Indian Scene

Indian foreign policy: From non- alignment to strategic servitude of US imperialism
K.N. Ramachandran

The verdict of a chief judicial magistrate of Bhopal  in the world’s worst industrial disaster ,the Bhopal gas leak of3-4 December,1984,should not surprise anyone who has tried to go through the  approach of the central and state governments, the political leaderships of Congress ,the bureaucracy and the judiciary from top to bottom who had connived to let Warren Anderson, the number one accused and all others to escape ,who have surrendered to US threats ,put up with the arrogance of the MNC the Dow Chemicals ,and diluted the Bhopal case almost to the status of a traffic accident. It also shows the extent of the US pressure on consecutive Indian governments which meekly surrendered before it without a murmur. Even the monopoly media in the West could not digest the shameless manner in which the Indian government is lackeying to the US administration, to the Union Carbide company and now to Dow Chemical’s as their comments reveal. Still the UPA government at centre is least perturbed. It is going ahead hastily to get the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill passed which will reduce the compensation for a nuclear plant disaster to just Rs 500 crores when the Three Mile Island disaster in US and Chernobyl in former Soviet Union had cost billions of dollars for the damage control. The way the cut motions against the budget was defeated on 27 April it is almost possible that this bill also may be carried through by putting pressure on the so called third front parties utilizing CBI for arm twisting .The Sonia- Manmohan company is also planning to hastily pass the bill to punish all those who criticize the GM seeds and food items summarily to please the US administration and the MNCs like Monsanto.
This subservience to US imperialism which is depicted as a strategic ally by the UPA government do not stop here .Prime minister Manmohan Singh has proved that he is nothing but a running dog of US imperialists by scrouplessly avoiding any visit to Teheran when most of the leaders of Asian, African, Latin American countries have done so more than once. When Brazil and South Africa along with Turkey worked out an alternative suggestion to diffuse the Iranian nuclear crisis created by US, the Indian government kept away from it. Except in direct military operations in all other fields Indian military, paramilitary and engineering departments are serving at the US-NATO aggression in Afghanistan. According to the numerous strategic agreements signed with US the Indian government has agreed to deploy its Navy to help US forces to police Indian Ocean. In a well calculated manner US administration is cultivating relation with Indian government so that its interests are faithfully served by the latter as a trusted junior partner. There is a significant shift from its earlier stand of utilizing Pakistan as the most trusted comprador regime of the region to raising India to that status. The UPA government is speedily implementing all dictates of the imperialist master while imposing neo colonial slavery over the country and the people. In more than one sense it is a major shift in the foreign policy of Indian government corresponding to the neo liberal phase.
Nehrurian phase
After 1947 transfer of power with the transformation from a direct colony of British imperialism to a neo colony under the domination of finance capital and market controlled by the US led imperialist forces, reflecting its internal comprador policies the Nehru government supported all strategic steps taken by US imperialism like its Korean war. At the sometime to push forward its economic policies based on the Bombay plan of Tata Birla’s it had decided to utilize the contradiction between the imperialist camp and the socialist camp like many other comprador governments which had come in to existence following the de colonization pushed forward by the imperialist camp to promote neo colonization. With this perspective a non alignment movement (NAM) was also launched. It was a clever policy to get maximum economic aid utilizing the contradiction between the two camps and by enforcing the Keynesian policies while ruthlessly opposing all proletarian revolutionary initiatives within the country.
When Soviet Union degenerated to capitalist path and transformed to a social imperialist power which was competing as well as colluding with US imperialism for world hegemony, it became easier for Indira Gandhi government to continue the so called non alignment policy on the one hand and to sign an Indo-Soviet Treaty in 1971 for serving its expansionist policies in South Asia. Soviet Union had supported its annexation of Sikkim and the dispatch of its army to East Bengal to dismember Pakistan. At the same time it continued to faithfully follow the US imperialist dictated economic policies including allowing more imperialist capital , MNC ,World Bank and other imperialist agencies. Besides Indira Gandhi government ruthlessly suppressed the communist revolutionary upsurge following ‘Naxalbari’ uprising in India end prevented a communist takeover in Bangladesh. It was also supporting the US in its containment policy against socialist China. Its foreign policy was non alignment only in name. It was maneuvering to get maximum economic and political benefits utilizing the contradiction between the two superpowers, while internally suppressing all popular movements against reactionary state policies.
Post emergency shift  
 When the hitherto Congress hegemony over the central government ended in 1977 election after the internal emergency and Janatha party came to power the international situation also had undergone many changes. The stag flation in imperialist economy in 1970s was leading to introduction of neo liberal policies in Britain and US abandoning the Keynesian policies. The crisis in imperialist economy had started seriously affecting Soviet Union and the East European countries which had left socialist path, were dismantling the public sector and implementing capitalist policies, leading to major crises there. The socialist China had come under capitalist readers. There was a rightist wind all over the world .So it was easy for the right of center Janatha party government to abandon hitherto apparently progressive looking foreign policy and adopt a policy of moving nearer to US imperialism in all respects under the new foreign minister, the RSS bred AB Vajpayee.
Though Indira Gandhi came back to power in 1980 in tune with the international and national situation and also as her government was being compelled to take a massive IMF loan to tide over the economic difficulties it started pursing the foreign policy promoted by the Janatha party government more actively. The NAM was in effect abandoned except in rhetoric’s to cheat the gullible. Though the Sri Lankan policy of supporting, training and arming the militant Tamil groups was started in connivance with Soviet interests, the major thrust was to strengthen its own expansionist policies in South Asia. By 1984 when Rajiv Gandhi took over as prime minister, when dependence on IMF-WB loans increased, when the country was opened to MNCs and western know how, in the name of leading the country to the new century and as US started showing more interest to develop relations with Indian government, the shift towards US policies started getting further strengthened. The 1989-1991 governments of VP Singh and Chandrasekhar by pursuing more faith fully the IMF -World Bank package of economic policies in the name of escaping from the foreign exchange crisis, created conditions for further shift in the foreign policy.
With the introduction of imperialist globalization policies the country was opened to IMF- World bank and then WTO along with other imperialist agencies and MNCs. Neo colonization reached a more intensive new phase with neo liberal policies coming to dominance in all fields. Irrespective of what is written in the preamble of the Constitution, both internal and foreign policies were transformed speedily in servitude to US imperialism in particular and imperialist world order in general. It was in this situation the BJP led NDA government initiated 13rounds of Jaswant Singh -  Talbot talks chalking out a whole frame work of strategic relations between US and India, according to which India will serve as a faithful junior partner of the US imperialism. The UPA government which took over in 2004 started pursuing this policy more speedily with Sonia-Monmohan Singh team proving as the most trusted compradors with whom the US is ready to go ahead to any extent to establish India as its strategic ally in Asia to serve its hegemony. This was in spite of the much trumpeted Common Minimum Policy arrived at to ensure support of the CPI (M) led left front.
Failure to recognize neo colonization leads to erroneous left approaches 
An over view of the approach towards the foreign policy of the consecutive central governments by various left forces show how they were led to out rightly erroneous positions as they failed to evaluate the de-colonization leading to transfer of power in 1947 and transformation of colonial India to neocolonial one. Some fringe forces right from the beginning refusing to recognize the real intention of this transformation have analyzed India as an independent capitalist country pursuing imperialist policies in South Asia. In spite of the latest developments exposing how servile is the Indian sate to imperialists, especially US imperialist policies in South Asia, they religiously strike to this erroneous stand, in effect becoming apologists of the imperialist domination over all fields.
The Soviet revisionists led by Krushchov clique had evaluated that imperialism has weakened following Second World War and has abandoned colonialism. According to them decolonization has led to erstwhile colonial, semi colonial, dependent counties becoming newly independent counties pursuing non capitalist path of development. So they advised the communist parties in these countries to join the national bourgeoisie and their parties to complete democratic revolution and for peaceful transition to socialism. During the 1956 visit to India Krushchow acclaimed Nehru government and its non alignment policies .The Chinese leadership also did the same. Religiously following Kroshchov’s address, the CPI leadership degenerated as a lackey of Congress and acclaimed Nehru’s foreign policy to the heaven. They came with the strange argument that even if some aspects of internal policy are anti people the foreign policy is excellent. They refused to recognize how the external policies are basically  a reflection of the internal policies and that in spite of progressive rhetorics the Nehru government was following policies which were basically serving imperialist interests. As the CPI leadership refused to accept the degeneration of Soviet Union in to an imperialist power in practice contesting and colluding with US imperialism for world hegemony, it failed to understand the maneuvering policies of Indian government .It became an outright lackeys of her government.
Though CPI (M) initially opposed the CPI leadership out rightly in 1964 it also stated that though the internal policies are wrong India’s foreign policy is on the whole progressive. In spite of certain criticisms against the Vajpayee government and then UPA government’s shits in policies towards US even now both CPI and CPI (M)  are not out rightly criticizing the foreign policy as they are implementing the neo liberal policies wherever they are in power and as they have abandoned the Marxist line of struggling for over throwing the ruling system So in effect CPI and CPI (M) ,and forces leaning to their approach have degenerated as apologists of neo colonialism in theory and its executioners where they are in power. So they do not condemn the expansionist policies of Indian state and its strategic servitude to US imperialism.
As far as the CRs in general and CPI (ML) in particular are concerned, they had denounced the comprador policies of the central government and its subservience to both US imperialism and Soviet social imperialism. They denounced the foreign policy of Indira Gandhi government which was in effect a reflection of its reactionary internal policy. Though this approach was on the whole correct, as the capitalist readers led by Deng Tsiaoping usurped power in china and put forward the Theory of Three Worlds as the strategic line of the world proletariat, most of the splintered CPI (ML) groups who mechanically upheld this class collaborationist theory took erroneous international approach. Evaluating Soviet social imperialism as the main danger some of them more or less look compromising positions to US imperialism. As they approached the foreign policy of the central government based on this position, they failed to evaluate it correctly. 
It is in this context the real character of the transfer of power in 1947 under neo colonization resorted to by the imperialist camp after Second World War to beat back the socialist offensive called for scientific evaluation by the communist forces in order to develop a revolutionary line towards the internal and foreign policy of the comprador government which took over. Only by developing this understanding according to present concrete conditions the struggle against the comprador ruling system can be carried forward. It is in this context the significance of the basic documents including the Path of Revolution adopted by CPI (ML) in 2009 Special Conference should be seen. It is this line which enables a scientific evaluation of the foreign policy pursued by the consecutive central governments from 1947 and its present consequences in South Asian context.   
Indian expansionism serves US imperialism to dominate South Asia
The present foreign policy of UPA government has led to its strategic subservience to US imperialism increasingly. And US imperialism is utilizing Indian services to impose its hegemony over Asia especially South Asia. If the comprador rulers in India form 1947 had assumed the role of the British colonial masters, threatening, bullying and even annexing areas like Manipur and later Sikkim which were not part of British India, presently it has become an expansionist power in South Asia posing a serious threat to all its neighboring countries. It is serving the US interests in the region, as its junior partner. Its interference in Sri Lanka ultimately leading to reducing Tamil Ezham peoples resistance there to LTTE and its eventual decimation ,its interference and bullying in Nepal to prevent a communist takeover, its antagonistic policies leaving Indo–Pak relations as the longest standing international dispute in present global situation ,its refusal to settle Jammu and Kashmir question politically involving the participation of the people there ,its bullying tactics in Bhutan and Maldives etc have left SAARC more divided than ever. If British India had once become the jewel of British colonial empire, presently the Indian state is becoming the bulwark of US imperialism in South Asia. As a result, the Indian state is not only the enemy of the toiling masses and oppressed people of India; it is also an enemy of the people of all south Asian countries who are struggling for national liberation and people’s democracy.
The foreign policy pursued by the UPA government is nothing but a direct continuation of the reactionary internal socio economic political policies pursued by it in the service of the imperialists, especially US imperialists, and the native comprador ruling classes. Both are against the vast masses of India and the people of South Asia. So the people’s democratic revolution in India will not only lead the people here to socialist path but also pave the way for the victory of national liberation and people’s democracy all over South Asia. That is why CPI (ML) is striving hard for the unity of the Marxist- Leninist parties in South Asia which shall pave the way for the unity of the people of South Asia and their united struggles.