Problems
John Vihstadt is a junior majoring
in political science. Active in the
Nebraska Young Republicans, he is
campus coordinator for the "Youth
Coalition for Curtis. " He is a member
of the World in Revolution Conference
steering committee.
Politcally, Vihstadt calls himself a
"moderate Republican, "and admires
Burke, John Adams, Disraeli and
Tocquerville.
The ostensible purpose of wars is to
solve problems and redress wrongs.
And like most other wars, last month's
India-Pakistan clash did neither. The
situation has only been worsened -for
everybody-by this tragic resort to
arms.
It is evident to most observers that
India, long a pious apostle of peace,
saw an opportunity to "settle" the
East. Pakistani question with force, and
seized it. Whatever the circumstances,
India was clearly the aggressor. The
American people agree by over a 2Vi to
1 margin that "India was wrong to
invade another country, no matter
how wrong West Pakistan may have
Thousands of refugees still remain
remain after India-Pakistan war
been in the way it ruled East
Pakistan," according to a recently
published Harris poll.
Admittedly, the West Pakistanis
were far from blameless for what
finally developed. In brutally
suppressing the Bengali independence
movement, Pakistan gave India the
opportunity it wanted and planned
for, i.e., military intervention.
But this use of guns could
ultimately backfire on India. As the
"liberator" of Bangladesh, India is
finding itself at least to some degree
responsible for it. Though it is the
world's eighth largest nation in terms
of population (75 million), its per
captia annual income (less than $30)
ranks it among the Earth's poorest.
India, too, is short of funds (although
she apparently is not too broke to buy
all the Soviet MIG fighter planes she
wants) and can hardly feed its own
millions.
There are other reasons why
Bangladesh could prove a millstone
around Indira Gandhi's neck and be a
blessing in disguise for West Pakistan.
from the India-Pakistan War.
Ancient antagonisms remain intact.
The Bengalis hail the Indian troops as
liberators, but how long will this last?
Bangladesh is predominantly Moslem,
which India is mostly Hindu. The two
religions have never mixed (that was
why the Bengalis joined West Pakistan
in the first place) and there is no
reason to think that the recent conflict
resolved this ageless religious
animosity.
Also to be reckoned with are other
rebellious elements on a subcontinent
driven by strongly different faiths,
races, languages, and cultures. By
dismembering Pakistan and fostering a
serparatist state, India has encouraged
restive peoples and created a precedent
which will live to haunt her.
India's own Bengalis, who bitterly
resent the political and economic
discrimination they have suffered at
New Delhi's hands, now have only to
look across the, border to an
"independent" Bengali homeland and
want the same for themselves.
Another problem minority is the
powerful Maoist party in the Calcutta
region. While politically strong enough
to take over their area by legal means,
they have been prevented from doing
so by the repressive police action of
the central government. It will be
difficult to keep down Calcutta's
Maoists any longer without raw
military power, given India's present
crisis situation.
Indeed, it is not farfetched to
imagine the subcontinent reduced to a
Balkanized bunch of bickering,
poverty-stricken states.
What of the larger questions of the
Soviet Union and America's roles in
these tragic events? The truth of the
matter is that Russia has emerged from
the war as the military arsenal and
political defender of India. India has
military supremacy due to Russia's
arms, and diplomatic immunity,
thanks to Soviet vetoes in the United
Nations.
Unless the Kremlin puts pressure on
New Delhi to cease (which is unlikely),
India is likely to gobble up half of
Kashmir and continue the partition of
Pakistan herself.
Russia has been preaching for
conciliation and compromise in talks
with the U.S., and in the Middle East
debates between Israel and the Arab
states. She proclaims that the great
powers must work together for peace.
Military aggression should not be used
to achieve political objectives, and
rightly so.
But apparently Russia was not
interested in accommodation and
compromise. The U.S. stressed these
principles in vain hoping to force
India and Pakistan to stop the bloody
mess and withdraw to their own
borders.
The Soviet veto against a mutual
cease-fire and withdrawal went against
the will of the overwhelming majority
of both the Security Council and the
General Assembly, and helped lessen
further the already low reputation of
the UN as an instrument for peace.
To turn to the United States' role
in the affair, we find that American
liberaldom is quick to chide the
administration for supposedly acting
too slowly in cutting off military aid
to Pakistan and too swiftly in
stopping India's economic aid and
branding it as the aggressor, and
therefore its policy was viciously
anti-India and pro-Pakistan.
These are the same people who
condemn the U.S. for playing "world
policeman," who claim
nonintervention is the answer in
Vietnam, but who believe that
"morality" and "human decency"
should somehow require us to arrest
our friendly relations with Greece and
Rhodesia.
In other words, what Pakistan does
to its dissidents should be the key
factor in determining our
India-Pakistan policy, but what China
or Cuba have done to their dissidents
is an internal matter that must not
influence our policy.
Apparently the liberal community
yet labors under the erroneous
assumption of John F. Kennedy that
all that is needed to solve the problems
of the world is the correct action by
the American government; that is, get
in if we have not been there yet, (as in
Pakistan, and according to Teddy
Kennedy, North Ireland) but get our if
we have (as in Southeast Asia).
What Washington did was identify
India as the aggressor and plead for
peace. With India victorious, the
pundits are crowing that the U.S. has
made a gigantic diplomatic blunder
that will reduce American influence on
the subcontinent.
What is passed over is the fact that
America, for all its generous aid in the
past, has never had great influence in
India, and that Soviet influence has
been growing steadily for quite some
time anyway.
But my feeling is that, in the long
run, events may well vindicate the
administration's handling of the
Indo-Pak War. For ours was a role
based on two very basic and righteous
principles. 1) that international
disputes should not be resolved by
military force, but by meaningful
political dialogue. 2) the concept that
a nation's internal domestic polices are
its own affair, not those of its
neighbor or anyone else.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 1972
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
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