India Should Say 'No'

For five decades, India was the odd man out in US perceptions—a democracy that befriended the Soviet Union and therefore had to be viewed with suspicion if not outright animosity. Today as that memory fades into history and Indo-US relations warm to a temperature never attained before, this budding relationship is posing as many headaches to Indian policy-makers as the previous wariness and distrust. By far, the most serious is this: can a country that suffered colonial subjugation for 190 years, and fought for 62 years to free itself, suddenly turn into a colonial power? This moral dilemma surfaced only days before deputy PM L.K. Advani's scheduled week-long visit to the US, when the defense department called on the Indian ambassador in Washington and sounded him out on India's willingness to send its troops to Iraq to help the US and UK forces restore order in that country. It became acute when President Bush raised the issue during his 'drop-in' talk with Advani in Washington.

Washington, of course, doesn't see its presence in Iraq in that light. According to it, Iraq has been 'liberated', not conquered. The attacks on American troops, which are relentlessly taking one or two lives every week, are the last aftershocks of the war that is over—the work of a thin residue of Saddam loyalists, Baath party fanatics, and criminals—and not the first salvos of the guerrilla war that is to come. This is hardly surprising, for the Bush administration has a lot invested in this interpretation. It has to show the world that what it did was not only in the world's interest, but also in the Iraqis'. For, the purpose of the attack on Iraq was not only to oust the Saddam regime, but also to turn Iraq into a model democracy that would become a beacon for other countries in West Asia. This, Bush's advisors have confidently predicted, will deprive the new brand of international terrorists of their potential state sponsors and bases of operation.

But India cannot take so sanguine a view. Indian policy-makers would do well to remember that America is the only highly industrialised country (barring those of Scandinavia) that has never been a colonial power. It is thus the only country that has only textbook, and not first-hand, knowledge of the phenomenon known as nationalism, or of the way it feeds upon colonial oppression to define itself. India, by contrast, has had too much of such knowledge. Not only was Indian nationalism born out of opposition to British rule, but since Independence, governments in Delhi have had their hands full dealing with ethno-national uprisings. No other government in the world therefore knows how easy it is, in the day of the satellite phone and the Kalashnikov, to start an insurrection that then feeds upon the very attempts that it makes to bring it under control.

To those with experience of nationalism and insurgency, the portents in Iraq are anything but good. Except possibly in Kurdish areas, Iraqis did not welcome the US and UK troops as liberators. The most one can say is they had mixed feelings: while most were relieved that Saddam's regime had fallen, they also resented the invasion that had brought it about. However, the Americans lost no chance reassuring them that they would leave as soon as possible after a new Iraqi government had been formed. The Iraqis hence adopted a wait-and-see attitude towards the US and UK presence in Iraq. But as it has become apparent that their occupation is open-ended, and that their purpose is not to instal a government of the Iraqis' choice but one of the America's choice, Iraqi resentment has begun to harden and manifest itself. Calls to the Americans and British to leave Iraq are coming not only from the Sunnis but also the Shia clergy and have become standard fare in the Friday namaaz.So, the increasingly frequent attacks on US troops look more like the cutting edge of this hardening resentment, than like the acts of small bands of 'criminals' driven by hate.

The Americans have already begun to be dragged deeper into the Iraqi quagmire. The new American administrator for Iraq has postponed attempts to form an Iraqi government and intends to rule Iraq directly, virtually indefinitely. The US has stopped thinning its military presence in Iraq and is reinforcing it: including back-up and logistical elements based in Kuwait, the US and UK will now have almost 200,000 troops in Iraq—twice the maximum number an American general had predicted last October. The reaction of enraged Sunnis and disappointed Shias will be predictable. So, any troops India sends are likely to be seen by the Iraqis as occupation forces. They could face the same hostility, and come under the same kind of guerrilla attack, as the Americans.

This does not mean India should do nothing to help America get Iraq back on its feet. The task has to be addressed and as quickly as possible. And since the UN Security Council has entrusted the US with the primary responsibility of doing so, helping America would only be helping to carry out the wishes of the UN.

But India must absolutely not send any combat troops. It can send its army engineers to speed up the restoration of Iraq's power, water supply and sanitation services; send the army medical corps to man Iraq's hospitals, and supply large quantities of essential drugs. What is more, since the UN has been given an important though as yet unspecified role in these areas, New Delhi can also suggest that its specialist units go in wearing the UN's blue beret. But to do anything else before Iraq has its own government would not only endanger the lives of our soldiers and risk getting dragged into someone else's war, but would betray every ideal that Mahatma Gandhi, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and other founding fathers of our independence fought for.