Their use though not determined not by the military is but to show, by way of an occasional underground tremor that it is the political animal which flexed its muscle. Should a war take place, as it appears imminent in the Middle-East, the battle commanders cannot factor in the use of nuclear weapons when they plan and God forbid, launch operations. The decision maker may be sitting in a bunker, surrounded by political lackeys, and with a flickering satellite view that can never factor in the emotions of the targeted life forms. And its for this reason that the army which otherwise likes to meticulously plan from boots to tactical moves its advance on the war field it cannot, and hence dislike its political master, depend on using nuclear weapons as part of its war plans. A piquant situation thus the soldier finds himself in..since its his political master who ultimately decides the use of a nuclear device, tactical or strategical, he cannot depend on the use of the weapon and a bunch of mercurial politicians!!
To the political strategist, this weapon then becomes an implied threat to be brandished to the authority that similarly sits in an opposing country or countries, trampling the citizens' yen for peace, playing mind-games with the weapons that are now elevated to mere psychological but dangerous tools, in the arena of the mind. It then influences. A lot of minds. In a democratic country like ours, that's a billion plus of minds to be influenced. And more, considering the reach of our missiles. The ask that begs an answer to the curl of doubt that now arises is, "Have our elected representatives been speaking the truth about the 123 treaty as it is now called?"
"The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own": Aldous Huxley - English novelist and critic, 1894-1963
The above, rather long, paragraphs were needed mostly for me to clear the jumbled matrix that the Indo-Nuclear agreement had become in my mind. I think that it was about 3 years back, Manmohan and his colleague dropped this shell and set the political arena in the country in spasmodic tics of apprehension and most importantly, surprise. After much hot-air spewing the Left decided to part ways and the resultant after-shocks are still rumbling across the arena with alliances being forged in a frothy mix of insecularity.
On the surface, as per the DAE's chief it will add only 2.5% to the estimated energy demand in 12 years time that is, in 2020. Technically its no big deal for a country whose carbon emission is only 4%, which now is increasingly becoming apparent that the deal is anything but political. An on a global stage. The Manmohan-Chidambaram duo, erstwhile products of the IMF-WB combine have very craftily put the country's sovereignity, subservience and startegic space required to move on the table under the guise of this technological deal. These are of course, to the common man, intangibles in the changing global alliances and comes at a cost to the citizens...Rs.60,000 crores. Last year Chidambaram at the Annual Convocation of India's premier management institute, IIM-A, wondered aloud,"Indian ... democracy has often paralyzed decision making ... this approach must change."
This will not make India into a great power nor will it get the Security Council seat. It stands to logic then that no country would like to make us a power simply because we would then increase out strategic space.. if we have to become one, we do it on out own. There aint no free rides on offer. But a section of the media, puppeted by their political masters would like us to believe that india would become a great power while sitting, permanently on the Security Council seat.
Plainly speaking, by turning over 10 year old data to the IAEA and NSG, after earmarking the reactors as civilian and military, a simple cell phone calculator can spew out how much fissile material can be produced and how many warheads India has. So our country's minimum credible deterrent stands to be throttled, cause todays identified targets may not be so, tomorrow and new ones will arise across the north-eastern mountains. Now for laymen like me and you, the minimal deterrents are founded in having flexible options. By marking reactors as civilian and military, that flexibility goes taking away our sovereignity and strategic space to manouevre. They get compromised. That is the price of this deal. We citizens are being hustled into it by the blitz of ads of how beneficial it would be to our energy sector and statements by wiseass heirs to various political thrones.
This assumption of our stupidity when it comes to foreign policy lies at the core of the grave error that is being made. The unseemly hurry with which this deal is being pushed through the paid and bought up media and the whip that will be issued by the various parties before the 21st, is just what it is...a whip to our minds too as we are dissuaded that the Rs.60, 000 crores cake is what is at stake, so that political careers going into the sunset are buffered.
Hasnt it ever ocurred to you that in the past 3 years the entire relationship between us and the USA has been reduced to this nuclear deal; thereby reducing attraction and relationship to a single issue. [Did I hear Sigmund chuckle?] Because a relation like this, like a marriage which can not be based on a single point of attraction, will come apart politically just by the sheer dyamics of our society.
And did out Fourth Estate do what they ought to have done? The answer sadly, in many respects, the Fourth Estate has become the fifth column of democracy, colluding with the powers that be in a culture of deception that subverts the thing most necessary to freedom, and that is the truth.
Can we make a difference? Yes by telling it as it should be told from our websites and laptops, the nukkad chai-shops and roadside eateries, the factories and other places like the campus, at the malls, let's tell it where we can, when we can and while we still can.
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Politics, Media and 123
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Any weapon that wreaks massive casualties on all living forms has always been a bargaining chip in the hands of a few. Be it an army of archers or...
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Any weapon that wreaks massive casualties on all living forms has always been a bargaining chip in the hands of a few. Be it an army of archers or...
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Comments (2)
Kabir
said:
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China kept her word to the Gaddars of India. The Communists and the Communalists of India-the Maoists, Saffronists and Islamists- can take great comfort in the fact that China-duly applauded by Pakistan-remained steadfast in her loyalties towards these enemies of India by staging a walk-out from NSG meet. Watching men like Yashwant Sinha and Karat with his Brinda of Huge Bindi on TV was hilarious. The fellows were actually miserable! A spokesman of BJP- of eminently forgettable name, some RaviPrasad something-looked like a menopausal sow in extreme pain when news from Vienna came in. Chinese, Pakistanis, Saffronists, Islamists and Maoists.....MM Singh managed to "unite" the entire lot against him and the Nation! That makes me think the "deal" must be really good since it made so many unhappy. Matters little that many of its detractors as well as supporters are equally illiterate in matters nuclear. Overgrown Saffron kids obsessed with firecrackers want a bigger bang. Yashwant and Jashwant would have preferred to dance deadly dandiya set to tune by Pravin Todfodiya: "Chaalo atom Bum fodiye re vaalamiya!" Communists go in to mourning every time they suspect something-including Arunachal Pradesh-will hurt China's interests. Blighters can't handle one Singur Deal but have lot to fume about any deal that has "US" in it. Dumb but lethal Islamists think that buying fuel from Russia will hurt Chechen, a reactor from GE will help neocons and getting n-technology from France will be a set back to the burqa-brigade. India has had enough of these but will still have to suffer such insufferable lot. |
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poppy
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 Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee took CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat head on by saying that he was against the idea of stepping down before the vote of confidence on July 22. The Speaker’s refusal comes as a major embarrassment to the CPI(M) leadership, which till late Monday night went on claiming that Mr Chatterjee had agreed to step down. In a letter to the CPI(M), Mr Chatterjee reportedly questioned the party’s decision to include his name in the list of party MPs submitted to President Pratibha Patil when the Left formally withdrew support. Sources said the Speaker had also taken offence to the prefix “comrade” before his name in the list given to the President. Mr Chatterjee was of the view that a Speaker should be above partisan politics. CPI(M) hardliners are trying to check who had leaked the contents of the letter, since it was expected to be “destroyed after reading”, sources said. Mr Chatterjee also decided to continue, sources said, “because he was against voting with communal forces like the BJP in the confidence motion”. Mr Chatterjee, it is learnt, is also seriously considering resigning as a member of Parliament as his Lok Sabha seat, Bolpur, has been declared reserved following delimitation. SP leaders Ram Gopal Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav met the Speaker on Tuesday and asked him not to resign. The CPI(M) has been taken unawares, and some hardliners are planning “appropriate action at an appropriate time”. Mr Karat, now totally silent on this issue, is waiting for Saturday’s meeting of the central committee, which might mount pressure on Mr Chatterjee to quit. Mr Karat also got West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to again go and meet veteran leader Jyoti Basu on Tuesday, in a bid to urge him to persuade Mr Chatterjee to resign. |
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