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 | NAMby-pamby: Rice is right on non-alignment Our Correspondent We, the people of India, have become so accustomed to humbug that we have stopped relying on our sense perception and common sense. Otherwise, we would have recognised that with the demise of the Soviet Union the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) lost whatever relevance it might ever had. However, the nation continued to believe in the Nehruvian fiction, even when an avowedly anti-Nehru coalition, led by the supposedly Rightwing Bharatiya Janata Party, ruled for six years (1998-2004). US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has come to our help: she has read the writing on the wall aloud and clear. Addressing the 32nd anniversary celebrations of the United States India Business Council in Washington, Rice said: "I know there are some who still talk about non-alignment in foreign policy. But, may be, that made sense during the Cold War when the world really was divided into rival camps." In the contemporary international situation, NAM "has lost its meaning," she said, adding "one is aligned not with the interests and power of one bloc or another but with the values of a common humanity." The Indian Government has so far refused to comment on Rice's remarks. External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said that India's position on non-alignment was well known. There is, however, a possibility of foreign policy dinosaurs getting active and retorting abrasively to the sagacious counsel offered by Rice. These dinosaurs—diplomats, current and former, academics, experts—have fattened over the years on the dividends accruing from preposterous Thirld-Worldism. NAM was the concrete form of Third-Worldism, whose primary objective was to chafe the capitalist nations, primarily the United States, so that the hope of a socialist future could be kept alive under the tutelage of the erstwhile Soviet Union. It is another matter that NAM's rants and ravings hurt India more than they upset the US: for we started believing in many of the fantasies conjured up at the NAM jamborees, while the US superciliously ignored them. The Soviet Union may have collapsed, but the network of vested interests that it set up for NAM is very much alive. The most prominent members and beneficiaries of this network are the communist parties and Leftwing intellectuals. They are likely to accuse Rice of meddling in India's policy matters. But we can ignore her advice at our own peril, for she has rightly said that instead of being aligned with the interests and power of one bloc or another like during the Cold War, there could now be a partnership of fellow democracies with common ideals and values. It is time to form a coalition of democracies. Posted on : 6/29/2007 Mail this article to your friend |