By Kavita Krishnan
The Indian ruling class is striving to forge what it calls a “strategic partnership’’ with the United States, and in this aim the major ruling-class political parties are united. The previous government — a coalition termed the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) headed by the Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — which was in power from 1999-2004, had in the wake of 9/11 strived to prove to the US rulers that India was a more stable and suitable ally on the subcontinent for the US “war on terror’’ than Pakistan.
The BJP-led NDA government even proposed a grandiose “Triad Against Terrorism’’ comprising India, Israel and the US, thereby overturning decades of Indian foreign policy that had favoured the Palestinian cause. The BJP is known for its viciously anti-Muslim agenda, is notorious for the state-sponsored pogrom which killed thousands of Muslims in the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002, and its goal is to turn secular India into a “Hindu’’ nation. The BJP, drawing on the “clash of civilisations’’ notion of Christians, Jews and Hindus against Muslims, spoke of a supposed “natural affinity’’ between India – the “Hindu homeland’’ – besieged by the terrorism of its Islamic neighbour Pakistan, and Israel – the “Jewish homeland’’ – besieged by “Muslim’’ Palestine’s “terrorism’’. In May 2003, India’s national security advisor Brajesh Mishra, addressing a meeting of the American Jewish Committee – a Zionist outfit – in Washington, called for a “core, consisting of democratic societies … which can take on international terrorism’’ – and the Indo-US-Israel axis was to constitute this “core’’. The NDA government had even been willing to send Indian troops to assist the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq, but nationwide protests resulted in a unanimous vote in parliament against such a move.
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