“The Free World” and Human Rights. Barrister Hameed Bashani

In the previous column, it was stated that the announcement of the military alliance agreement with the United States in 1954 was considered a great success in Pakistan. The ruling elite of that time celebrated that after a long struggle they had finally achieved a major security victory over India by aligning with the US. This celebration was the result of their own accumulation of differences in security. But the ground realities were different. The real understanding of these facts is to see the aid given by the US to Pakistan and India from the announcement of Pakistan-US alliance in 1954 to 1960. These facts are reflected in a report by the US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. According to this report, in these four years, Pakistan received 750,000,000 dollars in economic and technical assistance from the United States, while India received 717,000,000 dollars in this period. While on the other hand, at the same time in this period, Pakistan received 300,000 and India received 930,000,000 aid from the Soviet bloc. That is, immediately after the invasion, America started trying to adopt a balancing policy in South Asia. Later, there was a major change in US policy towards India under President Kennedy and President Jones, and during these periods India received twice as much aid from the US as Pakistan. James W. Hechman has examined this situation in World Review under the title “Eisenpower: The Soviet Union and India”, and in this context the data on economic and military aid given by the United States to Pakistan and India. And numbers have been presented. After the defense agreement with Pakistan, relations between the US and India warmed up rapidly. This was because Eisenhower, after long practice, had become convinced of two things. One is that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru will not be a part of any kind of military alliance with America. And secondly, America’s economic and technical support is the most effective means of keeping India away from the Soviet Union. At the same time, he developed a caste friendship with Pandit Nehru, and to the surprise of many, openly defended Nehru’s neutrality movement and socialist policies many times. Defending Pandit Nehru’s neutrality movement, he argued that it was certain that India could not come into the US bloc under any circumstances. Given this fact, a neutral India would be better than a Soviet-allied India. In the light of these facts, Eisenhower tried to normalize relations with India as much as possible and successfully overcome the repercussions and damage caused by the military alliance with Pakistan. Thus, on the one hand, America tried to bring Pakistan into the fold of America by providing arms and financial support, and on the other hand, it paid special attention to US-India relations to avoid its harmful effects.

Some historians believe that President Eisenhower’s policy towards South Asia and the Middle East was a complete failure. Some called the policy bogus, and short-term. The statements that President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Dulles made in public, and what they said in private gatherings, were very different. Similarly, there was a very significant difference in their statements and actions. For example, his policy on communism was that it was a global threat, which must be prevented. Every way from war to peace efforts can be taken for this prevention. On the other hand, he tried to negotiate with the Soviet Union that if the Soviet Union did not try to create revolutions in other countries and export communism, and would limit this system only to the Soviet Union, then we would have a normal relationship with the Soviet Union. Can establish economic and trade relations. He admitted on several forums that America’s problem is Soviet expansionism, not communism. But even before, many steps had been taken against communist ideology in America under McCarthyism and Harry Truman Doctrine. A number of civil servants, university and college professors, Hollywood actors and producers, intellectuals and writers were falsely accused of being communist sympathizers or Soviet agents, and many of them were sentenced to long prison terms. Had to bear the hardships of imprisonment. Despite this state repression, and the climate of fear and terror, many groups in the United States and its Western allies continued to espouse the ideals of socialism. As a link in this chain, a very strict attitude was taken against communist ideas in Pakistan as well. The Communist Party of Pakistan was declared null and void. Along with this, some trade unions and student organizations, including the Anjuman Progressive Writers, were also banned. Many left-wing intellectuals and political activists were imprisoned. And many were tortured in prisons. All these operations were part of the US-led global campaign to stop the communist ideology and stop the global advance of the Soviet Union. During this campaign, there were widespread restrictions on human rights and civil liberties, but at the same time the US continued to insist that it was all being done for the survival and protection of the “free world”. And this whole fight in the guise of cold war is actually a fight for democracy and civil liberties. But with the passage of time, these contradictions came to the fore, due to which a large-scale public reaction against these American policies began to be faced in various countries. Through this struggle, the United States and the Western bloc did not have any significant success in their campaign to stop the socialist revolution, on the contrary, several new socialist movements began to be organized in various countries in Latin America and Africa. After the Nationalist Socialist Revolution in China, several countries, including Cuba, had already joined the ranks. In order to prevent the socialist revolution from spreading further, the United States made certain countries its focus of special attention. Due to its location i.e. geographical proximity to China and Soviet Union, Pakistan also joined the list of countries, which became the focus of special attention. In these countries, on the one hand, regional and global fronts were formed against the Soviet Union through military alliances, and on the other hand, deep planning was done to crush socialist movements within these countries, for which a budget of millions of dollars was allocated. . The United States initially allocated forty-eight billion dollars to stop communism, which was spent by anti-Soviet pro-American governments to stop the advance of the Soviet Union and the spread of socialism. What direction the events took going forward, will be presented in the next article.