The Story Of Ukraine: Lessons For India

Ukraine is the second largest nation in Europe after Russia. It was once a repository of Soviet nuclear weapons. After the breakup of the erstwhile USSR, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons under Western (meaning mostly US) guarantees, and signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in 1994. The other guarantors were Russia (which is like the ‘wolf bivouacked at the door’ in the adage) and the UK which was reduced by then—to use Mao's famous phrase—a ‘paper tiger’. France and China, the other two powers in the United Nations Security Council offered insincere, anodyne guarantees. In hindsight, it might appear, had Ukraine retained its nuclear weapons, Russia might not have dared occupying Crimea in 2014 or sought to occupy more regions now. There would have been no Ukraine-Russia conflict!

In about twenty-four years, between 1991 when Ukraine became an independent nation and 2014, Ukraine’s NATO membership application was left hanging. In 2014, Russia occupied Crimea under the pretext that it was concerned about Ukraine joining NATO. Crimea, the southern peninsular third of Ukraine is known for its warm water ports and has strategic importance for both Ukraine and Russia.

Russia might have had a ‘genuine’ concern about Ukraine joining NATO. It would have tilted the power balance in Europe as the induction of Ukraine would have definitely strengthened NATO. In spite of that not one Western power came to Ukraine's rescue in the last eleven years.

The First Lesson 

In international diplomacy, every nation looks for its self-interest. The concept of ‘altruism’ is absent. It was always self-interest behind the long series of US interventions beginning with Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Kuwait and other nations. The concepts of ‘neo-colonialism’ and ‘banana republics’ are byproducts of self-interest. The principle was the same when the ‘super powers’ refused to intervene in conflicts. In 1950 China was a weak nation; yet when she occupied Tibet neither the USA nor the USSR thought it fit to intervene, as they had no benefit in the bargain. India had—she lost a buffer state—but she meekly surrendered her stake citing some ‘highfalutin’ principles. She would rue her inaction in 1955-57 and in 1962, but by then it was far, far too late.  

The Second Lesson 

During the seventy years between 1919 when the USSR came into existence and its break up in 1990, Russia had systematically altered the demographic balance in Ukraine by settling ethnic Russians there in large numbers. These include, in addition to southern and eastern parts of Crimea, the Donbas region, particularly the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. In case of an armed conflict, the Russified parts of Ukraine may side with Russia.

China used the same strategy of altering the demographics in Tibet and Xinjiang (it calls them autonomous regions) by settling ethnic Chinese there in huge numbers.

Illegal infiltration from Bangladesh into West Bengal and Assam began soon after the 1971 war. The initial refugees were mostly Bengali Hindus. They were given asylum as a genuine humanitarian measure. The Left-Front which came to power in 1977 saw a captive vote bank in illegal immigrants and encouraged rather than controlled illegal immigration. This coupled with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism saw rapid influx of illegal immigrants. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism saw in the melee an opportunity to espouse its version of Lebensraum.

The Left-Front government, bolstered by the power of illegal immigrant vote lasted for thirty-three years. In 2011, the Left-Front lost power but the illegal immigrant vote did not! The Left-Front’s successor, the TMC used the same copybook to ride to power. Any change in the government did not matter to the illegal immigrants. To the utter chagrin of the Commies, the illegal immigrants retained their ‘collective bargaining power’ without the necessity or hassle of loyalty to the nation.

The Left-Front lost power but the copybook survived. Intimidated by the rising tide of genuine nationalism, other political parties cottoned on to the political dividends of captive vote banks of illegal immigrants. Thanks to the patronage of these political parties, we now have illegal immigrants in as far-removed regions from the eastern borders as Telangana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Delhi and Jammu & Kashmir. These political parties might someday realize their folly as the Commies did in 2011, but by then it would be far, far too late.

The numbers of illegal immigrants swelled and swelled to the extent that it had changed the demographic map of the entire east and northeast. If India were to face a war with neighbouring Bangladesh or internal strife the loyalties of the illegal immigrants would be severely tested. But by then it might be far, far too late. There is already a nexus between Pakistan and Bangladesh and the Pakistani ‘field marshal’ threatened that if India carried out ‘Operation Sindoor’ any further as it professed, she would be surprised by attacks from the east.

How and why exactly Trump thought he could ‘discipline’ India is difficult to understand. It could be his overweening yearning for a Nobel Peace Prize or monumental ego blinded him! Irrespective of whichever party was in power, India pursued its own course. The Indira Gandhi government in 1974 and the Atal Behari Vajpayee government in 1998 braved sanctions to conduct nuclear tests. Trump might not have understood the self-confidence, nationalist spirit and vigour of the new Indian administration which shed its colonial inhibitions. However, his tariff threats resulted in a wholly unintended consequence, causing a thaw in India China relations. 

At this point in time, it is difficult to gauge whether the course India is pursuing is right or wrong. China once betrayed India and is in illegal occupation of large swathes of Indian territory. It is not a trustworthy neighbour. But, despite protestations to the contrary, both India and China probably realize that Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh are fait accompli. In Chess terms, there is a stalemate. Neither government can however openly admit it. Doing so would result in loss of face and power.

Under the circumstances, the Indian government’s move of cosying up to China is another move on the international chess board. It might be a hard gamble. None can predict its outcomes. Only future will tell! 

‘The Fourth Estate’ Not ‘The Almighty’

The article attempts to deal with the question “What is the function of the media? Is it reporting facts or setting narratives?”

During much of his current term President Donald Trump had to fight accusations that he had had a secret covenant with the Russians, who helped him rig the 2016 presidential election. There were three prime accusations. The first was that a Russian organisation, ‘Internet Research Agency’ (IRA), which influences poll outcomes through social media campaigns, was deployed to run down his opponent Hilary Clinton and boost his election. The second was more serious and was about a possible hacking of the computers in the Democratic Party election offices by the Russian military intelligence agency, GRU. Had this been proven it would have turned out to be not just Trump’s own ‘Watergate’ but far worse! The third was about ‘obstruction of justice’.

This article is not about whether or not President Trump was guilty or not of the misdemeanours he was accused of but about their treatment by the American media. The accusations levelled by Trump’s political rivals were orchestrated by internationally visible sections of the American media like ‘CNN,’ ‘The New York Times’ and ‘The Washington Post’. Times’ journalists won two Pulitzer prizes for the ‘Trump-Russia’ stories!

The US Attorney General William Barr appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate the allegations.  The report Mueller submitted in March this year did not find any substantive evidence to prove the allegations. As Byron York observed in his September 10, 2019, ‘Washington Examiner’ opinion piece

‘the conspiracy-coordination allegation the Times had devoted itself to pursuing turned out to be false … TheTrump-Russia hole came up dry’!  

The story did not end there. Some of The New York Times’ readers and its own staff were not happy. York wrote ‘many on the Left faulted [The New York Times] for being insufficiently anti-Trump’! At this point, the issue spilled out of the media domain. It is no more about disseminating information or offering comment, however judgemental could it be. It is now more an ethical dilemma, a reflection of the media scene back home in India. Should a media organisation behave like a consumer goods supplier or restaurateur and cater to the tastes of a consumer – assuming a majority of readers the paper caters to are of a certain political leaning – or remain steadfast to an ideal of sticking to the truth? And remain neutral till the issue is settled one way or the other in the appropriate forums? The Times is now caught between the proverbial Scylla and Charybdis of its own making.

The paper conducted an internal town-hall meeting for its newsroom staff to assuage ruffled feelings. It was necessitated because of an uproar over a headline about the president’s alleged ‘racism’ and tweets from the paper’s staff. ‘Slate’ published a transcript of the recording of the Times’ town-hall meeting edited and curated by Ashley Feinberg. The Times’ Executive Editor, Dean Baquet and Publisher A. G. Sulzberger addressed the meeting.

A defensive Baquet seemed to find fault with the readers. He suddenly remembered that it was not the duty of the media to run political campaigns, but as an independent media hold administrations accountable! He pointed out the obvious: 

“They [the paper’s critics who want Trump’s head] sometimes want us to pretend that he was not elected president, but he was elected president.”  

What should be worrying in this episode is the apparent political conditioning of the staff. Shouldn’t newspaper employees be trained to be neutral observers and faithful reporters rather than political instruments?

Both York and Feinberg felt that Baquet’s remark that “the story changed” was significant. York wonders whether having spent a lot of time and energy on the ‘Trump-Russia’ story (and failed) the Times would spend the next two years on the “Trump-is-a-racist narrative”?

The ‘The Fourth Estate’ in the headline does not refer to Geoffrey Archer’s eponymous novel but to Edmund Burke’s laudatory reference to the press.[1]

In Irving Wallace’s brilliant thriller, ‘The Almighty’, the protagonist inherits a newspaper, a fictional rival of ‘The New York Times’. The conditional inheritance stipulates that the paper which was way behind its traditional rival should surpass its circulation for at least one day in the succeeding year. In order to retain ownership, the protagonist recruits a gang of terrorists to stage events and then scoop them as news. He sets himself up as ‘The Almighty’!  

The present media might not go the whole hog to stage terror incidents to scoop stories, but they were, in the past, halfway there. The way they stoked war hysteria for George W. Bush to bomb Iraq in the second gulf war in 2003 to destroy elusive weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was near enough. Are the Times’ and The Washington Post’s anti-Trump campaigns one of a piece with their earlier war campaigns?

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[1] In his 1787 speech in the British House of Commons, Edmund Burke reportedly said “There are three estates in Parliament (the Lords Spiritual, the Lords Temporal and the Commons) but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech or witty saying, it is a literal fact, very momentous to us in these times.” 

An earlier version of the article appeared in The Times Of India Blogs