RT:
‘Modi’s India center of multipolar world – this threatens US hegemony’
Published
time: September 29, 2014 11:55
Washington’s
hegemonic position is being threatened by a new global movement that is fast
becoming reality, with the BRICS group being a very important component of
creating a truly multipolar world, Don DeBar, of CPR News, told RT.
On Sept. 26,
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the US for his first official
visit after a nine-year visa ban over allegations that he failed to stop
anti-Muslim rioting when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat. In 2005, he was
denied entry to the US under a 1998 law barring entry to foreigners who have
committed “particularly severe
violations of religious freedom.”
As part of his
five-day trip, Modi addressed the UN General Assembly. He will also meet with
the CEOs of 17 multinationals, including Google, Boeing, IBM, PepsiCo and
MasterCard, and a have private dinner with US President Barack Obama. Modi’s
visit promises to be extremely important for the future development of
Indian-US relations.
Modi, in an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, called the
United States India’s “natural
global partner.”
However, the
trip was overshadowed by a lawsuit from a human rights group that is attempting
to hold him ultimately responsible for the 2002 massacre of Muslims in Gujarat.
He is accused of standing by, or even encouraging, sectarian violence in
Gujarat in 2002, which left over 1,000 people killed.
RT: This
weekend PM Modi spoke at the UN General Assembly in New York. But had he not
been elected, he wouldn’t even be able to set foot in the US, because his visa
was revoked in 2005 over the handling of Muslim riots in India. So why now is
he seen as such a key partner by US officials?
Don
DeBar: It’s not a
secret, particularly for people who have been listening at the UN over the past
week – there has been a great deal of discussion about it, perhaps more than
ever. It’s not a secret that there is a new global construct coming into being
and very important component of creating that multipolar world is the BRICS
group of countries [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa].
The US sees its
hegemonic position, its position as the unitary pole of global power, eroding
in front of it. It is attacking at various levels the structure that is emerging
– again, BRICS is a central part of it. We have links with the various
integration groupings in Latin America – CELAC, the Alba countries, UNASUR. We
see the groups that are forming around some of the old Soviet Republics, the
ties between Russia and China that are growing exponentially and practically,
Chinese investment in Africa, African unity movements – all of this on display
over the past months with the BRICS conference in Brazil over the summer.
India is
literally at the center of the BRICS countries, and is raising demands at the
UN, one of the themes Prime Minister Modi mentioned – many people mentioned it
– but he brought it up specifically: India has a billion people and no
permanent seat at the Security Council. The entire structure of global
governance is feeling a huge push from this new center of gravity forming, and
attacking India is one of the ways that the US is using to try to stop this
from coming to being.
RT: Modi
was slapped with a lawsuit over his alleged role in those deadly religious riots
as soon as he arrived in the US. That doesn’t happen with world leaders
visiting international summits often. How big a blow is this for Modi?
DD: The biggest blow is to US credibility across
the world. This is a huge diplomatic faux pas. You don’t serve process in
somebody’s lawsuit on a head of state when they are visiting the UN, no less to
come together for the General Assembly. Honestly, if I was Modi, and the world
could thank God that I’m not, if I had that time at the UN I would have been
reading a resolution, proposing an entirely new order, excluding the US,
because of this kind of behavior. That’s not what happened – he was much more
diplomatic than that.
I don’t even
think that he mentioned his own situation within this, other than by a collateral
reference to the need for waking it round the world. The US really gets a black
eye in the eyes of the world community because it’s a terribly undiplomatic
practice.
RT: There’s
talk about an attempted upgrade in India-US relations. Will the coming meeting
between Modi and Obama be more about politics or economics?
DD: They kicked him in the face when he entered
in the US and then said, “Come on,
let’s have lunch.” Then they will discuss, I guess, there will be
an attempt to providing diktat from the US government, or whoever will be sent
as a power and will be talking to Modi, saying, “Look, that is what you are going to do – or else.”
I think Modi has
already shown us or told us what he plans to do – he is looking for more
integration of the global economy on a multipolar, multilateral level. He is
actually pursuing that in operating within a framework that he is committed to.
That is going to happen much deeply and broadly than before.
He was in Brazil
at the conference of the BRICS countries when the new financial structures were
announced, for example, that may ultimately replace the IMF and the World Bank.
They are certainly now in competition. I think he has shown which way he is
going to go in advance – we have got this little political ploy in New York.
RT: What
tools Washington is more likely to use in dealing with Modi?
DD: Their primary tool is the drone: they have
lawyers and drones, not much else, because they don’t utilize the tools they do
have. The US is a great economic power but unfortunately, in terms of their
economy, it is mostly at war with itself: the oligarchy is at war with the vast
numbers working people here, the middle class has been under attack for 40-50
years to the point of almost non-existence, and it has remained, although heavily
indebted to the 1 percent.
So if the US
were using those tools, diplomatic tools rather than the kind of behavior they
have just exhibited, political tools around the country, around the world, then
the US would be very competitive. We have much to offer the world, but all we
are offering is military adventures, diktat and exploitative economic
relationships. And of course the world doesn’t have to buy that, it isn’t
buying it anymore.
The statements,
views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and
do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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