Latest World News: Why do Foreign Powers Like the US and China Want a Weak Government in India?
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In 1996, when the incumbent Congress government of Prime Minister Narashima Rao had lost the election, he quietly passed on a small paper note to the new prime minister elect Atal Behari Vajpayee at the latter’s swearing-in ceremony, carrying the message, “Meet Kalam”. Today news headlines in Hindi would have loved to know of such an incident and how Prime Minister Vajpayee kept the message a secret till the objective of meeting Kalam was achieved two years later in May 1998.
When the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came to power under Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in 1996, Vajpayee did not even know who Kalam was. However, he took the message of his predecessor with all the seriousness it deserved and immediately sought a meeting with Dr. Abdul Kalam.
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At that time, he was the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minister and Secretary of the Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO). None of the top 10 breaking news in India in Hindi today or at that time had even the faintest of idea about what was going on.
Upon meeting Kalam Prime Minister Vajpayee came to know for the first time that the country’s defence scientists had done all the groundwork for a multi-pronged nuclear test and was waiting for orders to proceed with it.
Vajpayee immediately gave the order for resumption of preparations for the test that should take place in a month’s time. Unfortunately, his government lasted just 13 days and once again the test was postponed.
Prime ministers HD Deve Gowda and Inder Gujral had no clue about the nuclear test
There are people who don’t understand why most of the opposition especially parties in India have lost respect and credibility in the eyes of most Hindus.
Let us first understand why former PM Narashima Rao never approached prime ministers Deve Gowda and Gujral about the pending nuclear tests.
That was because Rao knew that they were both weak leaders heading fickle coalitions of weak parties and they would easily succumb to American pressure.
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Hence, after Vajpayee’s first government fell in 13 days in 1996, the pending nuclear test went into a two year freeze. When the BJP-led NDA returned to power in 1998, it was revived by Vajpayee on priority as per today news headlines in Hindi.
A weak government in India is what both the US and China wants
It must be noted that Vajpayee was leading a coalition of multiple parties and independent MPs and yet he went ahead with the test. Such firmness of political will and defiance is something the US was not used to and that explains why they want the BJP out of power.
When Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 on the back of an absolute majority in parliament after 30 long years, it was bad news for the US and China because they knew that India cannot be pressurized any more.
If the nuclear test was a trial by fire for Vajpayee, the Ukraine War was a test of India’s resolve to withstand US pressure going by today news headlines in Hindi and other media outlets.
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Vajpayee had to walk the political tightrope to ensure minimum damage to the Indian economy as a result of the nuclear tests against US pressure in 1998. However, in 2022-23 Modi actually had less to worry about when buying record quantities of oil from Russia amidst US pressure during the Ukraine War. That is because he enjoys a comfortable majority in parliament which was not the case with Vajpayee’s government. Moreover, the US is not the same overbearing sole superpower as it was in 1998 while the Indian economy was just one-fourth of what it is now.
AUTHOR: Dev Kumar is an independent geo-political observer, commentator and blogger who tries to look at international issues in relation to India and present a different dimension that has hardly been covered by mainstream experts.