Bhopal, February 17 (Pervez Bari): Dr. Arshi Khan, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Aligarh Muslim University, (AMU), has called the former Prime Minister of India late Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as an Indian icon representing the interests of the larger international community who was federal in his personality and thoughts and endorsed peaceful means of the settlement of disputes.
Dr. Khan said that Pandit Nehru represented one of the best minds engaged in politics who provided a model to live in peace and harmony despite maintaining differences.
Pandit Nehru stood for the sovereignty, integrity and the interest of the West Asian people who were vulnerable to the Cold War politics, he opined.
Dr. Arshi Khan made the above observations while delivering a lecture on “Relevance of Pandit Nehru in Contemporary International Politics: An Overview of West Asia” under the Orientation Lecture Programme on Nehru Studies organized by the Centre for Nehru Studies and the Department of Political Science, in AMU on Monday.
Dr. Khan said that Nehru’s panorama of International Politics has changed beyond the limit.
He cited three cases of democracy—Iraq, Lebanon and Occupied Palestinian Territories out of 22 Arab States where American and European parochial engagements have resulted in ‘divide and rule’. He said that the moment in West Asia is worse than the situation of the Cold War era as the US, Israel and its followers are fixed on changing the status-quo for controlling the natural resources. The crisis in Egypt and Algeria need to be understood in the larger framework of the New Middle East game in which new players are required for weaker governments and political instability so that the US could maneuver parties and institutions.
He said that the main purpose of the US in the region, since the creation of the UN, is to exploit its natural resources and its leaders. It is an established record that the US never resolved any issue in the region in favour of the people. He gave the example of occupied Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon where the US engagement strengthened the status of Israel and weakened the power of the people. The savage campaign against Iran on the issue of Nuclear weapons, which does not exist even in raw form, is another political motivated misuse of diplomacy against the people of Iran.
Dr. Khan said that during the period of the Cold War, the US used its allies against their neighbour and the Soviet Union while maintaining several bases in the region. After the end of the Cold War, the US is demolishing its own allies on the pretext of democracy, human rights and globalisation.
Now the purpose is to use the whole region as ‘safe-energy field’ for the Western consumption and for strategic reasons. Therefore, the US objective today in the region is to control the area which is best possible through creating sponsored governments, or to create weak and fragile governments and to keep the region in perpetual condition of instability and disorder so that the US and Israel could play the game in the name of terrorism, bad governance and threat to international peace and security.
Prof. A. P. Vijapur chaired the session . It was attended by a large number of students, research scholars and lecturers. The programme ended after question and answer session. (pervezbari@eth.net)