SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA
ARCHIVES

T V R Shenoy

America is the world and the world is America!?!

Every year several million Americans gather around their televisions to watch what they call the World Series, something supposed to tell you which is the best baseball team of the year.

World Series, I repeat, is the American title. Nobody knows what the rest of the planet call it for two excellent reasons. First, baseball isn't a global passion, so nobody much cares what it is named. Second, by law the competition is limited to 28 teams, all but one American. (The odd men out are based in the Canadian city of Toronto, just across the American border.)

Under the circumstances, calling such a championship a World Series is amazingly self-centred behaviour. And it is axiomatic, isn't it, that a national sport is a fair pointer to the true character of a nation?

Americans genuinely doesn't see how silly it sounds to elevate a purely parochial pursuit to the heights of, say, the football World Cup. From there it is a relatively small leap of imagination to believe that the United States is the world.

So Americans aren't content to state that the United States disapproves of India entering the nuclear weapons club. No, they say the world disapproves. And this 'fact' is happily played up by the Western media.

But does this claim stand up to analysis? Does the world truly dissent with India's decision?

Well, I am sure China and Pakistan do! But they will never be happy until India disbands her army, navy and air force. It was never expected that these two would be happy to see such evidence of India's technological and military might.

But the rest of the world? Let us begin with the super-exclusive G-8, that group of the world's seven richest nations and Russia. If sanctions are to be imposed in earnest, it is the G-8 countries that have the power to do so. So how did America's friends react to President Clinton's appeal?

Britain and France politely refused to let their businessmen suffer. Germany began on the American side before veering back to its European neighbours. Japan cut $ 28 million in aid, but left about $ 962 million in the pipeline. Russia started by expressing disappointment with India -- and then proved just how sad it was by promising to sell India hi-tech submarines. Not exactly ringing endorsements of the American perception!

Of course, there should be more to a policy than a purely economic aspect. There should also be a moral dimension. And who better to speak on it than the Dalai Lama and President Nelson Mandela of South Africa, both Nobel Peace laureates?

Well, the Dalai Lama's reaction was that India had every right to arm herself, and that it was hypocritical to say otherwise given the vast nuclear arsenals possessed by some critics. President Mandela began by saying he was sorry such a step had been taken and ended by condemning all nuclear weapons. (It should be noted that his government has, in fact, destroyed its own nuclear capabilities.)

Interestingly, South Africa was the only African nation to react, however mildly. The other 50 nations on the continent just kept quiet about it.

Just across the Suez Canal, none of the West Asian countries condemned India. The sole exception was Israel, a recipient of massive American military and economic aid.

South-East Asia too kept silent. Of course, it could be that many of them -- such as Vietnam and the Philippines -- are more concerned about China's imperialist ambitions. So they are rather pleased that there is finally a potential regional challenger to that giant.

But China is thousands of miles away from Latin America. Yet even here, in the United States's own backyard so to speak, there has been no condemnation of India. An enigmatic silence is the norm from Mexico down to the Antarctic.

So what, ultimately, becomes of all those claims that the 'world' is against India? Africa isn't. Nor are West Asia and South-East Asia. Nor is Latin America. Nor is most, almost all, of Europe.

None of this necessarily means all these people support India. But it does indicate that they have no intention of permitting the United States to speak for them.

"Indira is India and India is Indira!" was a Congress boast of the 1970s. "America is the world and the world is America!" is the unspoken assumption today. Well, it was wrong then and it is just as silly today!

T V R Shenoy