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I have called it an “inevitability of history” in two of my books. So, when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper travelled half-way across the world, just six days short of a presidential election which their boss may lose, merely weeks after China’s threatening misadventure that killed 20 Indian soldiers at Galwan Valley, to sign the final foundational agreement and lock India in a security clasp, it signalled an unusual intent to renegade Communists.
I should have been thrilled, and I am. But there is also a lurking discomfort, foreboding, lest we become complacent. I will turn to that later, after encapsulating the glorious denouement of two decades:
The American ministers underscored their strong act with even harder words.
Pompeo thundered:
Esper asserted:
This is music to India’s ears. Which is why the commentariat has begun an unrestrained celebration, almost as if we have vanquished the Chinese forever, as if there is nothing left to fear or do. A chilling counter-reality is getting drowned in this unseemly hoopla…
The truth is that our economy is astonishingly weak today, while China is gaining ever more strength – at this rate, it could soon become SIX times our size. And this is where my lurking discomfort, foreboding has taken over.
India’s 1962 border war with China provided the US with an unexpected opportunity to help India without irritating Pakistan. After all, Pakistan President Ayub had repeatedly cited repelling Communism as the main justification for Pakistan’s acquisition of US arms; why would he object to India getting them for the same reason?
President Kennedy went out of his way to assure Ayub that any US arms aid to Delhi would be strictly for India’s ‘immediate needs’ and ‘for use against China only’.
The US was careful to avoid shipping heavier materiel that could be used against Pakistan. By November, with the Chinese dominating, a panicked Prime Minister Nehru put Washington in an even tougher spot by asking Kennedy to supply American air support for India’s forces. Fortunately, China declared a ceasefire and retreated before the Kennedy administration could respond, saving Washington from having to make that decision.
Unfortunately, President Kennedy was assassinated, and Lyndon Johnson took over the White House. The baton had passed to Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in India. That also coincided with India’s Pakistan War and inhuman famines. When Delhi came asking Washington in 1965 to shore up its wheat aid program, known as PL-480, President Johnson said no. He had abruptly halted the automatic renewal of all US aid schemes for India and Pakistan, insisting his government take ‘a hard new look… before we spend a lot more money.’
United by this indignity, India’s politicians and scientists launched a frontal attack on low crop yields. Norman E Borlaug was a scientist experimenting with hybrid dwarf varieties of wheat in Mexico. C Subramaniam, India’s dynamic new agriculture minister, ordered an experimental planting of these Mexican seeds. They yielded 5,000 kg a hectare, five times the output from Indian varieties. Subramaniam gave permission for direct farmer trials in 150 fields; he even sowed the hybrid seed in the lawns of his bungalow in New Delhi.
In 1966, India imported 18,000 kg of seed from Borlaug; by 1968, the wheat harvest increased to 17 million tons from 12 million in 1964. Grain production scaled over 100 million tons for the first time (this year, we are doing nearly 300 million tons!); India grandly called this turnaround its Green Revolution. More big labels followed.
Operation Flood in 1970 spurred milk production. An Oilseeds Mission doubled production over a decade. The poultry revolution was silent, powered by rising incomes; the annual availability of eggs per person increased from seven in 1961 to nearly seventy-five now!
India cannot merely depend on American firearms to contain China. Just as we became self-sufficient in agriculture then, we must ignite an economic revolution with double-digit growth and lessen the six-time differential with China to feel truly safe and secure.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)
Published: 31 Oct 2020,07:38 AM IST