Nobel For Obama

NOBEL FOR OBAMA – DOWNSIDE FOR INDIA? At about this time last year Obama was still campaigning, sweeping the world and his opponents in the floodtide of his ornate verbal imagery. The Indian media did not have enough of Obama’s election campaign and presidential inauguration. It was as if the election happened right here and not thirteen thousand kilometres (eight thousand miles) away. We are, as a people, given to paying obeisance as courtiers to kings and emperors, sahibs and gora sahibs and the neo-Moghal dynasty that has been ruling post independence. It comes naturally to us. There would have been an encore this year after the rather stunning and clichéd ‘breaking’ news that emanated from Oslo. Only the sceptical western world spoiled the game. They did not join us in the balle-balle bhangra to celebrate Obama’s prize. If they did, we would no doubt have found a link to expropriate him – his great-grandfather’s uncle’s niece’ brother-in-law and an Indian expatriate being neighbours. ‘Why, they used to share samosas and bhang during Holi revelry!’ On October 9, the day the story broke, the lead story on TIMESONLINE (the online edition of the London Times) was ‘Top ten Nobel Prize rows’. The story listed the controversies that dogged the Prize. For example in 1939 Hitler was nominated by a Swedish parliamentarian but he withdrew it later. In 1973 the prize was awarded to Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger for working towards peace in Vietnam. Two Nobel judges resigned after international protests and Le Duc Tho refused the prize on the ground that peace was not a reality in Vietnam. In 1994 the prize was awarded to Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Simon Peres for working towards peace in the Middle East. There is still no sign of peace there. The British paper did not mention the sacrilegious omission of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi from the Nobel roster. The Mahatma was nominated five times between 1937 and 1948. The Nobel peace committee did apologise for its oversight and as reparation did not declare a winner in the year of his assassination. The prize is not awarded posthumously. The TIMESONLINE lead story was followed by an article entitled ‘Comment: absurd decision on Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize’ by Michael Binyon. He wrote that the award would be met with ‘widespread incredulity, consternation’ and ‘deep embarrassment’ for Obama himself. He further said that ‘Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent’ and that ‘…the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office.’ The post was cheered

with the resonance of 242 readers within hours. One of them felt that ‘The prize itself became meaningless when it was awarded to (Yasser) Arafat. Who cares?’ In his ‘The Prize’ (1961) Irving Wallace listed in detail the hits and misses, the politics and intrigues and many minutiae that abound in the saga of the world’s most coveted prize. It appears the Noble Committee ignored Albert Einstein’s famous theory of relativity but rewarded him for his relatively less important work in photo-electric effects to compensate for its oversight, eight years later. Alfred Nobel was explicit in expressing his wish “that in awarding the prizes no consideration whatever shall be given to the nationality of the candidates, so that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not.” Nobel judges seem to have contravened this provision of Nobel’s will on many occasions for political reasons or personal predilections. Thus for example in the literature section, great writers like Marcel Proust, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges, August Strindberg, John Updike, Leo Tolstoy, Henrik Ibsen, Émile Zola, Mark Twain, Anton Chekhov and André Malraux did not make the prize. On the other hand, light weight and virtually unknown writers like Gabriela Mistral and Pearl Buck were honoured. Nobel willed that the beneficiary for the peace prize, “the champions of peace be decided by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting” and be given “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” A gora sahib asked for his comments on an Indian news channel answered that the prize to Obama was like ‘awarding an Oscar to a director who is yet to make a film!’ What then are Barack Obama’s likely objectives to be eligible to encash his ‘post-dated cheque’? And what are his chances of his achieving them? Objective: Ensuring that North Korea and Iran do not conduct missile and nuclear tests. Chances of achieving: Highly unlikely. Ally Pakistan and foe-turned-friend China empowered North Korea in nuclear and missile technology. North Korea remains defiant to international pressure and insists that she would continue testing. Ditto Iran, which too remains defiant.

Objective: Finding a solution to the Palestine conundrum and achieving peace in the Middle East. Chances of achieving: Highly unlikely. For historical and internal political reasons, America can not ruffle Israel. Therefore any solution that is not acceptable to Israel is foreclosed. Al Qaeda and Taliban founded and nurtured by allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia will keep the pot boiling. It is the old story twice told. The first time it was the Iran-Contra affair. The second time it is Al Qaeda and Taliban, one-time allies in containing the former Soviet Union recoiling on the US. There is a strange irony in the tale. Before and during the Second World War, the allies borrowed heavily from America. After the Second World War the allies levied reparations on Germany for starting the war. Germany borrowed from America to pay the reparations to the allies who in turn used the money to repay their debts to America. Now America aids Pakistan to fight Al Qaeda and Taliban. Pakistan uses the aid to fund Al Qaeda and Taliban which fight America and India. Objective: Closer relations with Russia. Chances of achieving: Achievable. It is in Russia’s interest to cosy up to the US to galvanise its economy. Objective: Finding a solution to the ‘Kashmir’ dispute. Chances of achieving: Although India insists that it is a bilateral dispute a pliant Indian administration may willy-nilly succumb to Obama’s subtle charms. Objective: Ensuring India tows the American line on NPT and CTBT. Chances of achieving: Friend Manmohan Singh is the last resort for Obama to help him redeem his Nobel cheque – figuratively speaking. The downside for India: There will be intense pressure on the Indian administration to sign the NPT and CTBT without seeking recognition as a nuclear weapons state. By signing the Indo-US nuclear deal India has locked itself into a Hobson’s choice. The deal does not recognise India as a nuclear weapons state, contrary to India’s claims / understanding. The problem that India faces is not just in resisting pressures to sign the discriminatory NPT. Following disclosures of the failure of the 1998 fusion test, at some future time or other India will have to conduct another test to build credible nuclear

deterrence (or MAD for mutually assured destruction). However, testing is likely to annul the deal. In the earlier article, Indo-US Nuclear Deal Demystified (September 24, 2008), Vox Indica fully supported the deal. Now there seems to be reason to revise this position.