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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JPR who wrote (8460)	10/15/1999 8:57:00 AM
From: JPR	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12475

ON MY MIND / By A.M. ROSENTHAL OPINION NY TIMES The Himalayan Error Many U.S. officials preferred to deal with the Pakistanis over the Indians not despite Pakistan's tendency to militarism but because of it. Man, the military fellows can get things done for you. Across the border, India, for all its slowness of economic growth and its caste system, showed what the U.S. is supposed to want -- consistent faithfulness to elected democracy. Where Pakistan failed to maintain political democracy in a one-religion nation, India has kept it in a Hindu-majority country that has four other large religions and a garden of small ones. Related Articles Op-Ed Columns Archive Forum Join a Discussion on A.M. Rosenthal E ver since their independence, the U.S. has made decisions about India and Pakistan fully aware that it was dealing with countries that would have increasing political and military significance, for international good or evil. Now that both have nuclear arms capability and Pakistan has been taken over again by the hard-wing military, the American Government and people stare at them as if they were creatures that had suddenly popped out of nowhere -- and as if their crises had no connection at all to those 50 years of American involvement in the India-Pakistan subcontinent. The destiny of the two countries -- war or peace, democracy or despotism -- lies with their billion-plus people, their needs and passions. But American decision-making about them has been of Himalayan importance -- because from the beginning it was almost entirely based on a great error. America chose Pakistan as more important to its interests than India. Both countries have a powerful sliver of their population who are plain villains -- politicians who deliberately splinter their society instead of knitting it, men of immense wealth who zealously evade taxes and the public good, religious bottom-feeders who spread violence between Hindu and Muslim in India and Muslim and Muslim in Pakistan. But living for about four years as a New York Times correspondent based in India and traveling often in Pakistan, I knew that the American error was widening and catastrophic. Although there were important mavericks, American officialdom clearly tilted toward Pakistan, knighted it a military ally and looked with contempt or condescension on India. Pakistan -- a country whose leadership provided a virtually unbroken record of economic, social and military failure and increasing influence of Islamicists. Many U.S. officials preferred to deal with the Pakistanis over the Indians not despite Pakistan's tendency to militarism but because of it. Man, the military fellows can get things done for you. Washington saw the country as some kind of barrier-post against China, which it never was, and against Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Pakistanis did their part there. But when the Taliban fanatics seized Afghanistan, Pakistan's military helped them pass arms for terrorists to the Mideast. Pakistan's weakness as an American ally, though Washington never seemed to mind, was its leaders' refusal to create continuity of democratic governments long enough to convince Pakistanis that the military would not take over again tomorrow. Across the border, India, for all its slowness of economic growth and its caste system, showed what the U.S. is supposed to want -- consistent faithfulness to elected democracy. Where Pakistan failed to maintain political democracy in a one-religion nation, India has kept it in a Hindu-majority country that has four other large religions and a garden of small ones. Danger sign: The newly re-elected Hindu-led coalition will have to clamp down harder against any religious persecution of Muslims and Christians. India's real friends will never lessen pressure against that. And the new government is not likely to stay in office long if it does not fulfill its anti-persecution promises to several parties in the coalition. No, the U.S. did not itself create a militaristic Pakistan. But by showing for years that it did not care much, it encouraged Pakistani officers prowling for power, lessened the public's confidence in democratic government when Pakistan happened to have one, and slighted the Indians' constancy to democratic elections. In 1961, in the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, I heard the ranking U.S. diplomat urge Washington not to recognize the military gang that had just taken over South Korea after ousting the country's first elected government in its history. But the Kennedy Administration did recognize the military government. That throttled South Koreans with military regimes for almost another two decades. The Clinton Administration is doing what America should: demand the departure of the generals. Maybe America still has enough influence to be of use to democracy some place or other in Asia. It's the least it can do for its colossal error on the subcontinent -- do for Indians, but mostly for Pakistanis.