In 1971, when the cold war was at its frigid worst, Pakistan and India went to war. Pakistan was an ally of the United States of America for obvious reasons – the friendship accord of 1965 architected by the RMMB (Red Masjid Mullah Brotherhood) of Lahore and the DCCA (Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Association). With so much in common between the two cultures, it is no wonder that the two nations were allies. When the American President at the time, a curious man called Richard Nixon, found time off from filling up the prison system with marijuana smokers, he found some time to hate India and the woman at its helm – Indira Gandhi. He is known to have referred to her as an “Old Witch” and “Bitch”. His man-at-arms Henry Kissinger, was on the same page as Nixon when it came to India. He is attributed with a gem too - “the Indians are bastards anyway”.
Nixon found the need to get behind his natural ally – the Islamic republic of Pakistan – and let India know the potential consequence of messing with a US partner. On the one hand India had to respond to the Pakistani nuisance and on the other it knew it could not face up to a meddling superpower. There was only one way out – befriending the big red machine. Thus began the Soviet-Indian affair. With the counter-weight firmly in place, India could now proceed to do some ass-kicking and ass-kicking it certainly did. Pakistan was beaten down to its knees, in under a fortnight. Just as it looked like India would bring down the hammer and finish the job, the nuclear armed USS Enterprise paid a surprise visit to the Indian waters. The Soviets responded by dispatching their own nuclear carriers, but India did the prudent thing – ended the war by allowing Pakistan to surrender. General Niazi of Pakistan symbolically lay down his sword in front of the Indian General, and signed the surrender treaty.
This piece is not meant to be a history lesson. It’s more of an observation on the power of situation on young minds, and how that shapes reality as they know it.
Years went by after the war. The Indian-Soviet friendship grew stronger. Russians watched our movies and loved our stars. Some of our movies starred their people. They took one of our astronauts up into space with them. Rakesh Sharma spoke live from a Russian space station, to his largely impoverished nation, and we sat glued to the TV sets watching this monumental moment in Indian history. Soviet made air craft carriers, fighter planes and submarines became the mainstay of our military even as American planes were strengthening the neighboring Islamic army. For a generation of young Indians growing up in the seventies and eighties, the Soviet Union was the Big Brother - the kind that watched out for you, the kind that made you do cool things, showed you stuff you did not dream of. Sure, the Soviets had a pretty bad record of upholding human rights and dignity at home and abroad, but not much of that information made its way into mainstream thought pools in India. The reason was that as far as India was concerned, there was only good stuff coming its way. Yes, most Indians had a narrow and convenient view of all things Russian, but more often than not, that’s how perceptions and relations work in humans and countries alike.
What of America? Nothing much really, other than Hollywood and that Big Brother was its sworn enemy. There was no anti-US propaganda in the media, anti US sentiment was not common “grown-up” talk at dinner parties. None of that happened. Even so, the knowledge that the world was polar, and that one of the poles is our brother, made the other pole disliked by association.
So, when the US attacked Iraq in 1991, I will not be exaggerating when I say that more than half the grown ups and almost all the kids in India, were rooting for Saddam’s army to deliver on his promise of staging the “mother of all battles”.
Why was it so? Why were so many Indians unable or unwilling to weigh the situational facts on their merit while deciding to support or oppose a US action? The simple answer lies in a truth that behavioral scientists are well aware of – its rarely the merit of the argument that sways the target, it’s the likeability and the pre-formed opinions of the arguer that tip the scales before a word is said. No matter how justified a US response to the invasion of Kuwait was, for Indians that had grown up in a world where Pakistan sought everyday to kill their fellow citizens with US made artillery, there was enough bad blood to make it hard to be objective about things.
So when celebrations sparked off in places like Palestine after 9/11, shocking as the thought of revelry in response to unspeakable horror is, it is still in the realm of the explainable. Several generations of Palestinians have grown up to the sounds and sights of war. When innocent eyes ask why cousin Rashid was blown up by a mortar, the adult fingers point to Israel and from there to America. Of course, that’s only one side of the story, but then how many people living in the shadow of war and horror find the moral objectivity to be neutral in their accounts? If a young Palestinian manages to reach adulthood through the mine field he calls home, through the numerous funeral processions of friends and family members, through countless evenings of anti Israeli and anti American propaganda, he cannot possibly retain an objective mind about America.
The same applies to young minds in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Cuba etc. When Americans try to understand why no love is generated in the general populace of these countries after America donates millions in international relief and charity, it needs to look back several decades to figure out what polarizing information and situations were minds in these countries subjected to.
It wasn’t until the presidency of Bill Clinton that the US behaved like it understood that India was a natural ally and Pakistan wasn’t quite. Bill made some overtures at the Indians and snubbed the Pakistanis. The media would periodically report on Indo-US accords, trade agreements, mutual visits by dignitaries etc. In due course of time, most young Indians began holding the US and Russia on an even keel of admiration and respect. Decades of suspicion had been undone by the acts of one charismatic leader and his foreign office. Charisma and suave notwithstanding, what is the one thing that worked most effectively in endearing the US to India? It was the very public and very forthright display of rebuking Pakistan for the things it had done wrong – Kargil intrusion, Dictatorship, not cracking down on cross border militancy. This act showed India that the US was no longer judging based on past relations, but rather based on ground realities. This was the game-changing move that completely altered the equation. Bill Clinton isn’t president anymore, but another charismatic leader may soon hold the seat, and maybe he can take the lessons of India and apply them to the Middle East.
They say that there is no magic bullet for solving the problems of the middle-east. Maybe there isn’t. But there certainly is a contender for that honor – the US displaying neutrality between Israel and Palestine and equally rebuking and applauding both sides for negative and positive actions. Imagine that! Imagine a US president getting on the microphone at the next UN meeting and taking a strong stance at Israeli tanks taking down Palestinian civilian vehicles and ambulances in Gaza. Imagine that! Imagine him saying the words “Repeating such actions will invite sanctions and other punitive actions on Israel from the world community.”! Imagine that! From that point, even if the US were to use similar words to condemn a Hamas suicide bomber, I think a major major victory will be won for the US. Palestinians will rub their eyes in disbelief, and in all likelihood, a crack will form on their long held wall of animosity. Just a crack…but a step in the right direction. Hell, I predict that it will not crack just the Palestinian wall of animosity, but shake up the order of things all over the Arab world and beyond.
If the US were to do this, the justification would not only be Arab PR. In fact, the real justification would be to do the right thing. The history of the region and the dubious claiming of Israeli land 50 odd years back is a story for another day. The bottom-line is that every neutral observer acknowledges that there are atrocities and transgressions committed by both sides. That the US – the only world super-power - chooses to condemn only one side of the equation, is unquestionably the cause of a lot of the hatred. There is no good reason, other than pandering to the Jewish lobby, for the US to continually adopt a biased stance in the conflict. We need to do what is right – call a spade a spade. The Jewish lobby doesn’t do enough good to offset the ill-will of the entire Arab world and by consequence the specter of terrorism.
To sum up, the US can reverse the hatred it encounters in several parts of the world. To do so, it needs to find the analysis and the will. The analysis is the simple part – find the historical cause for hatred in each situation, and find a way to reverse that cause. However, finding the will to take action is not so easy. In such pursuit, lobbies, religious alliances and pre-formed notions should be challenged if they need to be. We live in a new world that suffers from actions taken in the old world. The solutions to age old problems have to be game-changing, bold, strategic and honest. Till such solutions come about, the blinds of indoctrination will prevent several eyes from perceiving and appreciating the good coming out of the US.
