India’s Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi showed his true colors recently by pledging to give $10.4 million in financial assistance to the Sandinista regime—while many in his own country starve.
In light of the fact that Gandhi has expanded India’s military and economic alliance with the Soviet Union, this assistance is not surprising. But what should concern Americans is that Gandhi’s increasingly pro-Soviet stance and his generous aid to the Sandinistas comes at a time when the United States is dramatically increasing aid to India.
In response to reports of malnutrition and starvation in poverty-stricken India (1984 per capita income was only $240), Americans have dramatically increased aid to that nation in recent years. Since 1982, the United States has provided India with over $1 billion in economic and military aid, with well over two-thirds of this in the form of grants. Over the next four years, the U.S. will be giving an additional $600 million in direct aid to the Indian government.
In response to American generosity, Gandhi has shown his true sympathies by dedicating his nation to the Marxist- Leninist revolution in Nicaragua. During a recent visit to India by Sandinista dictator Daniel Ortega, Gandhi pledged $10.4 million of financial assistance to the Sandinista regime, and called Nicaragua’s foreign policy of exporting violent revolution into Central American democracies a “positive response” to Central American difficulties. Ortega, for his part, announced that he values the “deep and abiding links” between India and Nicaragua. The brotherly alliance between the two leaders was quite evident. Ortega awarded Gandhi Nicaragua’s highest award, the Augusto Cesar Sandino Order, making Gandhi the sixth leader to receive it. Fidel Castro was the first.
Congressman Dan Burton has criticized Gandhi’s aid to Nicaragua, saying, “Should we give massive foreign aid to countries those aide enemies of our friends and the United States? Of course, the answer is ‘no’. That is unthinkable. We are giving them $600 million, and they are taking our taxpayer’s dollars and supporting a war against our friends down there.”
Gandhi’s announcement of the aid came only one day after the United States reiterated its accusation that Nicaragua was harboring terrorist. In fact, at the same time Ortega pinned the “Augusto Cesar Sandino Order” onto Gandhi the U.S. State Department was summoning Nicaragua’s ambassador to formally accuse the Sandinista regime of planning attacks on American missions in South America.
This $10.4 million in aid is not poverty-stricken India’s first gift to the Sandinistas. In the past India has provided medicines and thousands of tons of wheat to Nicaragua, has provided managerial, technical, and material assistance to the Sandinistas in a variety of industries, and expanded cultural exchanges. For example, an Indian economic and technical delegation was recently sent to Managua to identify areas of cooperation.
In a recent letter to the House of Representatives, Congressman Dan Burton, Bill Cobey and William Broomfield said, “We must realize that, by this action, India is now a direct sponsor of Nicaraguan terrorism in Central America. As such, we cannot define a difference between our giving aid to the Indian government and our giving aid to Nicaraguan Communists…””
Gandhi has clearly aligned himself with the anti- American, anti-democratic communist thugs in Nicaragua. But his fraternal ties to Marxist elements go much deeper. Since taking power in late 1984 upon the death of his mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi has expanded India’s continuing friendship with the Soviet Union.
During a recent visit by Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev to New Delhi, Gandhi praised Gorbachev as “the great and dynamic leader of a great and friendly country.” During talks with Gorbachev, Gandhi endorsed the Soviet view of United States’ plans to defend itself with the Strategic Defense Initiative. Gorbachev’s response was to pledge $1.7 billion in new credits to India for financing a hydroelectric complex and other industrial projects, At the same meeting, the two signed a “Delhi Declaration” which called for total nuclear disarmament by the year 2000. According to Newsweek (December 8, 1986), ““Gandhi’s effusive reception of Gorbachev made it clear that despite the recent warmth in U.S.-Indian relations, the Prime Minister is determined to hang on to his friends in the Kremlin.”
India’s ties to the Soviet Union are nothing new. Military, economic, and cultural ties have increased since the signing of a 1971 friendship treaty. India’s military dependence upon the Kremlin is especially alarming. Over 80% of Indian weapons are Soviet-made or produced in India under Soviet license. Soviet MIG-21 and MIG-27 fighters and the advanced T-72 tank are manufactured in India, and India has ordered 40 new MIG-29 state-of-the-art warplanes from Moscow.
The Soviet propaganda network within India is quite extensive. In the Indian capital, New Delhi, at least 500 Soviet officials operate. The Soviet embassy produces 48 publications in twelve of the languages spoken in India, and three Soviet radio stations broadcast in eight of the Indian languages. Furthermore, in the last 20years over 400 Soviet university textbooks have been published in India. Gandhi has even sent his own children to study in the Soviet Union.
According to The Economist, Gandhi’s government bears a remarkable similarity to that of the Soviet Union. On January 31, 1987, The Economist said “For (Gandhi’s) purposes India is almost as bad as Russia, a one-party state.
‘Asian Russia, the party does not want to change the old ways, because the old ways give its members their sense of self- importance, and often put money in their pockets too.”
During a 1985 two-day trip to Moscow, Gandhi received an extremely warm welcome at the Kremlin. While there, he strongly denounced U.S. foreign policy, signed a major trade agreement with the Soviets, and attended a ceremony in which a Moscow square was dedicated to Indira Gandhi.
One can also clearly see just how anti-American India is by examining India’s United Nations voting record. In 1985, India voted the same way as the United States 8.9 percent of the time. This is comparable to Libya’s 6.9 percent, Cuba’s 6.2 percent, and Nicaragua’s 8.4 percent. Indeed, the United States received more support in the U.N. from East Germany, Mongolia, Uganda, and even the USSR than it did from India. As Congressman Burton noted, “Should we give aid to a country that votes against us continually at the United Nations? The answer is ‘no”.
Gandhi has refused to condemn, and indeed defends, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. India is the only major noncommunist nation which maintains good relations with the Soviet-installed Afghan regime. India has endorsed as legitimate the communist puppet regime in Cambodia. Gandhi maintains full diplomatic relations with the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
While graciously accepting millions of dollars in American aid, Gandhi has continually bitten the hand that feeds it. Not only has he increased his collaboration with the enemy of freedom, the Soviet Union, but he promotes unrest and suppression in Central America by sending millions of dollars to the Sandinistas.
In the words of Congressman Bill Cobey, “India is giving economic aid to the Nicaraguan Government while completely ignoring the terror the Sandinistas are spreading in our own backyard. It is time that we end our aid to India until it stops supporting the spread of communism in Central America…”
