Arun Shourie
"Now, Sir," the member said, "we have inherited a tradition. People always keep saying to me : 'Oh, you are the maker of the Constitution.' "My answer is I was a hack. What I was asked to do, I did much against my will."
He ridiculed the "notions of democracy" the country had acquired because of its hatred of the British, like the notion that to leave any discretionary powers with the Governor is undemocratic. "We have inherited the idea that the Governor must have no power at all, that he must be a rubber-stamp," the member explained. "If a minister, however scoundrelly he may be, if he puts up a proposal before the Governor, he has to ditto it. That is the kind of conception about democracy which we have developed in this country," he continued.
"But you defended it," interjected a member from Rajasthan.
"We lawyers defend many things....," said the member. Several members were on their feet protesting.
He proceeded to ask the Home Minister : were our Constitution to give discretionary powers to Governors on the lines of the Canadian Constitution, how would it become undemocratic ? The Home Minister said his answer was that the member had been responsible for drafting the Constitution. The member shot back, "You want to accuse me of your blemishes?"
He returned to the point a little later in his speech : "Sir," he said, "my friends tell me that I have made the Constitution. But I am quite prepared to say that I shall be the first person to burn it out. I do not want it. It does not suit anybody...."
The member ? B.R. Ambedkar, of course. The occasion? The debate in the Council of States, as the Rajya Sabha was then known, on 2 September, 1953, regarding the Bill for establishing the state of Andhra.
Was Ambedkar just palming off responsibility? Or was he being truthful in describing what his role really had been in regard to the drafting of the Constitution ? That the remarks were not just an off-the-cuff burst is evident from the fact that he repeated the description to the political scientist and biographer, Michael Brecher during an interview three years later, a few months before his death [ Michael Brecher, Nehru, A Political Biography, Oxford University Press, 1959, p. 423 ]
Or take another instance. The Article relating to the right to property went through several rounds, and was the subject of earnest discussion. The draft of the Article as it was sent up by the Drafting Committee closely followed Section 299 of the Government of India Act, 1935. It provided that no property would be acquired except for a public purpose, and that it would not be acquired without compensation and unless either the amount of compensation was fixed or the principles on which it was to be fixed were set out. When the draft came up for consideration in the Constituent Assembly, Pandit Nehru himself moved an amendment to replace the text wholesale. He told the Assembly that the new text was "the result of a great deal of consultation", that it reflected a compromise between various approaches.
Two years later, in 1952, the Supreme Court handed down judgements in which it held that the existence of a public purpose was a prerequisite for the exercise of the power of compulsory acquisition. The Government then brought in an amendment to the Constitution which provided, among other things, that "no such law [ aimed at acquiring property ] shall be called in question in any court on the ground that the compensation provided by that law is not adequate." The amendment also provided that where the law did not transfer the property to the State or a Corporation owned or controlled by the State "it shall not be deemed to provide for the compulsory acquisition or requisitioning of property, notwithstanding that it deprives any person of his property." In a word, there was no longer any need in such cases for either of the two conditions -- the existence of a public purpose, or the payment of just compensation. This part of the matter was thus put beyond the reach of courts. Government asserted that the new text was in accord with what the Drafting Committee had intended.
Ambedkar refuted the suggestion. Here is what he told the Rajya Sabha on 19 March, 1955 : "Article 31 with which we are dealing now in this Bill is an Article for which I, and the Drafting Committee, can take no responsibility whatsoever. We do not take any responsibility for that. That is not our draft." He said that at the time this Article was being considered "the Congress Party... was so divided within itself that we did not know what to do, what to put and what not to put." Ambedkar said that there had been three points of view within the Congress on the question : a section led by Sardar Patel had wanted that the Constitution provide for compensation on the lines of the existing Land Acquisition Act, namely market price plus 15 per cent; Pandit Nehru wanted that no compensation should be provided for at all; Pandit Pant, who was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh at the time, had been concerned mainly to safeguard the zamindari-abolition legislation he had got through. "There was thus this tripartite struggle," Ambedkar told the House, "and we left it to them to decide in any way they liked. And they merely embodied what their decision was in Article 31. This Article 31, in my judgement, is a very ugly thing, something which I do not like to look at..."
A volume can be filled at short notice with examples of this kind. The point however will be obvious : in saying what he did about this particular Article, was Ambedkar again just passing off responsibility? Or was he giving us a truthful glimpse into the way the Constitution was actually framed -- by an iterative, collective effort, by the contribution of numerous persons, by adjustments of many, many points of view?
"But was he not the Chairman of the Drafting Committee? And did this Committee not draft the Constitution?"
How mere designations father myths ! Yes, Ambedkar was elected Chairman of the Drafting Committee [and the why and how of that is itself a delicious story], but what was this "Drafting Committee" set up to do?
The Constituent Assembly had been functioning since December 1946. Committees to draft substantive sections of the Constitution began work in January 1947. The "Drafting Committee" did not come into being till 29 August, 1947.
The Constituent Assembly's resolution setting up the Committee declared that it was being set up to "Scrutinise the Draft of the text of the Constitution prepared by the Constitutional Adviser giving effect to the decisions taken already in the Assembly and including all matters ancillary thereto or which have to be provided in such a Constitution, and to submit to the Assembly for consideration the text of the Draft Constitution as revised by the Committee." At the very least these terms of reference should alert us to the fact that there already was a Draft in existence when this Committee was set up!
The Draft in question had been prepared by Sir B. N. Rau, the Constitutional Adviser to the Constituent Assembly, with the assistance of the Joint Secretary and Draftsman, S.N. Mukerjee. It consisted of 240 draft Articles and 13 Schedules. Nor was this document itself something that had sprung from the head of one or two individuals. In fact, in the marginal note to each draft Article Sir B N Rau indicated the original source or basis of the provision -- the Government of India Act, 1935, the Constitution of Ireland, that of Canada, that of Australia, the Danzig Constitution, that of the USSR, of the USA and so on, in each instance with the relevant Article listed. It was this Draft which constituted the basic working document in all subsequent deliberations. And it was this Draft which the Drafting Committee began adding to and deleting from so as to incorporate the decisions which the Assembly had already arrived at, and to incorporate the reports and recommendations of the various Committees which had been set up to draft particular sections of the Constitution. Sir B N Rau's Draft, the minutes and drafts of the Committees are all published documents which are easily accessible to anyone who would care to look.
But even that sort of account suggests a greater degree of latitude and role for the Drafting Committee than was the case. For everything was in practice decided in meetings of the Congress Party before it was formally taken up by the Constituent Assembly. Ambedkar himself was to acknowledge later that it was possible to get the Constitution through so smoothly precisely because of the discipline and cohesion of the Congress. Another member of the Assembly was even more candid : in his speech at the conclusion of the Assembly's labours he said that the meetings of the Congress Party became the real meetings of the Constituent Assembly, and that the decisions taken in them -- after vigourous and free debate, and much contention -- were in a sense "registered" by the Assembly in its formal meetings.
The Draft was the result of collective labours of many persons. Several parts of it went through many versions. Several Articles were adopted, only to be overturned at the next stage. The Assembly itself reopened and revised, and sometimes completely overhauled several provisions -- many of them key provisions on which the very nature of the system of governance turned.
Not only did Ambedkar himself not claim authorship of the Draft. He did not even claim any great degree of originality for the Draft which emerged from these iterations and which he formally tabled. Quite the contrary, he scoffed at those who were looking for originality in the document. Addressing the Assembly on 4 November, 1948, while placing the Draft Constitution in the Assembly for its consideration, Ambedkar said : "It is said that there is nothing new in the Draft Constitution, that about half of it has been copied from the Government of India Act of 1935 and that the rest of it has been borrowed from the Constitutions of other countries. Very little of it can claim originality. One likes to ask whether there can be anything new in a Constitution framed at this hour in the history of the world. More than a hundred years have rolled over when the first written Constitution was drafted. It has been followed by many countries reducing their Constitutions to writing. What the scope of a Constitution should be has long been settled. Similarly what should be the fundamentals of a Constitution are recognized all over the world. Given these facts, all Constitutions in their main provisions must look similar. The only new things, if there can be any, in a Constitution framed so late in the day are the variations made to remove the faults and to accommodate it to the needs of the country..."
"As to the accusation that the Draft Constitution has [re]produced a good part of the provisions of the Government of India Act, 1935," Ambedkar continued, "I make no apologies. There is nothing to be ashamed of in borrowing. It involves no plagiarism. Nobody holds any patent rights in the fundamental ideas of a Constitution...."
That this was the position was known to one and all. As I mentioned, in the margin of each Draft Article Sir B N Rau had indicated the provisions of other Constitutions on which it was based. The overwhelming proportion of provisions were based on the Government of India Act of 1935 -- and that too was natural : that Act itself built on successive laws under which India had been governed for a hundred years; the administrative structure of the country had grown around these laws, even in combating those laws and provisions it is that structure which our leaders had grown accustomed to, which they had in a sense mastered.
Ambedkar, who had all along been with the British while the rest were fighting to free the country from them, actually felt a sense of vindication in the fact that, all said and done, the nationalist leaders, who used to rail against the British, had in the end had to adopt more or less the system which the British had devised. Recall that Ambedkar formally presented the Draft to the Assembly on 21 February, 1948. On 28 April that year Ambedkar was the chief guest at a dinner at the Delhi Gymkhana Club. In a starry-eyed account, Alan Campbell-Johnson, the Press Attache of Lord Mountbatten, recorded in his diary for that day : "Fay and I dined tonight amid fairy-lights on the lawn of the Delhi Gymkhana Club.... The principal guest was Dr. Ambedkar, the Minister of Law, the leader of the untouchables, and a colourful personality in Indian politics over the past twenty years. He is now one of the principal figures associated with the preparation of India's new Constitution, which finally removes the stigma of untouchability from the statute book. As part of his emancipation, Ambedkar, himself an untouchable, has only recently married a lady doctor who is a Brahmin... Ambedkar himself was in an expansive vein, and gave us a revealing analysis of some of the new features of the new Constitution... As evidence of the enduring quality of the 1935 Act, he said that some two hundred and fifty of its clauses had been embodied as they stood into the new Constitution." [ Mission With Mountbatten, 1951, Hamish Hamilton, 1985, p.319 ] On that count, not half but almost four-fifths of the Constitution was from the 1935 Act -- for the Draft as submitted by the Drafting Committee had 315 Articles.
And this position was freely acknowledged by our courts also. Rejecting a construction which was being urged before it, the Supreme Court, for instance, observed in Sundaramier and Co. Vs State of Andhra Pradesh in 1958, "It [ the construction which was being urged ] overlooks that our Constitution was not written on a tabula-rasa, that a federal Constitution had been established under the Government of India Act, 1935, and though that has undergone considerable changes by way of repeal, modification and addition, it still remains the framework on which the present Constitution is built..." For that reason the Court held that "the provisions of the Constitution must accordingly be read in the light of the provisions of the Government of India Act."
But now suddenly the Constitution is presented as something that sprung -- whole and complete, pristine and virginal -- from the mind and genius of Ambedkar. So much so that the Draft Constitution is included by the Maharashtra Government in its volumes Babasaheb Ambedkar, Writings and Speeches as if it were one of the things he had authored!
Even so there is a silver lining. The very ones who hail Ambedkar as the Manu of our times revile Manu as the fount of all evil! The very ones who hail the Constitution as the Ambedkar-smriti denounce the same Constitution as being nothing but an alien graft wholly unsuited to our country!
Showing posts with label USSR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label USSR. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Devices to Further the Circular
Arun Shourie
As we have seen, the explicit part of the Circular issued by the West Bengal Government in 1989 in effect was that there must be no negative reference to Islamic rule in India. Although these were the very things which contemporary Islamic writers celebrated, there must be absolutely no reference to the destruction of the temples by Muslim rulers, to the forcible conversion of Hindus, to the numerous other restrictions which were placed on the Hindu population. Along with the Circular, the passages which had to be removed were listed and substitute passages were specified. The passages which were ordered to be deleted contained, if anything, a gross understatement of the facts. On the other hand, passages which were sought to be inserted contained total falsehoods: that by paying jazia Hindus could lead "normal lives" under the Islamic rulers!
A closer study of the textbooks which are today being used under the authority of the West Bengal Government shows a much more comprehensive, a much more diabolic design than that of merely erasing the cruelties of Islamic rule.
Of course, there is no reference to those cruelties. But in addition, the growth of the Aligarh Movement and its objectives, the role of Sir Syed in founding this movement, the role of the Muslim League, its close association with the British, its espousal of the Two Nation doctrine -- all these are almost entirely erased in the half a dozen books which teachers in Calcutta have been so kind as to send.
It was only in one book, Sabhyatar Itihash by Dr Atul Chandra Ray, Prantik, 1998, for Class VIII, that there was a reference to the Muslim League, the Lahore Resolution, the Two Nation theory, and Jinnah's "Direct Action". Even in this book the only reference to Sir Syed Ahmad was one projecting him as a great, progressive religious reformer: "All his life he struggled against blind faith and tradition, conventional rituals, practices and ignorance."
That he founded the Aligarh Movement, that he was the original proponent of the Two Nation theory, that he exhorted Muslims to stay away from the Congress, that he wrote essays followed by books followed by essays to establish in the eyes of the British how loyal Muslims had been through the 1857 Uprising, how loyal they were and would always be to the British because of their nature and their religion, that he gave very special "interpretations" to passages from the Qur'an to establish that it was the religious duty of Muslims to support and stand by the British rulers -- to the point that if the British asked them to eat pork, they were in religious-duty bound to do so in good cheer : not a word on any of this.
Similarly, while Ram Mohan Roy is mentioned, while Keshab Chandra Sen -- in whom Max Muller had seen such hope of Christianizing India -- is mentioned, while Devendra Nath Tagore is mentioned in this "History of Civilization", Bankim Chandra is not mentioned! After all, for the constituency which our secular Communists have been wooing, Bankim Chandra, being the author of Bande Matram, of Ananda Math, is anathema. Many would think it natural that as such "Histories of World Civilization" are written in and for Bengal, Bengali personages -- including K. C. Sen -- should figure more prominently than reformers and leaders from outside Bengal. But even they would be surprised -- though you would not expect me to be surprised! -- by what the teachers point out in regard to the most widely used textbook : that while Swami Vivekananda gets one line, Karl Marx gets forty two!
In regard to our religion, the trick is threefold. The textbooks denigrate religion, attributing to it the evils which it serves their purpose to highlight. Second, in each of these instances the examples they give are linked by them to Hinduism. Third, among religions, Islam is always presented as the one, progressive, emancipatory religion. Of course, the final emancipation comes in the form of Soviet Revolution of 1917!
Itihash o' Bhugol, Pratham Bhag, West Bengal Shiksha Adhikar, Calcutta, 1993 is a book for Class III. It has the customary section on "Vyaktigat Sampatti o' Das Pratha" and it sets out the customary Marxist exposition. The emergence of two classes, rich and poor, is attributable to personal property and the profit motive...; to augment its growth, one class of society fights another class...; some lose out their property; others grab everything of theirs'...; those who lose out are made prisoners and employed as labourers; they become slaves; they are absolute paupers....; those who make them work like this become their malik...; gradually those maliks, without working, start enjoying the fruits of the labour of slaves....; thus society gets divided into rich and poor, owners and slaves; the rich and owners and craftsmen class of people start fleecing these slaves; not only are the latter denied their dues, they are also subjected to atyachar (oppression)...; sometimes these poor and these slaves used to rebel when they could no longer bear the atyachar; to discipline them the rich created law, police and courts... A proper preparation of the Class III child for abiding by law!
On the next page this account is merged into the account of "rituals and ceremonies of society." The illustration on the page shows Hindu pundits around a fire with the caption "Rishis performing Yajna (religious rituals)". Having described the emergence of two classes, the oppression of one class and its being pushed into becoming slave labour, having described law, police and courts as instruments of this oppression, the textbook now tells the Class III student "these priests devised and got busy in creating laws and rituals for worship. That is how scriptures were written.
And they started teaching the children from these scriptures, and they themselves became the teachers. Gradually they established themselves at the top of the social ladder. That is how they became leaders of society. And they became the allies of those who were ruling the world." Not just the usual Marxist clap-trap, the Marxist rendition of the Macaulay-design: make them ashamed of the three things they revere -- their Gods, their scriptures, their language, Sanskrit; and make them hate the one class which has been charged with the task of continuing their religion and culture.
The theme is continued in and the association of Hinduism with everything evil is deepened in the textbook, Itihash o' Bhugol, Part II (West Bengal Vidyalaya Shiksha Adhikar, 1995, Calcutta), meant for the Class IV students. On page 10 the standard account is given � one which has been called into serious question by current scholarship. Aryans come from the North West.... They institute four castes, the Shudras are consigned to be the lowest caste. They were the original inhabitants of this land, of dark complexion... No right to education... That is on page 10.
On page 17 we learn of the great emancipatory event. Mohammed is born. He establishes Islam... It creates a great civilization, a civilization educationally, culturally advanced. It establishes a vast Empire -- but because of fighting in various parts this Empire yields to the emergence of different states. Two pages later again: Mohammed is born..., a great Mahapurush..., his religion Islam means "Peace". He taught all to give alms to the poor, and to pay the worker his legitimate due. He taught, do not cause pain or suffering to slaves, do not take interest on loans. He stopped idolatry. These are the principal doctrines of Mohammed. Many accepted Mohammed's religion... And then the insinuation: "All great men have taught peace... but people have forgotten their message and are quarreling and fighting. The rich instead of helping the poor, duped them, and added to their own wealth. They indulge in loot, blood-letting in the name of religion. When Jainism and Buddhism spread in India, the Brahmin pundits saw danger. They thought that if men did not follow the rituals, they may not obey and care for them. Therefore, on the pretext of saving Hindu religion and to maintain their hold on society, they became desperate. They were helped by many kings. Thus the influence of Jainism and Buddhism declined and the influence of Hinduism increased." That is on page 20.
On pages 25 and 26 this superimposition is carried further. The standard Marxist "thesis" is once again driven into the child. Peasants exploited... surplus appropriated... his cattle, land expropriated... suffering... progressive immiserisation day by day... and then, "in the name of God, the pundits extracted gifts for puja and festivals. The pundits became oppressive and began living off the labour of others, becoming exploiters and oppressors. They were helped by kings and landlords. Shudras, slaves and the poor suffer most from religious persecution. This is how the stratification of society between high and low started. Shudras became untouchables but there was no restriction on exploiting their services and every excuse was good enough for the men of higher castes to exploit and persecute the Shudras.... The upper caste men used to kill off Shudras and wipe out entire villages on any excuse whatsoever."
And there is an illustration on the page to reinforce the message into the child's mind. Captioned, Dharmiya Utpidan, "Religious Persecution", it shows a man in a bush-shirt, flogging a poor person with a whip -- in the foreground is a Brahmin, in a dhoti, with a chutia, a menacing frown, directing him to do so.
By predictable contrast, Itihash (Prachin), West Bengal Shiksha Parishad, 1994, on page 94 gives an illustration of the ruins of Nalanda, it says how important these seats of learning were. But it is studiously silent on who it was that destroyed them! After all, alluding to that would violate the Circular!
The Class III textbook, Itihash o' Bhugol, Pratham Bhag, at page 32, teaches the child, "With the emergence of personal property one section has been depriving the other. The differences between rich and poor have grown. Suffering has been created. The downtrodden have lost all their rights. They have been subjected to many indignities. Even now people are killing each other, even now a man exploits a fellow-being, even now there are wars, battles. If peace ever comes to this earth, if exploitation and oppression are stopped, if every man can enjoy equal happiness and peace, then how wonderful this earth would become."
This pattern -- of sowing anger against the state of things and attributing that condition to the entities the Communists want to target -- continues from one year to the next. Itihash, Part III, (West Bengal Shiksha Adhikar, 1996), after giving the same sequence and "theses" of exploitation, of division of society, of religion as a handmaiden of exploitation, turns to "the emergence of new consciousness". An exploitative order... Brahmins wielding great influence... Those of the working class, of Shudras pushed down... no rights or dignity... Shudras not even to perform religious rituals... Exploitation... Rebellion of Christian slaves... Spartacus... Shakes the very foundation of the Roman Empire... After 600 years of Christ, a new religious creed that every man has equal rights, this religious creed was preached by Hazrat Mohammed... Ideas of great men abandoned... Exploitation continues. At last! Lenin, the Bolshevik Party... "This is how the common man's revolt took place in November 1917 and an exploitation-less [shoshan-mukt] society of the working class was established. Tagore visited Russia in 1930 and said that if he had not visited Russia, he would have missed out on the most sacred place of pilgrimage..." The Chinese Revolution... The Industrial Revolution in England... Proprietors expropriate... Labour is progressively immiserised... Country becomes rich but is controlled by a few; the rest sink into misery, getting hardly anything, not even two square meals a day... And then, on page 32, the Russian Revolution: "In November 1917 before the end of the First World War, the workers and peasants of the Russian Empire led by Lenin and his Bolshevik Party staged the Revolution and uprooted the Czarist Empire and thus established the first exploitation-less [shoshan-mukt] rule of Workers and Peasants in Soviet Russia..."
And then the Second World War: Hitler, Japan and Italy combined. Japan also was very greedy and ambitious, and planned to set up an Empire in Asia. The Axis came into conflict with "Britain, France and the American imperialists." "The issue," it tells the student, "was who will exploit and plunder the world. That is how the Second World War started..." Bengal Famine... In 1941 Germany attacked Soviet Russia. The Russian people fought to defend the Motherland and finally defeated Hitler's Germany. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... After the end of the Second World War, the movement for freedom in colonies became vigorous.
Like this book, Sabhyatar Itihash, "The History of Civilization," 1998, also presents the Russian Revolution as the culmination of that evolution. A remarkable, comprehensive revolution... While these books are published in 1995, 1998 etc., there is not a word in them about the purges under Stalin, about the fact that under him at least 28 million Soviet citizens were killed, nor of the fact that close to 60 million were killed under Maoist rule in China, there is not a word of the slave labour camps of these regimes. And, of course, there is not a word about what has happened to the Soviet Union, to Eastern Europe since then, nor about the leap which China has taken to abandon the bankrupt Communist economic system.
Hence the design is not just what was set out in that Circular -� to erase the evil that Islamic rulers heaped upon India and Indians. It is to attribute evil to the religion of our country, Hinduism; it is to present Islam as the great progressive force which arose; it is to lament the fact that humanity did not heed the teachings of progressive men like Mohammed -- till the "remarkable and comprehensive" Russian Revolution of 1917!
To do anything but swallow and vomit this design, even to document it, is to be communal, chauvinist, fascist!
India Connect
September 1, 1998
As we have seen, the explicit part of the Circular issued by the West Bengal Government in 1989 in effect was that there must be no negative reference to Islamic rule in India. Although these were the very things which contemporary Islamic writers celebrated, there must be absolutely no reference to the destruction of the temples by Muslim rulers, to the forcible conversion of Hindus, to the numerous other restrictions which were placed on the Hindu population. Along with the Circular, the passages which had to be removed were listed and substitute passages were specified. The passages which were ordered to be deleted contained, if anything, a gross understatement of the facts. On the other hand, passages which were sought to be inserted contained total falsehoods: that by paying jazia Hindus could lead "normal lives" under the Islamic rulers!
A closer study of the textbooks which are today being used under the authority of the West Bengal Government shows a much more comprehensive, a much more diabolic design than that of merely erasing the cruelties of Islamic rule.
Of course, there is no reference to those cruelties. But in addition, the growth of the Aligarh Movement and its objectives, the role of Sir Syed in founding this movement, the role of the Muslim League, its close association with the British, its espousal of the Two Nation doctrine -- all these are almost entirely erased in the half a dozen books which teachers in Calcutta have been so kind as to send.
It was only in one book, Sabhyatar Itihash by Dr Atul Chandra Ray, Prantik, 1998, for Class VIII, that there was a reference to the Muslim League, the Lahore Resolution, the Two Nation theory, and Jinnah's "Direct Action". Even in this book the only reference to Sir Syed Ahmad was one projecting him as a great, progressive religious reformer: "All his life he struggled against blind faith and tradition, conventional rituals, practices and ignorance."
That he founded the Aligarh Movement, that he was the original proponent of the Two Nation theory, that he exhorted Muslims to stay away from the Congress, that he wrote essays followed by books followed by essays to establish in the eyes of the British how loyal Muslims had been through the 1857 Uprising, how loyal they were and would always be to the British because of their nature and their religion, that he gave very special "interpretations" to passages from the Qur'an to establish that it was the religious duty of Muslims to support and stand by the British rulers -- to the point that if the British asked them to eat pork, they were in religious-duty bound to do so in good cheer : not a word on any of this.
Similarly, while Ram Mohan Roy is mentioned, while Keshab Chandra Sen -- in whom Max Muller had seen such hope of Christianizing India -- is mentioned, while Devendra Nath Tagore is mentioned in this "History of Civilization", Bankim Chandra is not mentioned! After all, for the constituency which our secular Communists have been wooing, Bankim Chandra, being the author of Bande Matram, of Ananda Math, is anathema. Many would think it natural that as such "Histories of World Civilization" are written in and for Bengal, Bengali personages -- including K. C. Sen -- should figure more prominently than reformers and leaders from outside Bengal. But even they would be surprised -- though you would not expect me to be surprised! -- by what the teachers point out in regard to the most widely used textbook : that while Swami Vivekananda gets one line, Karl Marx gets forty two!
In regard to our religion, the trick is threefold. The textbooks denigrate religion, attributing to it the evils which it serves their purpose to highlight. Second, in each of these instances the examples they give are linked by them to Hinduism. Third, among religions, Islam is always presented as the one, progressive, emancipatory religion. Of course, the final emancipation comes in the form of Soviet Revolution of 1917!
Itihash o' Bhugol, Pratham Bhag, West Bengal Shiksha Adhikar, Calcutta, 1993 is a book for Class III. It has the customary section on "Vyaktigat Sampatti o' Das Pratha" and it sets out the customary Marxist exposition. The emergence of two classes, rich and poor, is attributable to personal property and the profit motive...; to augment its growth, one class of society fights another class...; some lose out their property; others grab everything of theirs'...; those who lose out are made prisoners and employed as labourers; they become slaves; they are absolute paupers....; those who make them work like this become their malik...; gradually those maliks, without working, start enjoying the fruits of the labour of slaves....; thus society gets divided into rich and poor, owners and slaves; the rich and owners and craftsmen class of people start fleecing these slaves; not only are the latter denied their dues, they are also subjected to atyachar (oppression)...; sometimes these poor and these slaves used to rebel when they could no longer bear the atyachar; to discipline them the rich created law, police and courts... A proper preparation of the Class III child for abiding by law!
On the next page this account is merged into the account of "rituals and ceremonies of society." The illustration on the page shows Hindu pundits around a fire with the caption "Rishis performing Yajna (religious rituals)". Having described the emergence of two classes, the oppression of one class and its being pushed into becoming slave labour, having described law, police and courts as instruments of this oppression, the textbook now tells the Class III student "these priests devised and got busy in creating laws and rituals for worship. That is how scriptures were written.
And they started teaching the children from these scriptures, and they themselves became the teachers. Gradually they established themselves at the top of the social ladder. That is how they became leaders of society. And they became the allies of those who were ruling the world." Not just the usual Marxist clap-trap, the Marxist rendition of the Macaulay-design: make them ashamed of the three things they revere -- their Gods, their scriptures, their language, Sanskrit; and make them hate the one class which has been charged with the task of continuing their religion and culture.
The theme is continued in and the association of Hinduism with everything evil is deepened in the textbook, Itihash o' Bhugol, Part II (West Bengal Vidyalaya Shiksha Adhikar, 1995, Calcutta), meant for the Class IV students. On page 10 the standard account is given � one which has been called into serious question by current scholarship. Aryans come from the North West.... They institute four castes, the Shudras are consigned to be the lowest caste. They were the original inhabitants of this land, of dark complexion... No right to education... That is on page 10.
On page 17 we learn of the great emancipatory event. Mohammed is born. He establishes Islam... It creates a great civilization, a civilization educationally, culturally advanced. It establishes a vast Empire -- but because of fighting in various parts this Empire yields to the emergence of different states. Two pages later again: Mohammed is born..., a great Mahapurush..., his religion Islam means "Peace". He taught all to give alms to the poor, and to pay the worker his legitimate due. He taught, do not cause pain or suffering to slaves, do not take interest on loans. He stopped idolatry. These are the principal doctrines of Mohammed. Many accepted Mohammed's religion... And then the insinuation: "All great men have taught peace... but people have forgotten their message and are quarreling and fighting. The rich instead of helping the poor, duped them, and added to their own wealth. They indulge in loot, blood-letting in the name of religion. When Jainism and Buddhism spread in India, the Brahmin pundits saw danger. They thought that if men did not follow the rituals, they may not obey and care for them. Therefore, on the pretext of saving Hindu religion and to maintain their hold on society, they became desperate. They were helped by many kings. Thus the influence of Jainism and Buddhism declined and the influence of Hinduism increased." That is on page 20.
On pages 25 and 26 this superimposition is carried further. The standard Marxist "thesis" is once again driven into the child. Peasants exploited... surplus appropriated... his cattle, land expropriated... suffering... progressive immiserisation day by day... and then, "in the name of God, the pundits extracted gifts for puja and festivals. The pundits became oppressive and began living off the labour of others, becoming exploiters and oppressors. They were helped by kings and landlords. Shudras, slaves and the poor suffer most from religious persecution. This is how the stratification of society between high and low started. Shudras became untouchables but there was no restriction on exploiting their services and every excuse was good enough for the men of higher castes to exploit and persecute the Shudras.... The upper caste men used to kill off Shudras and wipe out entire villages on any excuse whatsoever."
And there is an illustration on the page to reinforce the message into the child's mind. Captioned, Dharmiya Utpidan, "Religious Persecution", it shows a man in a bush-shirt, flogging a poor person with a whip -- in the foreground is a Brahmin, in a dhoti, with a chutia, a menacing frown, directing him to do so.
By predictable contrast, Itihash (Prachin), West Bengal Shiksha Parishad, 1994, on page 94 gives an illustration of the ruins of Nalanda, it says how important these seats of learning were. But it is studiously silent on who it was that destroyed them! After all, alluding to that would violate the Circular!
The Class III textbook, Itihash o' Bhugol, Pratham Bhag, at page 32, teaches the child, "With the emergence of personal property one section has been depriving the other. The differences between rich and poor have grown. Suffering has been created. The downtrodden have lost all their rights. They have been subjected to many indignities. Even now people are killing each other, even now a man exploits a fellow-being, even now there are wars, battles. If peace ever comes to this earth, if exploitation and oppression are stopped, if every man can enjoy equal happiness and peace, then how wonderful this earth would become."
This pattern -- of sowing anger against the state of things and attributing that condition to the entities the Communists want to target -- continues from one year to the next. Itihash, Part III, (West Bengal Shiksha Adhikar, 1996), after giving the same sequence and "theses" of exploitation, of division of society, of religion as a handmaiden of exploitation, turns to "the emergence of new consciousness". An exploitative order... Brahmins wielding great influence... Those of the working class, of Shudras pushed down... no rights or dignity... Shudras not even to perform religious rituals... Exploitation... Rebellion of Christian slaves... Spartacus... Shakes the very foundation of the Roman Empire... After 600 years of Christ, a new religious creed that every man has equal rights, this religious creed was preached by Hazrat Mohammed... Ideas of great men abandoned... Exploitation continues. At last! Lenin, the Bolshevik Party... "This is how the common man's revolt took place in November 1917 and an exploitation-less [shoshan-mukt] society of the working class was established. Tagore visited Russia in 1930 and said that if he had not visited Russia, he would have missed out on the most sacred place of pilgrimage..." The Chinese Revolution... The Industrial Revolution in England... Proprietors expropriate... Labour is progressively immiserised... Country becomes rich but is controlled by a few; the rest sink into misery, getting hardly anything, not even two square meals a day... And then, on page 32, the Russian Revolution: "In November 1917 before the end of the First World War, the workers and peasants of the Russian Empire led by Lenin and his Bolshevik Party staged the Revolution and uprooted the Czarist Empire and thus established the first exploitation-less [shoshan-mukt] rule of Workers and Peasants in Soviet Russia..."
And then the Second World War: Hitler, Japan and Italy combined. Japan also was very greedy and ambitious, and planned to set up an Empire in Asia. The Axis came into conflict with "Britain, France and the American imperialists." "The issue," it tells the student, "was who will exploit and plunder the world. That is how the Second World War started..." Bengal Famine... In 1941 Germany attacked Soviet Russia. The Russian people fought to defend the Motherland and finally defeated Hitler's Germany. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... After the end of the Second World War, the movement for freedom in colonies became vigorous.
Like this book, Sabhyatar Itihash, "The History of Civilization," 1998, also presents the Russian Revolution as the culmination of that evolution. A remarkable, comprehensive revolution... While these books are published in 1995, 1998 etc., there is not a word in them about the purges under Stalin, about the fact that under him at least 28 million Soviet citizens were killed, nor of the fact that close to 60 million were killed under Maoist rule in China, there is not a word of the slave labour camps of these regimes. And, of course, there is not a word about what has happened to the Soviet Union, to Eastern Europe since then, nor about the leap which China has taken to abandon the bankrupt Communist economic system.
Hence the design is not just what was set out in that Circular -� to erase the evil that Islamic rulers heaped upon India and Indians. It is to attribute evil to the religion of our country, Hinduism; it is to present Islam as the great progressive force which arose; it is to lament the fact that humanity did not heed the teachings of progressive men like Mohammed -- till the "remarkable and comprehensive" Russian Revolution of 1917!
To do anything but swallow and vomit this design, even to document it, is to be communal, chauvinist, fascist!
India Connect
September 1, 1998
The Pakistani Bomb is, and has been, a Joint Venture
Arun Shourie
"But What was the immediate threat?," ask the pundits. "Why now?," they demand. I K Gujral adds the considerable weight of having been Prime Minister to the argument: as one who had access to secret information as Prime Minister, he tells Parliament, I say that when I left office there was no threat that warranted the explosions.
By 1969 Gujral was in Mrs Gandhi�s inner circle. Mrs Gandhi had the first explosion in May 1974. Could Gujral tell us what was the immediate threat in May 1974?
The shafts in which the explosions have been conducted now were dug in 1981. And they were dug and prepared because Mrs Gandhi had decided that we had to move to the next stage, and a series of explosions had to be undertaken. Could someone go back to those days and tell us what was the immediate threat in 1981?
The decisions taken, second thoughts set in: and that unfortunately was not special to the nuclear programme -- Sanjay�s death had disoriented Mrs Gandhi, she began to hesitate and fumble on every matter.
But, as Mr R Venkatraman has confirmed, the decision was retaken in 1983: he has said that he personally went down in the shaft to see things for himself. Any recollection of what was the Immediate threat then?
Rajiv decided in 1990 to have the explosions conducted. Scientists were revved up. Any recollection of what...?
Narasimha Rao scheduled to have the tests done In December 1995. Any recollection of what...? The news leaked to the Americans. They publicised the plans. And brought to bear the requisite pressure -- something which was not hard to do on that Government.
Gujral says that when he left office there was no threat. How come then that simultaneously his Defence Minister Mulayam Singh claims credit for having "signed the file" for the tests? The Defence Minister�s secret information versus the Prime Minister�s secret information?
But so much of the information is public knowledge that one has no option but to conclude that the effort these personage should have devoted to planning a response, they expanded on shutting their eyes.
Everything that follows has been taken from American sites on Internet. Much of it is from the sites maintained by the Centre for Non-proliferation Studies, Monterey Institutes of International Studies, Monterey, California -- that is, the very first sites to which anyone with the slightest interest in the subject will go.
The pattern the information reveals hits one like a truck. First, to the knowledge of every concerned authority, Pakistan has been for twenty years single-mindedly pursuing a nuclear weapons programme: that programme has been nothing but a nuclear weapons programme, as will become obvious in a moment. Second, its own efforts towards this goal floundered almost at the outset: it, therefore decided to buy, smuggle, steal, get whatever was necessary -- for this reason, its programme has been a clandestine one.
Third, its principal helper in the venture has been China.
How very short public memory Is, how assiduously facts are obscured from our people -- that is what strikes one as one reads the facts today. For all of them have been published from time to time -- Just that Prime Ministers do not seem to have read them, and the rest of us, attaching no Importance to them, soon forgot them.
28 January, 1998: In the Hearing of the Senate Select Committee on "Current and Projected National Security Threats," the Director of the CIA said, "Conventional arm sales have lagged in recent years, encouraging Chinese defence industries to look to WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) technology sales, primarily to Pakistan and Iran, in order to recoup. There is no question that China has contributed to WMD advances in these countries."
There has been a tightening recently, the CIA Director said more on this in a moment -- and added, "But China's relations with some proliferant countries are long-standing and deep, Mr Chairman. The jury is still out on whether the recent changes are broad enough in scope and whether they will hold over the longer term. As such, Chinese activities in this area will require continued close watching."
June 1997: In his report on The Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions, July-December 1996, the Director of the CIA said that during the period covered by the report China "was the primary source of nuclear-related equipment and technology to Pakistan."
7 August, 1996: In its annual report on "Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control Agreements," the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency stated, "Prior to China�s NPT accession, the United States concluded that China had assisted Pakistan in developing nuclear explosives. Since China's accession to the NPT, it appears that China may have continued to assist Pakistan's unsafeguarded nuclear program and may have continued contacts with elements associated with Pakistan's nuclear weapons related programme. The United States Government has continuing concerns regarding possible continuation of China's past nuclear weapons assistance to Pakistan and Beijing's compliance with its NPT obligations."
September 1996: The Washington Times, a paper which has been following Chinese activities in this sphere with diligence, cited a report of the CIA dated 14 September 1996, saying that China had sold a special industrial furnace and high technology diagnostic equipment to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities in Pakistan -- "unsafeguarded" facilities are ones which are being kept by the country out of the reach of international inspection agencies.
The Centre for Non-proliferation Studies account of the news story records, "The equipment reportedly is of a dual-use nature and could be applied to either civilian or military applications. The report also said that Chinese technicians were in Pakistan in September 1996 to install in the equipment. The China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC) reportedly may have arranged the transfer.
According to the CIA report, 'In the aftermath of CNEIC�s ring-magnet sale to Pakistan and China's May 11 commitment not to provide assistance to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities, senior-level government approval probably was needed for this most recent assistance'. The report also alleged that China planned to submit false documentation on the equipment�s final destination. High-temperature furnaces (also called vacuum or 'skull' furnaces) can reportedly be used to mould uranium or plutonium into bomb cores for use in nuclear weapons, and mould titanium for missile nose cones and other key components. The equipment may have been headed for Pakistan's Khushab heavy water reactor."
The Centre records that the Pakistani Embassy spokesman vigorously denied the sale: "We deny that there was any nuclear-weapons related transfer to Pakistan." As usual Pakistan saw itself as a victim: "I regret to say," the spokesman solemnly declared, "that we seem to be becoming the victims of a series of leaks, some of which are... simply motivated or inspired by the electoral fever in the United States and by their own internal shadow-boxing among themselves."
The Chinese were cleverer -- we did it, but earlier, they exclaimed! The Chinese Embassy spokesman dismissed The Washington Times report as "groundless," recalls the CNS site. It had conducted an internal investigation of the sale, the Chinese Government told the US Administration, and had established that the sale had taken place in late 1995 and early 1996 -- that put the sale a few convenient months before China signed the pledge on May 11, 1996!
Late 1995: "The CIA told the State Department," recalls the CNS account, "that a China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) subsidiary, the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC) had supplied Pakistan's unsafeguarded state-run A Q Khan Research Laboratory in Kahuta, a reported nuclear weapons laboratory with 5,000 specialised ring magnets for the top suspension bearing of high-speed gas centrifuges to be installed at the facility. The deal was valued at between $ 50,000 - $70,000."
"Ring magnets" are devices used in centrifuges which can make weapons-grade enriched uranium.
"Groundless", fumed China. It warned" the US not to impose sanctions on the basis of mere "rumours." Pakistan was as vehement. Soon China acknowledged that a sale had indeed taken place --- but that the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation had made the sale on its own! The central Government of China had not known! A sale of components vital for a nuclear weapons programme, a sale by a Government Corporation, a sale by a Corporation of not just any Government but of the Government of China, and yet "it was made without our knowledge"!
1994, 1993: Agreements signed with much fanfare between Pakistan and China for financing and deepening their cooperation for Pakistan's "peaceful" nuclear programme. But this time let us start from the earlier dates in the CNS sites.
1974: Convinced about what Pakistan was up to, "Western countries embargo nuclear exports to Pakistan........"
1977: "Leybold Heraeus of Hanan Germany sells Pakistan vacuum pumps and equipment to be used in uranium enrichment........"
1981: "Albert Goldberg is arrested in November at a US airport while attempting to ship two tons of zirconium to Pakistan. Zirconium is used in nuclear reactor operations that can lead to nuclear weapons........"
1983: "China reportedly supplies Pakistan with enough highly enriched uranium for one to two nuclear weapons.... China supplies Pakistan with a complete design of a 25kt nuclear bomb.... Senior Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan orders over 6,000 tubes made of special steel to be used for uranium enrichment... In June a US State Department memo says that US intelligence agencies believe the Pakistani centrifuge program is intended to produce material for nuclear weapons.... In July a report published in the USSR says that Pakistan can make five atom bombs in a year."
1984: "Pakistani citizen Nazir Vaid is caught smuggling electronic components, potentially useful for nuclear weapons, from the United States."
1985: "In July a US television station reports that Pakistan has tested US-made krytron electric triggers in conventional explosions. Krytron triggers can be used in the detonation of nuclear devices."
1986: US intelligence agencies allege that Pakistan is producing highly enriched uranium, which may be used in nuclear weapons... In September Pakistan conducts 'cold tests' of a nuclear implosion device at Chagai."
1987: "Pakistan acquires a tritium purification and production facility from West Germany. The plant can produce up to 10g of tritium daily. Tritium can be used to produce a thermonuclear device."
1989: "A 27k research reactor (PARR-2) is built at Rawalpindi with Chinese assistance... Western intelligence sources indicate that China is arranging for Pakistan to tests its nuclear device at China's Lop Nor nuclear test site."
1990s: "China reportedly provides assistance for the construction of the Chashma plutonium reprocessing facility."
1991: "In September, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said that Pakistan could 'rapidly produce' a nuclear weapon in the event of a serious threat."
1992: "In February, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Shahryar Khan confirmed that Pakistan has the components necessary to construct at least one nuclear weapon...
1993: "China's National Nuclear Corporation begins work on a 300MW pressurised-water reactor at Chashma... A report by The Stockholm Peace and Research Institute (SIPRI) says that approximately 14,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges have been installed at Kahuta... German officials seize approximately 1,000 gas centrifuges bound for Pakistan."
1994: "Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says Pakistan has a Nuclear bomb."
1996: "Pakistan expects to complete its unsafeguarded 40 MW heavy-water reactor at Khushab. US officials believe that the reactor is being built with Chinese assistance....
Three conclusions stare one in the face:
The threat comes not from the recent explosions which Pakistan has carried out. it has consisted in the programme -- single-minded and clandestine -- which Pakistan has been pursuing for twenty years to acquire nuclear weapons.,
Its principal supplier and guide in this programme has been China;
Information about this programme, as well as about the pivotal role of China in it, has been public knowledge.
And yet the assertion, "As Prime Minister I had access to secret information. And on the basis of that I tell you -- with full sense of responsibility -- that when I gave up my office, there was no threat."
All I can say is that perhaps Prime Ministers are kept so busy reading "secret information" they have no time to notice what is staring everyone in the face.
But even this is but a part of the story, as we shall see.
The Pioneer
June 3, 1998
"But What was the immediate threat?," ask the pundits. "Why now?," they demand. I K Gujral adds the considerable weight of having been Prime Minister to the argument: as one who had access to secret information as Prime Minister, he tells Parliament, I say that when I left office there was no threat that warranted the explosions.
By 1969 Gujral was in Mrs Gandhi�s inner circle. Mrs Gandhi had the first explosion in May 1974. Could Gujral tell us what was the immediate threat in May 1974?
The shafts in which the explosions have been conducted now were dug in 1981. And they were dug and prepared because Mrs Gandhi had decided that we had to move to the next stage, and a series of explosions had to be undertaken. Could someone go back to those days and tell us what was the immediate threat in 1981?
The decisions taken, second thoughts set in: and that unfortunately was not special to the nuclear programme -- Sanjay�s death had disoriented Mrs Gandhi, she began to hesitate and fumble on every matter.
But, as Mr R Venkatraman has confirmed, the decision was retaken in 1983: he has said that he personally went down in the shaft to see things for himself. Any recollection of what was the Immediate threat then?
Rajiv decided in 1990 to have the explosions conducted. Scientists were revved up. Any recollection of what...?
Narasimha Rao scheduled to have the tests done In December 1995. Any recollection of what...? The news leaked to the Americans. They publicised the plans. And brought to bear the requisite pressure -- something which was not hard to do on that Government.
Gujral says that when he left office there was no threat. How come then that simultaneously his Defence Minister Mulayam Singh claims credit for having "signed the file" for the tests? The Defence Minister�s secret information versus the Prime Minister�s secret information?
But so much of the information is public knowledge that one has no option but to conclude that the effort these personage should have devoted to planning a response, they expanded on shutting their eyes.
Everything that follows has been taken from American sites on Internet. Much of it is from the sites maintained by the Centre for Non-proliferation Studies, Monterey Institutes of International Studies, Monterey, California -- that is, the very first sites to which anyone with the slightest interest in the subject will go.
The pattern the information reveals hits one like a truck. First, to the knowledge of every concerned authority, Pakistan has been for twenty years single-mindedly pursuing a nuclear weapons programme: that programme has been nothing but a nuclear weapons programme, as will become obvious in a moment. Second, its own efforts towards this goal floundered almost at the outset: it, therefore decided to buy, smuggle, steal, get whatever was necessary -- for this reason, its programme has been a clandestine one.
Third, its principal helper in the venture has been China.
How very short public memory Is, how assiduously facts are obscured from our people -- that is what strikes one as one reads the facts today. For all of them have been published from time to time -- Just that Prime Ministers do not seem to have read them, and the rest of us, attaching no Importance to them, soon forgot them.
28 January, 1998: In the Hearing of the Senate Select Committee on "Current and Projected National Security Threats," the Director of the CIA said, "Conventional arm sales have lagged in recent years, encouraging Chinese defence industries to look to WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) technology sales, primarily to Pakistan and Iran, in order to recoup. There is no question that China has contributed to WMD advances in these countries."
There has been a tightening recently, the CIA Director said more on this in a moment -- and added, "But China's relations with some proliferant countries are long-standing and deep, Mr Chairman. The jury is still out on whether the recent changes are broad enough in scope and whether they will hold over the longer term. As such, Chinese activities in this area will require continued close watching."
June 1997: In his report on The Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions, July-December 1996, the Director of the CIA said that during the period covered by the report China "was the primary source of nuclear-related equipment and technology to Pakistan."
7 August, 1996: In its annual report on "Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control Agreements," the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency stated, "Prior to China�s NPT accession, the United States concluded that China had assisted Pakistan in developing nuclear explosives. Since China's accession to the NPT, it appears that China may have continued to assist Pakistan's unsafeguarded nuclear program and may have continued contacts with elements associated with Pakistan's nuclear weapons related programme. The United States Government has continuing concerns regarding possible continuation of China's past nuclear weapons assistance to Pakistan and Beijing's compliance with its NPT obligations."
September 1996: The Washington Times, a paper which has been following Chinese activities in this sphere with diligence, cited a report of the CIA dated 14 September 1996, saying that China had sold a special industrial furnace and high technology diagnostic equipment to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities in Pakistan -- "unsafeguarded" facilities are ones which are being kept by the country out of the reach of international inspection agencies.
The Centre for Non-proliferation Studies account of the news story records, "The equipment reportedly is of a dual-use nature and could be applied to either civilian or military applications. The report also said that Chinese technicians were in Pakistan in September 1996 to install in the equipment. The China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC) reportedly may have arranged the transfer.
According to the CIA report, 'In the aftermath of CNEIC�s ring-magnet sale to Pakistan and China's May 11 commitment not to provide assistance to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities, senior-level government approval probably was needed for this most recent assistance'. The report also alleged that China planned to submit false documentation on the equipment�s final destination. High-temperature furnaces (also called vacuum or 'skull' furnaces) can reportedly be used to mould uranium or plutonium into bomb cores for use in nuclear weapons, and mould titanium for missile nose cones and other key components. The equipment may have been headed for Pakistan's Khushab heavy water reactor."
The Centre records that the Pakistani Embassy spokesman vigorously denied the sale: "We deny that there was any nuclear-weapons related transfer to Pakistan." As usual Pakistan saw itself as a victim: "I regret to say," the spokesman solemnly declared, "that we seem to be becoming the victims of a series of leaks, some of which are... simply motivated or inspired by the electoral fever in the United States and by their own internal shadow-boxing among themselves."
The Chinese were cleverer -- we did it, but earlier, they exclaimed! The Chinese Embassy spokesman dismissed The Washington Times report as "groundless," recalls the CNS site. It had conducted an internal investigation of the sale, the Chinese Government told the US Administration, and had established that the sale had taken place in late 1995 and early 1996 -- that put the sale a few convenient months before China signed the pledge on May 11, 1996!
Late 1995: "The CIA told the State Department," recalls the CNS account, "that a China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) subsidiary, the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC) had supplied Pakistan's unsafeguarded state-run A Q Khan Research Laboratory in Kahuta, a reported nuclear weapons laboratory with 5,000 specialised ring magnets for the top suspension bearing of high-speed gas centrifuges to be installed at the facility. The deal was valued at between $ 50,000 - $70,000."
"Ring magnets" are devices used in centrifuges which can make weapons-grade enriched uranium.
"Groundless", fumed China. It warned" the US not to impose sanctions on the basis of mere "rumours." Pakistan was as vehement. Soon China acknowledged that a sale had indeed taken place --- but that the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation had made the sale on its own! The central Government of China had not known! A sale of components vital for a nuclear weapons programme, a sale by a Government Corporation, a sale by a Corporation of not just any Government but of the Government of China, and yet "it was made without our knowledge"!
1994, 1993: Agreements signed with much fanfare between Pakistan and China for financing and deepening their cooperation for Pakistan's "peaceful" nuclear programme. But this time let us start from the earlier dates in the CNS sites.
1974: Convinced about what Pakistan was up to, "Western countries embargo nuclear exports to Pakistan........"
1977: "Leybold Heraeus of Hanan Germany sells Pakistan vacuum pumps and equipment to be used in uranium enrichment........"
1981: "Albert Goldberg is arrested in November at a US airport while attempting to ship two tons of zirconium to Pakistan. Zirconium is used in nuclear reactor operations that can lead to nuclear weapons........"
1983: "China reportedly supplies Pakistan with enough highly enriched uranium for one to two nuclear weapons.... China supplies Pakistan with a complete design of a 25kt nuclear bomb.... Senior Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan orders over 6,000 tubes made of special steel to be used for uranium enrichment... In June a US State Department memo says that US intelligence agencies believe the Pakistani centrifuge program is intended to produce material for nuclear weapons.... In July a report published in the USSR says that Pakistan can make five atom bombs in a year."
1984: "Pakistani citizen Nazir Vaid is caught smuggling electronic components, potentially useful for nuclear weapons, from the United States."
1985: "In July a US television station reports that Pakistan has tested US-made krytron electric triggers in conventional explosions. Krytron triggers can be used in the detonation of nuclear devices."
1986: US intelligence agencies allege that Pakistan is producing highly enriched uranium, which may be used in nuclear weapons... In September Pakistan conducts 'cold tests' of a nuclear implosion device at Chagai."
1987: "Pakistan acquires a tritium purification and production facility from West Germany. The plant can produce up to 10g of tritium daily. Tritium can be used to produce a thermonuclear device."
1989: "A 27k research reactor (PARR-2) is built at Rawalpindi with Chinese assistance... Western intelligence sources indicate that China is arranging for Pakistan to tests its nuclear device at China's Lop Nor nuclear test site."
1990s: "China reportedly provides assistance for the construction of the Chashma plutonium reprocessing facility."
1991: "In September, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said that Pakistan could 'rapidly produce' a nuclear weapon in the event of a serious threat."
1992: "In February, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Shahryar Khan confirmed that Pakistan has the components necessary to construct at least one nuclear weapon...
1993: "China's National Nuclear Corporation begins work on a 300MW pressurised-water reactor at Chashma... A report by The Stockholm Peace and Research Institute (SIPRI) says that approximately 14,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges have been installed at Kahuta... German officials seize approximately 1,000 gas centrifuges bound for Pakistan."
1994: "Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says Pakistan has a Nuclear bomb."
1996: "Pakistan expects to complete its unsafeguarded 40 MW heavy-water reactor at Khushab. US officials believe that the reactor is being built with Chinese assistance....
Three conclusions stare one in the face:
The threat comes not from the recent explosions which Pakistan has carried out. it has consisted in the programme -- single-minded and clandestine -- which Pakistan has been pursuing for twenty years to acquire nuclear weapons.,
Its principal supplier and guide in this programme has been China;
Information about this programme, as well as about the pivotal role of China in it, has been public knowledge.
And yet the assertion, "As Prime Minister I had access to secret information. And on the basis of that I tell you -- with full sense of responsibility -- that when I gave up my office, there was no threat."
All I can say is that perhaps Prime Ministers are kept so busy reading "secret information" they have no time to notice what is staring everyone in the face.
But even this is but a part of the story, as we shall see.
The Pioneer
June 3, 1998
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