India, USA, governo Wsws 06-02-03
Con il rimpasto di gabinetto il governo indiano si
avvicna ancora di più a Washington
Kranti Kumara e Keith Jones
India: rimpasto di gabinetto, con 19 membri in più,
con destituzione del ministro del Petrolio Mani Shankar Aiyar; primo ministro Manmohan
Singh mantiene Esteri (oltre ai 5 ministeri
di: Personale, Rimostranze pubbliche e pensioni, Progettazione, Energia atomica
e Spazio).
Motivi del rimpasto:
1. Ulteriore
avvicinamento di Delhi a Washington;
o
mentre cerca di migliorare anche le relazioni
con Cina e Russia
2. Assicurazione
al mondo economico sull’intenzione di accelerare le riforme neo-liberali;
3. ampliamento
rappresentanza regionale in vista prossime elezioni in diversi importanti Stati
dell’India;
4. premiazione
degli amici della famiglia Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi è presidente del partito del
Congresso.
1. a.
In atto uno scontro dentro il governo UPA e nella elite al potere sul dosaggio
dell’alleanza con USA, accettare o meno l’offerta americana di riconoscimento
all’India di uno status speciale come potenza atomica, e cioè come potenza
mondiale;
a. questo
aprirebbe la strada alle esportazioni americane di tecnologia nucleare in India.
b. Timore
nei gruppi al potere di una relazione di dipendenza da USA, contro tradizione indiana
di “potenza non allineata”;
c. un
primo esempio di dipendenza: il ricatto americano che a settembre sulla questione
nucleare l’India votasse assieme a USA e UE contro l’Iran, nonostante la “partnership
strategica” tra i due paesi.
d. Secondo
esempio le dichiarazioni dell’ambasciatore americano in India, David Mumford: se
in febbraio l’India non appoggia all’AIEA il deferimento all’ONU dell’Iran, non
se ne farà nulla dell’accordo nucleare indiano-americano.
Mani Shankar Aiyar
– destituito dal ministero del Petrolio e del Gas, e nominato ministro per le questioni giovanili
e lo sport
–
è un forte sostenitore di un progetto di gasdotto dall’Iran
a Pakistan e India, a cui si oppongono gli USA; il rimpasto del Congresso indiano
segnalerebbe il rallentamento o l’abbandono del progetto di gasdotto Iran-Pakistan-India.
§
un segnale in questo senso la visita in India (la
prima di un monarca saudita da 50 anni) del re saudita Abdullah, che si ha espresso
l’appoggio di Riyadh a riconoscere all’India lo status di osservatore nell’Organizzazione
dei paesi islamici.
–
Ayar ha appoggiato lo sviluppo di una “rete energetica asiatica”,
per ridurre la dipendenza asiatica dalle società petrolifere occidentali;
–
ha promosso la cooperazione tra India e Cina per le
esplorazioni internazionali e la produzione di energia;
–
secondo il quotidiano The Hindu, il gov. americano ha protestato contro un accordo a cui
ha contributo Ayar tra le due maggiori società petrolifere statali di India e
Cina per l’acquisto in joint venture di una quota nel petrolio e gas siriano.
Il nuovo ministro del Petrolio è Murli Deora, in strette
relazioni con l’elite economica di Mumbai, convinto sostenitore dell’alleanza
con gli USA, co-presidente del forum India-USA.
Indian Express: benvenuto il riconoscimento della realpolitik, Ayar troppo entusiasta
sul gasdotto iraniano, attorno a cui intesseva una linea di politica estera.
Wsws 06-02-03
With
cabinet changes, India’s UPA
government tilts still closer to Washington
By Kranti Kumara and Keith Jones
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
announced a major shuffle of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) cabinet January 29.
The ostensible purpose of the shuffle,
which saw 19 members added to the Council of Ministers (seven as heads of
departments and the remainder as ministers of state), was broadening regional representation. No doubt this was a
consideration; several key states will hold elections in the coming months.
A second consideration was rewarding
cronies of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Although Sonia Gandhi declined
the prime ministership when the Congress-led UPA unexpectedly won the May 2004
general election, the head of the Congress’
unofficial ruling dynasty remains the party president and very much a power
behind the throne.
That said, the cabinet changes were clearly aimed at tilting the government still more
in the direction of Washington
and at reassuring big business that the UPA will heed its demands for a
quickening of the pace of neo-liberal reform.
The two most significant developments
associated with the shuffle were the demotion of Petroleum Minister Mani
Shankar Aiyar and Manmohan Singh’s decision to retain in his own hands
the post of External Affairs Minister.
Both of these measures are bound up
with the ongoing struggle in the UPA government and within India’s elite over the extent to which India should ally with the US. Manmohan Singh and a small cabal in the
Congress leadership are pushing for India to accept the US offer of special
status within the world nuclear regulatory order—an offer that would pave the way for US nuclear-power technology
exports to India and which is meant to give concrete expression to the Bush
administration’s offer of US “help” in India achieving world power status.
There is growing concern within the
Indian elite, however, that the US
is using the nuclear deal and a growing military partnership to ensnare India in a dependent relationship and to pressure
it to do Washington’s
bidding on the world stage. These concerns
have been fueled by India’s
vote against Iran and
with the US
and European Union at last September’s International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) meeting. This vote not only contradicted
India’s traditional stance
of voting in international forums with the “non-aligned” powers and Russia, but flew in the face of India’s
burgeoning “strategic partnership” with Iran.
Manmohan Singh and other top Indian
officials have emphatically denied that Washington made voting against Iran a condition of the nuclear deal, but US officials
and senior US Congressmen have repeatedly said that if India does not follow
the US lead on Iran it will suffer serious consequences. Indeed, only last week
the US
Ambassador to India, David
Mumford, said that should India
not vote at the Feb. 2-3 IAEA meeting to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for
non-compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Indo-US nuclear accord will “die.”
Mani Shankar Aiyar had been named by several of India’s leading newspapers as the most able member of the UPA cabinet.
Yet he was stripped of his post as petroleum and natural gas ministry and
instead given the minor job of youth affairs and sports minister, while
retaining his other post as minister for panchayat raj (local government).
Aiyar, according to press reports, had
been accused by elements within the
Congress leadership of intruding into
foreign affairs. What is indisputable is that he was a vocal proponent of the scheme to build a pipeline to deliver
Iranian gas to Pakistan and India. The Bush
administration has repeatedly made clear that it is adamantly opposed to the building of such a pipeline, which would
undercut its efforts to isolate the Iranian regime.
Aiyar
also championed the development of an “Asian energy grid” to lessen Asian dependence
on western-based oil companies, and promoted cooperation between India and China in overseas energy
exploration and production. Washington didn’t look favorably on at least
some of these initiatives. According to
the Hindu, the US government last month formally protested against a deal Aiyar
helped put together that saw the two
largest state-owned oil companies in India and China jointly purchase a stake
in oil and gas properties in Syria. (See “China
and India
manoeuvre to secure energy supplies”)
By shunting aside Mani Shankar Aiyar,
the Congress leadership appears to be
signaling that it has decided to slow if not entirely abandon development of
the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project. The Financial Times quoted an
Indian Petroleum Analyst as saying that “The US administration has opposed the
Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, preferring
a route that sidelines Iran,
(and) this change in petroleum leadership could see a different emphasis.”
In fact the foundations for such a shift
may already have been laid with last
month’s visit to India of
King Abdullah of Saudi
Arabia. The first Saudi monarch to visit
India in fifty years, Abdullah was made the guest of honor at India’s
Republic Day celebrations. The Saudi monarch said his country wants become a
major partner of India and,
to show just how anxious the Saudis are for India’s
friendship, he announced that Riyadh will support India being given observer status
in the Organization of Islamic Countries.
Manmohan
Singh inherited the foreign ministry last November when Natwar Singh—another minister who had earned Washington’s ire by advocating a foreign policy more in keeping
with India’s traditional US-wary, “non-aligned” stance—was forced out after being named in an appendix to the Volcker report
on the purported Iraqi oil-for-food scandal.
That Manmohan Singh should continue as
foreign minister after carrying out the biggest cabinet shuffle of his nearly
two year-old government is extraordinary and a clear sign that India’s foreign
policy is so contentious and complex—while
pursuing closer ties with the US, New Delhi is also trying to improve its
relations with China and Russia—that the prime minister dare not consign it
to anyone else.
Manhoman
Singh, it should be noted, already has a large number of other posts besides
that of prime minister. These include head of the Ministry of Personnel, Public
Grievances & Pensions, Ministry of Planning, Department of Atomic Energy,
and Department of Space.
So startling is Singh’s decision to retain the foreign ministry in his own hands,
the Indian Express wondered aloud whether “the Congress … cannot trust anyone
within its own ranks to read India’s
foreign policy imperatives?”
It
is rumored that after Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram tables the Union
budget later this month he may be given the foreign ministry post. But even if
this is true, it only underlines that the conflicts over India’s foreign
policy are so severe, Manmohan Singh is only ready to concede the ministry to
someone with whom he has a years-long partnership.
(Chidambaram and the prime minister have worked
together for the past 15 years in championing privatization, deregulation
and an export-led growth strategy.)
If there is any doubt that Manmohan
Singh wanted the demotion of Mani Shankar Aiyar to signal a policy shift, it is
dispelled when one looks at the political connections of his replacement, Murli Deora. A Rajya Sabha member and Congress Party
official from Maharashtra, Deora is by all accounts on the best of terms with
the corporate elite in Mumbai (India’s
business capital) and a keen advocate of closer US-Indian ties. According
to his website, he co-chairs an
India-U.S. parliamentary forum aimed at strengthening ties between the
world’s “two largest democracies.”
The Indo Asian News Services welcomed
Deora’s appointment and that of at least two other ministers as indicating that
the government intends to accelerate the
push for economic reform, by which they mean the gutting of limits on the contracting
out of work and factory closures, privatization, disinvestment, the redirecting
of state expenditure from income-support programs to the military and the
infrastructure projects demanded by big business. Said the news service:
“The induction of Murli Deora and Sushilkumar Shinde and technocrat Jairam
Ramesh as ministers clearly signals Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s desire to
give economic reforms a major push and address some of the main irritants to
the country’s economic growth.”
Other establishment voices complained
that too many of the new appointees are
cronies of the Gandhi family. (Sonia Gandhi herself is criticized for being
too concerned about increasing the Congress’ vote strength because she favours
coupling economic reforms with modest social-welfare spending increases.)
“It’s only in oil that Sonia Gandhi and
Manmohan Singh didn’t slip,” declared the right-wing Indian Express. “Replacing Mani Shankar Aiyar with Murli Deora not
only shows a welcome recognition of
realpolitik—Aiyar was a shade too enthusiastic about the problem-fraught
Iran
pipeline and a bit too keen to wrap a quasi-foreign policy around it. It
also rewards a Congressman who’s an instinctive economic liberal, a sadly rare
breed in the party.”
The press reaction to the cabinet
shuffle underscores that the Congress faces not only serious internal divisions
over foreign policy, but is under mounting pressure from big business to court
confrontation with the Left Front, which provides
the votes that sustain it in power, and ram through a series of right-wing
measures, including the privatization of profitable public sector units and
so-called labor reform.
Manmohan Singh and the top Congress
leaders have repeatedly indicated they intend to do just that. At the plenary
meeting of the Congress Party, held at Hyderabad
from January 21 to 23, Congress leaders warned their allies not to take
criticism of government policy too far and said the pace of economic reform
would be speeded up.