INDIA: U.S. Call to Send Troops to Iraq Draws Protests

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Jun 11 2003 (IPS) - The arrival of U.S. military officials next week to discuss the deployment of Indian troops in occupied Iraq is angering peace groups and opposition parties, including some who say this would make India a ”mercenary” force under Washington.

After a meeting with U.S. President George W Bush Tuesday in Washington, India’s Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani said the Pentagon team would be in the Indian capital on Monday to discuss the proposal before the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) took a final decision on it.

Advani was seen on Indian television channels emerging from the 30-minute meeting in the White House and telling reporters that the Pentagon team would ”give necessary clarifications” before the ”government of India would be able take a decision on the issue”.

But even the mere consideration of the proposal has incensed peace groups. In a statement, the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) said that it ”noted with grave concern that a (U.S.) proposal for the dispatch of Indian troops to Iraq is receiving our government’s consideration”.

”We firmly believe that the request deserves outright rejection. It can only be accepted in violation of India’s tradition of opposition to warmongers, colonial rule and imperialist loot,” the CNDP, a major peace group said in its press note.

The CNDP pointed out that consideration of the proposal would ”violate the countrywide opposition to and vigorous street protests against the U.S.-UK war on Iraq” which was ”reflected in a unanimous Parliament resolution”.

The dispatch of Indian troops to assist the occupying powers in Iraq will send out signals that cannot help the cause of peace in West Asia or South Asia, the note said.

Last week, the president of the main opposition Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee declaring her party’s position that any move to deploy Indian troops in Iraq other than under the U.N. aegis would be illegal.

”The party would be totally opposed to the deployment of our troops under any arrangement other than a U.N. command or as part of a multinational peacekeeping force that has the explicit mandate of the U.N.”, she said.

Gandhi reminded Vajpayee that while Indian troops have been deployed in peacekeeping roles around the world over the past five decades, it has always been under U.N. command over. But now, she said, it appeared as though ”this fundamental principle that we have always adhered to may now be abandoned”.

But J Sriraman, a spokesman for the CNDP, says the issue is bigger than that of whether there is U.N. sanction or not. The sending of troops even on U.N. request would be ”unwarranted just as the war on Iraq would have been unjust even if it had been launched under U.N. cover”, he said.

Rather than the consider the sending of troops, India should be playing a leading role against the prolonged occupation of Iraq after the recent ” war of aggression” on that country.

Sitaram Yechury, senior politburo member of the Communist Party of India – Marxist (CPI-M), said he did not see how India could send troops to Iraq after Parliament had passed an unanimous resolution demanding the vacation of U.S. and British troops from Iraq.

India’s government, led by ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), maintained neutrality through most of the war on Iraq. But on Apr. 10, as the regime in Baghdad began to crumble, Parliament passed a resolution calling for the war ”to be stopped immediately and for the allied forces to go back”.

”Military involvement in Iraq (by Indian armed forces) under any pretext is not acceptable because it would flagrantly violate the parliamentary decision which reflects the views of the Indian people,” Yechuri said in an interview.

Prakash Karat, another senior member of the CPI-M politburo, commented that the BJP-led government was only waiting for the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution that would give the U.S. occupation some form of legitimacy. ”This would pave the way for the government to claim that sending troops has U.N. sanction.”

Karat said it was inescapable that if India were to send its troops to Iraq, it would be as part of a multinational force under U.S command and in effect ”act as a paid mercenary force”.

It would be difficult for the BJP government, which has been assiduously trying to build strategic relations with Washington, to refuse to accede to Bush’s request for troops.

In an article in the ‘The Hindu’ newspaper on May 13 , outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Indian Robert Blackwill spoke about great strides achieved in recent times, especially in the military arena, by the two countries that were implacable foes during most of the Cold War.

”Taken together, our defence cooperation and military sales activities intensify the working relationship between the respective armed forces, build mutual military capacities for future joint operations and strengthen Indian military capability, which is in America’s national interest,” he wrote.

”An Indian military that is capable of operating effectively alongside its American counterparts remains an important goal of our bilateral defence relationships,” Blackwill added.

If Indian troops are indeed sent to Iraq, it would form a curious case of colonial history repeating itself.

Almost 90 years ago during the World War I, Indian troops under British command captured Basra, Baghdad and Mosul from the tottering Ottoman empire. In fact, India Gate, the triumphal arch in the heart of Delhi, is a monument to some 90,000 troops who died fighting in what was then known as Mesopotamia.