While the winds of freedom blowing across the world have brought sweeping changes in the West, much to the applause and great sense of achievement in the U.S., much of South Asia is coming under greater authoritarianism. The Sikhs are not an isolated example of a nation still struggling for self-governance, the Kashmiris, Assamese and the Tamils in Sri Lanka are in the same predicament.
Even as the Berlin Wall was being pulled down with many vestiges of iron gloved totalitarianism, India was busy giving finishing touches to the New Berlin Wall. A far more menacing edifice than the one that is now history. This new barricade put up at millions of dollars over two years is
400 miles long over deserts, mountains, rivers and wheat fields. It is punctuated by 3050 sandbagged machinegun nests, 2500 observation towers, miles of electrified concertina wire and 6,750 thousand watt halogen quartz searchlights. The Indians say it is a “border security fence.” The truth is that it is a wall much like the Berlin Wall to keep the Sikhs imprisoned. The West simply chooses to ignore it.
The trade interests and the huge markets the West seeks to protect are tainted far worse than by apartheid. Women and children have been butchered in cold blood every day for over a decade in Punjab. The West cannot look the other way any longer.
The Indian version of democracy is a clever front for the ruling feudal elite — not a single election has been held without coercion and bloodshed. The masses are too poor to bother about anything but the next meal and they are kept that way.
Among Sikhs and several other minorities as realization grew that cultures and identities were sought to be smothered so did the fight for their survival.
It is indeed praiseworthy the support Lithuania and now Latvia and Estonia have received a few days after the collapse of the Russian empire. Hardly a shot has been fired in these Baltic countries but a great deal has been achieved. But the world shows little concern for the escalation of political tension, war rhetoric and a decade of bloodshed on the Indian subcontinent. This new wall is a dramatic symbol of the hatred and mistrust where violence and killing have become close companions to life. Punjab and Kashmir are virtual war zones.
At a time when Moscow and Washington are in the process of nuclear disarmament, fundamentalist politicians in India are urging the government to build and stockpile nuclear arsenals. India was the world’s largest international buyer of weaponry during the last five years $17 billion ‘worth of war planes, artillery and ships. It has the world’s fourth largest army. This year India’s extremely autocratic feudal elite has decided to step up defense spending considerably.
And it knows Pakistan is only a small worry, its own sword arm, the Punjab, has risen up against it and the Kashmiri uprising portends ill for the artificial and forced union of India.
This has brought about the need for a New Berlin Wall and armaments. The history of India’s masters, the Soviet Union as it unfolds before our very eyes does not seem to be lesson enough. India is condemned to disintegrate after much violence and bloodshed unless the world takes notice now.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 18, 1990
