power at the Centre and a number of states, a section of the capitalist class appears to have transferred its financial support to the party. The defection of a large section of the feudal elements, the big bourgeoisie, and the middle castes from the Congress to the BJP has been a major cause of the decline of the former and the rise of the latter. The BJP has also been trying to spread its influence among the proletarian castes and tribes through the blind emotional appeal of Hindu nationalism. The emergence of the BJP as a dominant structural unit of the Indian state system made a major shift in the domestic and foreign policies inevitable.

Reversal of Ideology

The ideological commitment of the Congress to democratic socialism and secularism at home and to anti-imperialism and non-alignment in foreign policy was being slowly abandoned in the 1980s, as we have already mentioned. This reversal of the Congress ideology was as much due to the erosion of its mass base as to the personal leadership of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. He had a conservative personality and orthodox belief structure, being steeped in Hindu religiosity, with a Hindu ‘godman’ constantly around him. His political views were also at best centrist, if not entirely rightist. He represented the class character of the rightist fringe of the Indian middle class. As a result, he opened up the Indian economy, for the first time, to the predatory manipulations of the transnational corporations of the G-7 states in the name of globalization. He was also responsible for India’s visible retreat from non-alignment, and a new but wholly unwarranted pro-American tilt to the foreign policy after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The BJP-led NDA government, due to its own class character and ideological compulsions, carried this process further into an open ‘strategic partnership’ with the biggest imperialist power of the world.

From its very inception, the BJP, on account of its class character, was ideologically committed to feudalism and capitalism, and a staunch enemy of all forms of socialism anywhere in the world. In this respect, it shared the political strategy of all fascist parties everywhere. Its ideology of Hindu nationalism and Hindu Rashtra involved extreme religious bigotry and fanaticism, and an almost congenital hatred of India’s large Muslim population. Immediately after coming to power the BJP-led government quickly jettisoned the foreign strategy of non-alignment, and started aligning closely with the imperialist global strategies of the USA and its allies. At the same time, its Hindu nationalist fanaticism impelled it to escalate Indo–Pakistan tensions, and to seek to subdue Pakistan with the help of the USA

Rise of the Middle Class

Although the rate of India’s economic development has not been sufficiently high for the alleviation of its mass poverty, there has been a phenomenal growth of the ‘upwardly mobile’ middle class mainly due to the grossly unequal distribution of income and wealth. It has been estimated that at present India’s middle class constitutes approximately a quarter of the population, which makes it larger than the entire population of the USA. This large middle class appears to have embraced the consumerist ethos of contemporary Western capitalism all over India. Most members of this class appear to be indifferent to ideological questions, and to be eager to flow with the tide of capitalism and globalization. They seem to have no commitment to anti-imperialism, and are not even willing to resist the Hindu fundamentalism and fascism of the BJP, so long as it does not seriously affect their personal lives. They form endless queues in front of the visa and immigration offices of the USA and other imperialist Western states in the quest for greater personal fortune and wealth. The rise of this large, consumerist, and non-ideological middle class, which itself is apparently one of the results of globalization, is a relatively new element of the Indian class structure that emboldened the BJP-led government to follow a pro-imperialist foreign policy.

Rise of Regional Parties

Simultaneously with the other processes of change in India’s state and class structure, and partly on account of them, a large number of regional and local parties have emerged on the Indian political scene, thus imparting a fragmented character to the political structure. Most of these regional parties are devoid of any kind of ideological commitment, and thrive on ethnic, linguistic, or regional chauvinism, casteist politics, or purely anti-incumbency negativism. So far as the central government is concerned, the only objective of these regional parties appears to be the sharing of power at the Centre to strengthen their own position in their respective regions or localities. They appear to have little interest in the broader ideologies and issues of national politics or foreign policy, and are willing to sail with the dominant party in a coalition on all these matters. This gives a more or less free hand to the dominant partner in a central coalition government, such as the BJP, to pursue its national and international objectives according to its own class interests and ideologies.

The above analysis of the changes in India’s state structure, particularly its class structure in relation to changes in its foreign policy was intended to indicate the causal link between the two sets of variables in a more or less theoretical perspective. We now proceed to give empirical illustrations of how the pro-American and pro-imperialist foreign policy of the BJP, arising out of its own class character and ideology, has been formulated in specific instances by the Vajpayee government, in response to external stimuli arising out of India’s international environment.

Foreign Policy of the Vajpayee Government

The BJP and the other front organizations of the Sangh Parivar, including the RSS, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal, often projected Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee as a moderate and a liberal, who did not necessarily subscribe to the party’s views on Hindu nationalism, Muslim-phobia, feudalism, capitalism, anti-socialism, and pro-Americanism. Vajpayee himself contributed to this ostensibly liberal image by expressing opinions on certain national and international issues that appeared to be occasionally at variance with those of some other wing of the Sangh Parivar. However, this was merely a tactical ploy adopted by the Sangh Parivar, to which Vajpayee was party, designed to widen the political support base of the BJP. Vajpayee, Like most of the other leaders of the BJP, is a lifelong member of the RSS, subject to its discipline, and loyal to its ideology. The BJP is the political front of the RSS and represents the fascist ideology of the latter. It is true that the views publicly expressed by Vajpayee on the Indian Muslims, Indo–Pakistan relations, Hindu nationalism, the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, and ‘genuine nonalignment’ were less fundamentalist and fanatical than those of the BJP. But this happened when the BJP was not in power, and was trying to expand its support base by projecting Vajpayee, the ‘liberal’, as the future prime minister. There can be no doubt that this tactic paid political dividends and helped the BJP to capture power at the head of a 24-party coalition in 1998. Vajpayee, however, revealed his true colours as an RSS and BJP loyalist almost immediately after becoming prime minister.

The Pokhran nuclear tests, which Vajpayee immediately ordered after assuming charge as Prime Minister, were intended to be the first signal to the people of India and the world that the BJP attached high priority to Hindu nationalism and Hindu national power, ‘greatness’ and ‘glory’. They were also a signal to Pakistan regarding the BJP’s Hindu nationalist perspective of India–Pakistan relations. In September 2000, Vajpayee visited the USA and addressed a joint session of the US Congress. He procured the services of a Brahmin priest from a Hindu temple in the USA and made him chant Vedic mantras in Sanskrit before his speech, in order to project his Hindu nationalist identity. In December 2000, he supported the construction of a Ram temple on the site of the demolished Babri Masjid, as demanded by the RSS, BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal and Durga Vahini, and described this falsely and perversely as a ‘national aspiration of the Indian people’. During the state-sponsored riots of 2002 in BJP-ruled Gujarat in which killed several thousand Muslims and rendered many thousands more homeless, Vajpayee again revealed his true Hindu fundamentalist colours. On 12 April, he launched a vitriolic attack on Islam and Muslims, not only in India but also in other states like Indonesia and Malaysia, and accused them of persistent religious violence. He branded all Muslims everywhere as ‘natural aggressors’, adding that Islam had spread by the sword through the ages.

The distinction between the BJP ideology and Vajpayee’s ideology was, therefore, a contrived one, and was deliberately designed purely as a political tactic, by the Sangh Parivar itself. The BJP’s Hindu nationalist ideology, its commitment to capitalism both at home and abroad, its strong antipathy for socialism, its aversion to anti-imperialism and non-alignment, and its preference for an alliance with the USA have in fact been the basic parameters of the foreign policy of the Vajpayee government. In order to ensure that his foreign policy did not deviate from these ideological parameters, Vajpayee also reorganized the political as well as administrative structure of the decision-making process. He filled the prime minister’s office with members and loyalists of the BJP, and appointed a BJP member and a loyal personal factotum as his principal private secretary (PPS) as well as national security adviser (NSA). He also reorganized the National Security Council and brought it under the control of the PPS and NSA. Although he headed a 24-party coalition, he constituted a cabinet committee on security that consisted of only senior BJP ministers, with the exception of the Defence Minister George Fernandes who belonged to the Samata Party but was more loyal to the BJP and Vajpayee than most BJP leaders. He also appointed a large number of BJP loyalists as advisers in the vital ministries of external affairs, defence, and finance, although the constitutional validity of these appointments was extremely doubtful.

In an even more blatantly partisan and unconstitutional move, Vajpayee appointed an RSS organizer of Indian origin and leading member of the Friends of the BJP in the USA, as an adviser to the Indian Embassy in Washington with the rank of an Ambassador to the USA He did this in the face of stiff opposition from the Parliament and the foreign office. The RSS and BJP activist was designated as the Ambassador-at-Large for all non-resident Indians (NRIs), and Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) abroad. The obvious intention was to bypass the regular diplomatic bureaucracy for implementing the RSS agenda in foreign policy. This RSS project could not, however, be ultimately pushed through on account of the provisions of international and diplomatic practice, which prevented the US government from officially accepting two ambassadors from one country. But that is a comment on Vajpayee’s knowledge of the international law, not his dedication to the RSS cause in the making and implementation of his foreign policy.

Indo-Pakistan Relations and the USA

The Lahore Declaration of 1999 was held up by the BJP and the Vajpayee government as an example of their ostensibly friendly attitude towards Pakistan, and of the liberal and moderate character of Vajpayee’s personal leadership. It, however, only revealed their willingness to subordinate their foreign policy to the dictates of the USA The USA had condemned the Pokhran nuclear tests by India as well as the Pakistani nuclear tests that followed. It had mobilized the P-5 states to apply combined diplomatic pressure on India and Pakistan to start immediate negotiations. The USA and its strategic allies including Japan also imposed economic sanctions on both the countries following the nuclear explosions. At US initiative, the UN Security Council also passed a resolution condemning the nuclear tests and urging both India and Pakistan to start an immediate dialogue. It was under such intense international diplomatic pressure primarily engineered by the USA, which impelled the Vajpayee government to start the dialogue process leading to the Lahore Declaration in which both states agreed ‘to intensify their efforts to resolve all issues, including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir’. However, instead of intensifying such efforts, the dialogue process was allowed to languish, in tune with the BJP’s Pakistan policy, until it was overtaken by the Kargil crisis.

India’s nuclear explosions at Pokhran in 1998, and the events that led to the Lahore Declaration in the following year, reflected the foreign policy parameters of the BJP and their dedicated implementation by the Vajpayee government. By ordering the nuclear tests, Vajpayee had fulfilled his commitment to the BJP ideology of Hindu nationalism and Hindu national power. But it was also one of the BJP’s major foreign policy objectives, which followed from its class character, to form a close diplomatic and strategic relationship with the USA Hence, the Vajpayee government yielded to diplomatic pressure from the USA and its strategic allies to start a dialogue with Pakistan, but did not deviate even marginally from the BJP’s foreign policy towards the latter.

The Kargil crisis of 1999 also revealed the growing collaboration between the Indian and US governments. When the Indian army started its attack on the Pakistani forces that had infiltrated and built defensive positions across the line of control (LOC), the Clinton administration immediately directed the Vajpayee government not to allow the Indian troops to cross the LOC under any circumstances. The Vajpayee government accepted the directive, and requested the US Administration to compel Pakistan to vacate its aggressive occupation of Indian territory. Apparently pleased with India’s positive response to its initiative that had led to the Lahore Declaration, as well as its compliance with the new Kargil directive, the Clinton administration decided to oblige India. President Clinton summoned Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to Washington, where the two states issued a joint declaration that provided for the withdrawal of Pakistani troops to the Pakistani side of the LOC. The Indian forces had indeed fought bravely and made great sacrifices while evicting the Pakistani intruders from Indian soil. But the fact also remains that US diplomatic pressure on Pakistan was a major additional cause of the failure of the latter’s Kargil misadventure.

The Agra Summit of July 2001 represented a similar tactic on the part of the Vajpayee government. It succumbed to US pressure to resume dialogue with Pakistan, but at the same time refused to budge from the party’s policy on Pakistan. American diplomatic pressure on India and Pakistan for the resumption of negotiations had increased after the Kargil crisis, prompting Prime Minister Vajpayee to invite General Musharraf to Agra for talks. The Indian media built up a government-inspired hyper-publicity around Vajpayee’s initiative. But, the Agra Summit of July 14–16 ended in almost total failure. At the crucial summit meeting on July 16, Vajpayee insisted on discussing the whole range of India–Pakistan relations, including cross-border terrorism and Kashmir, thus downgrading the Kashmir issue to which Pakistan had always attached top priority. General Musharraf, on the other hand, as could be expected, insisted on taking up the Kashmir issue before discussing any other issue. He also rejected Vajpayee’s stand on cross-border terrorism and described it as the ‘freedom struggle’ of the Kashmiri people. The disagreement was so acute that the General and his delegation left Agra shortly after midnight. Here again Va jpayee had bowed to US pressure and taken the initiative for the resumption of negotiations with Pakistan. But he did not deviate from the Hindu nationalist ideology of his own party and its historical antipathy for Pakistan by reopening the Kashmir issue in spite of the generally procapitalist and pro-American sense and direction of his foreign policy.

There is strong evidence to suggest that the Agra Summit was the handiwork of the US State Department. Vajpayee’s invitation to Musharrafhad been preceded by separate triangular and high-level confabulations in Washington, organized at the initiative of the US Administration. Musharraf declared in Islamabad, on the eve of his departure to India for the Agra Summit, that Vajpayee had been compelled by the USA to invite him for talks, although he subsequently retracted this statement, presumably under US advice. The date of the Agra summit was first announced by the US State Department, and not by India or Pakistan. The agenda included international drug trafficking, which was a primarily American concern, and a surprising item on an lndo-Pak summit agenda involving high politics and diplomacy. Immediately after the failure of the summit, the US media reported that none of the three drafts presented before the summit had been accepted. Since India and Pakistan had submitted only one draft each, the implication was that the third draft was prepared by USA

That the USA’s clout over India with regard to India–Pakistan relations had grown rapidly during the Vajpayee era was also proved by the events following the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on 13 December 2001. In line with the BJP’s class character and ideology, the Vajpayee government recklessly prepared to launch a military attack on Pakistan, and massed troops on the Pakistan border. It came out with the argument that India had the right to make a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan, just as the USA had used this right to attack Afghanistan. Pakistan immediately responded to the Indian move by test-firing several nuclearcapable missiles, thus indicating its readiness to make a nuclear response to a conventional attack by India. General Musharraf also declared that in view of India’s superiority in conventional arms, Pakistan would not hesitate to launch a first nuclear strike against India. The US administration refused to buy India’s argument regarding the right of pre-emptive strike, arguing that the two situations cited by India were not comparable. The Indian troops remained on the Pakistan border for several months, until they were withdrawn under relentless diplomatic pressure from the USA and its strategic allies. Senior officials of the Bush administration boasted immediately afterwards that US diplomatic pressure on India had succeeded in averting a nuclear war in South Asia.

It was, and still is, imperative for both India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir issue through peaceful diplomacy. But the process of reconciliation should be voluntary and consistent with the sovereignty of the two states, and free from private external interference. But the Vajpayee government, pursuing the foreign policy parameters of the BJP, failed to take any independent initiative to improve India Pakistan relations in any of the instances cited above, and merely yielded to US pressure. While insisting on the principle of bilateralism that was agreed to in the Shimla Treaty of 1972, the Vajpayee government repeatedly submitted itself to wanton US interference in its policy towards Pakistan. At the same time, it always took pains to adhere to the BJP’s foreign policy approach towards Pakistan, and to frustrate the dialogue process on each occasion. Owing to the class character of the Musharraf regime in Pakistan and that of the Vajpayee government in India, the Kashmir problem has been exacerbated. But even more disturbing was the growing interference of the USA in India’s foreign policy, and the BJP’s weekkneed of the situation. However, as a part of this external interference and its voluntary acceptance, preparations for another Indo-Pakistan summit proceeded amid reports of an American ‘road map’ for Kashmir.

Indo-US Relations in Other Areas

In areas other than India-Pakistan relations, the foreign policy of the Vajpayee government became even more subservient to US interests. When the US government announced its new National Missile Defence System (NMD) in April2001, in violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972 with the Soviet Union, the Vajpayee government immediately announced its unqualified support to it. India was in fact the first state to support the USA’s new nuclear doctrine. But the NMD soon met with opposition not only from Russia and China, but also from the European Union. This was in many ways a turning point for the Indian foreign policy. India had earlier always opposed the nuclear strategy of the superpowers, refused to become a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and proposed general disarmament as the only way to world peace. Around this time, the Vajpayee government also started developing military collaboration with the USA through high-level diplomacy, and a series of joint military exercises involving all the three wings of the armed forces. This was another indication of the new pro-US turn of India’s foreign and defence policies. Meanwhile, collaboration between the intelligence and security agencies of India and the USA had also grown apace.

The pro-American foreign policy of the Vajpayee government also manifested itself when the US government declared the ‘first war of the twenty-first century’ against ‘international terrorism’ following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9 September 2001. No sooner had the Bush administration declared its international war against unidentified terrorists and countries alleged to be harbouring them, than the Vajpayee government offered the use of India’s air space, air force bases, and intelligence and logistic support to the USA The US government had not requested India to for such support, and in fact did not accept the offer because they did not need it. But India’s unsolicited and unqualified support for the new imperialist doctrine of the USA, and of the subsequent US attack on Afghanistan, showed the distance Indian foreign policy had rapidly travelled after the BJP came to power in 1998.

The last nail in the coffin of non-alignment was the Vajpayee government’s response to the US–British invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The unilateral and private invasion took place in total violation of the UN Charter and international law, and was clearly an act of imperialist aggression that was committed in pursuance of a preconceived global imperialist design after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The declared US objective of destroying Iraq’s alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction had no basis in fact or validity according to international law. The other declared objective of freeing the Iraqi people from tyranny through military aggression was both hypocritical and illegal. The real objectives of the US aggression on Iraq were purely imperialistic, perhaps the most important of which was to jump-start the sagging US economy through war. The second objective was to rejuvenate the military-industrial complex, the oil companies and other transnational corporations (TNCs) that act as prime movers of the US economy. The third objective was to ensure cheap and steady oil supplies for the USA and its strategic allies. The fourth objective was to enable the US-based TNCs to reap hyper profits from the reconstruction of Iraq. The fifth objective was to create a permanent security environment for Israel, the USA’s staunchest ally in the Middle East. The sixth objective was to relink Iraq’s oil trade, which had been delinked from the dollar and linked to the euro by the Saddam regime, to the dollar. The last–but not the least–objective of the US aggression on Iraq was to boost the election prospects of George W Bush in 2004. Yet, the Vajpayee government refused to react negatively to US–British imperialist aggression on Iraq for a long time. Under relentless pressure from the mass organizations, the opposition parties, and the press, it was finally compelled to adopt a resolution in the Parliament against the invasion of Iraq.

US–British imperialist aggression on Iraq has already caused an immense destruction of life and property, civilizational infrastructure and cultural treasures of Iraq, in addition to destroying the national freedom of the Iraqi people. As the imperialist occupation oflraq continued indefinitely and the resistance of the Iraqi people grew by the day, the USA wanted India to contribute one whole division of soldiers for the ‘stabilization’ of its imperialist occupation oflraq. Would the USA have dared to make such a demand on India in the pre-BJP period of Indian foreign policy in a similar situation? But the Vajpayee Government, instead of rejecting the US demand outright, negotiated the terms and conditions under which the Indian troops would be sent to Iraq. The USA had ruled out a UN peace-keeping force to replace the vast US war machine in Iraq. Hence, any Indian troops that might be sent to Iraq under US occupation would have a purely mercenary status in international law, and function as an auxiliary of the US occupying forces. It would also amount to the direct participation of India in the enforcement and continuation of US-British imperialism in Iraq. If this speculation turned out to be true, and Indian troops were sent to Iraq to help perpetuate US occupation, it would have meant a complete reversal of Indian foreign policy and a shameful collaboration with global US imperialism.

Another pro-imperialist feature of the Vajpayee government’s foreign policy, was the formation of a new India–USA–Israel axis at India’s initiative. While this new Indian initiative was in conformity with the anti-Islam, anti-Pakistan, and pro-American parameters of the BJP’s foreign policy, it represented a complete reversal of India’s West Asia policy since independence. Until the beginning of the Vajpayee era, Indian foreign policy had consistently championed the Arab cause against Israel, and opposed the Israeli occupation of Arab territory in violation of numerous UN Security Council resolutions. At the same time, Israel has always been a close strategic ally and virtual military outpost of the USA in West Asia. India’s growing diplomatic and military collaboration with the USA during the Vajpayee era, culminating in the emergence of an India–USA–Israel axis, represented the climax of a new Indian foreign policy that was simultaneously pro-imperialist and anti-Islamic, and a product of the class character and ideology of the Sangh Parivar.

Conclusion

This retrograde movement in Indian foreign policy was not a logical and necessary outcome of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the USA as the only superpower in the world. This radical transformation of Indian foreign policy had merely increased the threat of global imperialism, which called for greater vigilance and resistance on the part of Third World states, large and populous states with an anti-imperialist foreign policy tradition like India. Even small states like Cuba and North Korea had vigorously persisted with their anti-imperialist foreign policies long after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It was in fact imperative for the Government of India, in the new international context, to rejuvenate the Non-Aligned Movement, and to give it a stronger anti-imperialist thrust than ever before. NAM should also have been energized into becoming the spearhead of an international movement for the democratization of the UN and for nuclear as well as general disarmament. But as we have explained earlier, the response of a state to changes in its external constraints and stimuli depend fundamentally on the class character of its dominant structural units. The adoption of a global anti-imperialist strategy in response to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the USA as a ruthless and wanton imperialist superpower would have been alien to the class character of the BJP and the ideological parameters of the Sangh Parivar.

The trouble is that we cannot expect a complete reversal of the pro-imperialist foreign policy of the Vajpayee government from an Indian government that is dominated by a bourgeois party whose class character is not fundamentally different from that of the BJP in spite of possible differences on the communal question. Imperialism in one form or another is fundamentally a corollary of the inner contradictions within the structure of capitalism at an advanced stage of its development. It can, therefore, be seriously resisted only by a state with a different class content. Such a state alone can adopt a transformative and emancipatory approach to international relations and foreign policy. Hence, Indian foreign policy can develop a stable and long-term anti-imperialist and emancipatory character only when the forces of scientific socialism in India are able to exercise decisive influence on Indian foreign policy. It is, therefore, imperative for the leftist forces in India to concentrate their energies on their own independent development throughout the country, and to innovate appropriate strategies and tactics for that purpose.