The Indian bourgeoisie is visibly upset by the statements made by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who recently visited India. One of his statements, which he has even written down in an article in the Guardian on 15th January, is that the concept of “war on terror” was “misleading and mistaken”. 

“War on terror” has been the defining slogan of Anglo-American imperialists for the last eight years. It has been used to justify the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, the relentless warmongering against Iran, the bombing raids on Pakistan, and countless other crimes. It has been used to label whole countries as “evil”, to back the wholesale vilification of Muslim peoples around the world, and to justify the most ruthless terror against those considered to pose a threat to US hegemony. 

Miliband did not express any remorse for these crimes, or for the suffering inflicted on people in the name of “war on terror”. Rather, he claimed that the problem was that the slogan was counter-productive, because it actually served to unite more people against it, and hence probably “did more harm than good”.

Miliband’s remarks are not just some stray ideas of his own but reflect the fact that the Anglo-American policy and the Bush doctrine have led to disastrous consequences and become discredited. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have left both countries in a bloody mess, with casualties mounting on all sides every day, and no signs of the “victory” that Bush had promised. The belligerent, unilateral and arrogant conduct of the US imperialists have brought them into ever greater disrepute. It is true, as Miliband said, that the “war on terror” has united large numbers of people around the globe against the US and British governments.

Many commentators have noted that Miliband has taken his cue from the words of the new American President Obama, who has been trying to distance himself from some of the more obvious failures of his predecessor Bush. His mandate is to find the way to pursue the same imperialist offensive, aimed at global hegemony, with adjusted slogans and greater multilateral support.

The Indian bourgeoisie thinks the time has come to launch the “war on terror” on its own terms and gain worldwide support, arguing that the Mumbai terror attacks is India’s 9/11. It wants to implement an Indian version of the Bush doctrine, declaring that Pakistan deserves to be punished. However, Indian diplomacy is not succeeding in this effort, because the time for the Bush doctrine is over. Even the US and British imperialists are seeking a change of form, a change of slogan. This is the significance of the comments of Miliband.

The Indian ruling circles are extremely upset and agitated about Miliband’s comments on the ‘war on terror’ as well as his statement that resolution of the Kashmir problem is required in order to end terrorism in South Asia. The External Affairs Ministry even took the unusual step of issuing a statement saying it ‘disagreed’ with the visiting foreign dignitary.

During the Bush years, the Indian ruling class prided itself on having evolved a special “strategic partnership” with the US. It assumed that this “strategic partnership” lifted it into a new stratum in the geopolitical arena, above “lesser” countries such as Pakistan. It crowed that the US has finally “delinked” its relationship with India from the question of Pakistan and the Kashmir issue.  These pretensions now appear to be increasingly tenuous. 

The Indian working class and people need to be extremely vigilant and wary of the 'war on terror' of both old and new varieties, including the imperialist intrigues of our ‘own’ bourgeoisie.  Both terrorism and state terror in the name of waging war on terror are part of the methods used by the imperialist powers at this time. They are used to justify outright wars of aggression and occupation, as well as to justify so-called surgical strikes. We must have no illusion that imperialism is changing its aggressive and cunning nature, just because some slogans and tactics are adjusted. We can have no confusion, either, that the Indian bourgeoisie is part of the problem and not part of the solution.