The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World by Vijay Prashad

Author:Vijay Prashad
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Social Science, Discrimination, Asia, General, Globalization, Asian, Political Science, World, South, History
ISBN: 9781620977651
Publisher: The New Press
Published: 2022-08-30T15:14:30+00:00

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THE DARKER NATIONS

New Delhi, 1 983: Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi receives Cuban president Fidel Castro at New Delhi Airport for the Non-Aligned Movement conference.

© BETTMANN / CORBIS

once been garihi hatao (remove poverty), most people had come to understand it as garih dilli se hatao (remove the poor from Delhi). The conference venues regularly hosted all manner of international commercial and political gatherings. In 1 983, these buildings welcomed the seventh NAM Summit Conference.

NAM came to New Delhi at a crucial time for Indira Gandhi. The daughter of Nehru, Gandhi spent her entire life in Indian politics. When Nehru died in 1 964, Indira Gandhi took on a major role in the Congress Party. In 1 966, she won elections and was prime minister until 1 977. She returned to power in 1 980 with a weakened mandate because of the excesses of the martial law (Emergency) regime she ran from 1 975 to 1 977. When NAM came to Delhi, the city was under siege. A fractious election in 1 983 resulted in the defeat of Gandhi's party in the southern states of India. A film star, N.T. Ramarao, broke the Congress Party's hold in Andhra Pradesh, while an important foe during the Emergency (the Janata Party) won in neighboring Karnataka. In Assam, the opposition (except the Communists) called for a boycott of the elections. The Congress Party won a pyrrhic victory (only 2 percent of the population voted), as violence between Assamese, Bengalis, and Bobos rent the state. In Nellie, Assam, five thousand refugees were killed (Tariq Ali called this the "My Lai massacre multiplied by ten").l Gandhi traveled

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to Assam, offered a conciliatory statement ("I cannot find words to describe the horrors"), stood by the newly elected Congress Party state government, and returned to Delhi to host NAM.

New Delhi allows us to write the obituary of the Third World.

When the NAM delegates arrived in Delhi, they saw pictures of the Nellie massacre in every major newspaper and magazine. It haunted the proceedings, and reminded most of the leadership of their own Nellies.

The NAM that gathered in Delhi was in transition. A major line struggle broke out in the 1 970s and remained unresolved through the Delhi meeting. Neither of the two sides left NAM. Instead, both remained, although one of them gained the upper hand in Delhi and has since come to define NAM. The victory of that camp, those that welcomed IMF -driven globalization, is as responsible for the assassination of the Third World as the social forces (imperialism and finance capital) that were its major adversaries from the 1 950s onward. Most of the 1 0 1

members of NAM i n 1 983 did not hold fast t o one o r the other of the two lines at the conference. Nevertheless, the line struggle infected the proceedings and ended up determining the outcome of the final resolution.

The first line held the view that the principal problem for the planet was uneven capitalism. Endemic poverty

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