Indira Gandi's Legacy: South Asian Migration & the Anglo-American Empire

Ethnic debates are slightly more tiresome than confessional ones, but since they have become the fashion, recently, I shall contribute my humble impressions on the matter: the entire purpose behind the multi-decade Anglo-American ingestion of South Asians and their promotion into leadership was to cynically undermine heretofore independent South Asian governments that jeopardized the Empire's control.

1971: The Nadir of Indo-AngloAmerican Relations

On August 9, 1971, India signed the "Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation". On December 3, 1971, India and the erstwhile East Pakistan went to war. As reported, securing Soviet support gave India the confidence to launch the war against East Pakistan: "... it is generally believed that India not only launched the attack on East Pakistan with Moscow's knowledge but with its specific approval." (p.45 Mustafa, Zubedia, "THE USSR AND THE INDO-PAKISTAN WAR":, 1971)

The August 1971 Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation on the heels of Kissinger’s groundbreaking trip to China was, in Kissinger’s view, a particular cause for alarm because it “was deliberately steering nonaligned India toward a de facto alliance with the Soviet Union” and enabled India to take an uncompromising stance against the instability in Pakistan. Kissinger faulted Indian intransigence, interference in East Pakistan, and a refusal to negotiate on substantive matters, rather than Pakistani provocations, as the precipitating causes of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
https://nixontapes.org/india-pakistan.html

Indira Gandi: India's Bismarck

Indira Gandi strategically defeated the Anglo-American Empire after winning the 1971 East Pakistan war and replacing a menacing eastern frontier with a friendly Bangladesh.

What made the East Pakistan war so dreadfully embarrassing and costly for the Nixon administration was its TIMING: Indira Gandi's war was perfectly timed, because it coincided precisely with Kissinger's not-so-subtle courtship of China, which sought to draw China away from the Soviet Union.

With the US exposed diplomatically in her detente with China, India needed just enough support from the Soviet Union to be able to consolidate her conquest in East Pakistan and form a neutral Bangladesh.

India’s relationship with the Soviet Union ensured that the United Nations would not intervene, and helped deter China from opening a second conflict on India’s northern border. Defeated on both fronts, Pakistan was forced to accede to the establishment of an independent Bangladesh in place of East Pakistan. Bangladesh was admitted to the United Nations in 1974.
These developments resulted in a decline in U.S. influence in South Asia and India’s emergence as the most significant power on the subcontinent. U.S. prestige was damaged in both nations, in Pakistan for failing to help prevent the loss of East Pakistan and in India for supporting the brutality of the Pakistani regime’s actions in what became Bangladesh. In contrast, the Soviet relationship with India became stronger, a fact that took on greater significance with India’s rise to prominence in the region. (https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/south-asia)

1972: Year of Retaliation and Breaking Indira Gandi

Humiliated by Indira Gandi, Nixon initiated retaliation in 1972, with a suspension of economic aid. This, combined with an OPEC oil price-shock and a poor harvest into 1973 compelled Indira Gandi to declare a national "Emergency" in 1975, which effectively collapsed democratic rule under a sort of "martial law":

“Business as usual” was the rallying cry for both William Saxbe — the then American ambassador in India — and Michael Walker, the then British high commissioner to India. That democracy had been squashed and Indian jails overflowed with political prisoners mattered little for those more concerned about the increasing influence of the Soviet Union in India’s political and economic life. In early 1976, and with a view to keep India “on-side,” Wilson’s government authorised £115 million of aid or the largest 100 per cent grant-based payment for any country. For Eduard Luard, the highest-ranking bureaucrat in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the logic for the “business as usual” advance was simple. “I think we will have to learn to take India as we find her,” he told his staffers, “whether or not we like her current system of government”. As far as the Ford administration was concerned, the tide against Indira Gandhi turned only towards the end of 1976.  (https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2018/07/emergency-from-the-outside?lang=en)

1974: Indira Gandi's India Successfully Tests a Nuclear Weapon

Daniel Moynihan, Ambassador to India,

“…Do not think, fellow Americans, of beguiling Indira Gandhi with talk of cultural exchange, joint industrial undertakings or a few shiploads of cheap food. Her concern is not economic. It is political. Nothing will change here till she is satisfied that the United States accepts her India. She does not now think we do. She thinks we are a profoundly selfish and cynical counterrevolutionary power. She will accordingly proceed to develop nuclear weapons and a missile delivery system, preaching non-violence all the way.” (https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/leaked-cables-allende-kissinger-moynihan-and-the-indian-nuclear-bomb)

To give context, Pakistan would not test a nuclear weapon until 1998! Indira Gandi's successful nuclear test, while still contingent on an adequate launch vehicle, demonstrated the extent of India's total independence from the political interests of both the United States and the United Kingdom.

1992: The End of "Unaligned India" and beginning of the H1B

India, until 1992, proved staunchly "Unaligned". 1992, this all changed.

  • Israel and India exchanged ambassadors. Up until then, Zionism was declared "racist", formally, since 1975.
  • India formally opened-up her economy to outside capital inflows under PV Rao's new government.
  • Under threat of US sanctions, India cancelled a $250m order for Russian rockets

This apparent capitulation of Indian sovereignty came by means of an inducement: an end to economic suffering: the 1991 crash in the Indian rupee. India has always suffered and still, to this day, suffers from a current account deficit. The solution?

REMITTANCES

H1B: Remittances, Reform, and Influence

The H1B program and the creation of an "elite Non-Resident Indian" would achieve several Anglo-American objectives, both in India and even Pakistan:

  • India: Backstop the rupee with remittance inflows from economic migrants in high-paying jobs in the United States
  • India: Create a new cadre of pro-American, pro-Capitalism leaders, who would, in turn, eventually displace the "Secretaries" that kept India's economy completely moribund. Over time, the new economic elite in the United States would begin to hold sway over the "Old Guard", within India.
  • India: Eliminate any further Russian influence in India
  • Pakistan: Incentivize a peaceful resolution to the Kashmir conflict, as seen in the UK with Pakistanis appointed to many prestigious positions in Government and the calculated mass-migrations from Pakistani Kashmiri "hotspots" into cozy welfare regimes in the UK
  • India: Facilitate peace-deal with Pakistan (again, with a long-term objective of de-nuclearization) by "de-fanging" the Sikh nationalists through mass-migration to Canada.
  • Pakistan: Gradually wean Pakistan off her Chinese alliance through migration treaties and direct subsidies
  • India & Pakistan: Submit both India and Pakistani to an Anglo-American National Security Regime, under which both nations formalize peace and eventually de-nuclearlize!

H1B - Inverse Colonialism

The H1B program is one of "inverse Colonialism". While disruptive to the lives and welfare of the displaced native populations, it serves several powerful strategic agendas and will remain in force until South Asia has sufficiently economic stability to no longer jeopardize Anglo-American interests with a global nuclear war.