The explosing yesterday of three nuclear bombs (including one proto-H bomb) is one of the worst thing that could have happened to the people of India and, if one looks carefully, to oppressed people in other countries.
The BJP government is now India. Once Congress was India, now Hindutva is India. The BJP has shown the people of India that it is willing to show the world the might of India, that it is the true son of Bharat Mata. This will shore up the BJP's constituency domestically and it won't teeter on the brink like it has before.
Domestically, the bomb will create havoc economically. An arms race now will further immiserate the poor, diverting much of the already scarce resources. Whatever aid that came from abroad will be cut off and the only capital inflows into India will be private --both in FDI or in FPI; thereby, the neoliberal reforms will only be strengthened.
Further, a new political culture will be ushered in -- in which militarism and violence will be fundamental. NOw that the BJP has flexed its muscles and shown the world that India has a new martial outlook, they will steer their turret towards domestic dissent, crushing it violently and with the repressive apparatus of the state, not only through the conduit of state-sanctioned private militias. Hindutva was always fascist internally and now a proto-fascism will take over the entire body-politic. Whatever democracy that remains in India is viewed as an impediment to the industry-monopoly capital-political nexus-thus, the people of India are viewed as the problem. Expect an outbreak of repression very soon. Expect also the death knell of Indian democracy
Hindu politics is here to stay now. It is not the passing fancy the left once thought it was. In one fell swoop, the BJP has shown the country that Hindutva speaks for India and isn't afraid to show the world that India has finally arrived on the scene and is willing not only to talk about the dangers of Muslims but is also ready to put its money where its mouth is. Yes, they will sign the CTBT, but as a nuclear capable country, not as a small supplicant anymore.
Pakistan, now, has been forced to plan a test explosion as well. Once it does, the fact of the Islamic bomb is no longer a matter of speculation. The Islamic countries will back Pakistan and Israel will have free reign now to do as it pleases. Geopolitics will effect domestic politics and culture and, the Islamic world (not incl. Indonesia, Malaysia, etc..), now geographically bounded by antagonists. The govts in the Islamic world will be worried and they will call upon their own populations to do whatever the can to serve their countries and the whole Islamic world. Reactionaries will once again steal the political and cultural domain; expect even worse treatment of women and other oppressed groups because of this -- Imagine the reaction in nearby Taliban run Afghanistan to the Hindu Bomb!
The BJP has made good on a promise to preserve India's right to go nuclear. Patriots of all sorts have hailed the bomb blasts as proof of India's greatness. I'll bet that NRIs[non resident Indians--rb] have flooded South Block with telegrams of congratulations; their own marginalization that stems partially from coming from a weak and obstinately poor country informs much of their worldview; they will now walk with puffed chests.
I don't remember a more brilliant, if cynical, political move recently. The BJP is here to stay and it has boldly told the world that India is no longer a whipping boy. It is now part of the club.
I think it is important for the left among NRIs to do whatever they can to stop the forces that this bomb will unleash. The bomb blasts in Pokhran have finally killed Indian secularism, any notion of panchsheel, and any hope of the abatement of militarism that was made possible once the US stopped backing Pakistan as it had done for so long. This will have a ripple in geopolitics and, perhaps worse, has finally killed the legacy of Nehru and has enshrined in our body politic precisely what we gained Independence from in the hot summer of 47.
Even the venal Congress would never have done such a thing. We are in a new phase in Indian history, a phase that may very well herald the demise of all that is good in the country.
Romi
Swadesh M. Mahajan Institute for Fusion Studies University of Texas at Austin, Tx 78712 Ph. (512)-471-4376, Fax 471-6715 Home 837-1782, Fax 837-2958 *** Please visit the NSU home page at http://peaches.ph.utexas.edu/~valanju/NSU.html