Russ­ian mil­i­tary ag­gres­sion on Ukraine, a newly emerged in­de­pen­dent state, a peo­ple and na­tion: has wide ram­i­fi­ca­tions for other na­tions and peo­ples sub­ject to the pres­sures and de­mands of over­bear­ing, rogue, su­prema­cist states. Not least for the East Pan­jaab and In­dia su­per-state re­la­tion­ship. British ac­tivist and WSN colum­nist Jagdeesh Singh links the cur­rent war to the re­la­tion­ship, his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ence and com­plex­i­ties be­tween huge su­per states and na­tion­al­i­ties seek­ing recog­ni­tion in the con­text of Pan­jaab, In­dia and Pak­istan.

After decades of sub­ju­ga­tion and op­pres­sion by the over­bear­ing, over-sized, bois­ter­ous Russ­ian su­per­state formed in the early part of the 20th cen­tury; Ukraine fi­nally broke free, be­com­ing for­mally in­de­pen­dent on 1st De­cem­ber 1991.

Many other sub­ju­gated ter­ri­to­ries, also, be­came free in a chain of newly in­de­pen­dent states emerg­ing, as part of a chain domino ef­fect – the break-away states. 

This process of dis­in­te­gra­tion of the once all-pow­er­ful, in­domitable, un­re­lent­ing, dog­matic Union of So­viet So­cial­ist Re­publics (USSR), led and cen­tred on Rus­sia (the most dom­i­nant part), took place over a pe­riod and process be­tween 1989-1991. 

It was largely pre­cip­i­tated or trig­gered, by the sub­stan­tial re­forms on power con­cen­tra­tion and the au­thor­i­tar­ian power grip, which Mikhail Gor­bachev as a new kind of vi­sion­ary per­son­al­ity brought to the af­fairs of the Russ­ian mono­lithic state. 

His re­cep­tive­ness to change, de­cen­tral­i­sa­tion and shar­ing of power; seemed to have cre­ated an or­ganic river ef­fect. Once sup­pressed and re­pressed states now felt the abil­ity and con­fi­dence to speak up and vo­calise their long-sup­pressed de­sire for self-de­ter­mi­na­tion. 

Ukraine, which had long had an ac­tive pro-in­de­pen­dence move­ment, over pre­vi­ous decades; now felt able and ready to make a stand for its in­de­pen­dence. This was not only recog­nised by much of the world’s states but not re­sisted or de­nied by the USSR any­more. The USSR had now changed for­ever in­ter­nally. away from the au­thor­i­tar­ian, hos­tile, re­pres­sive force that it long was for decades. Fun­da­men­tal change comes, of­ten very slowly, but then like a gush­ing river! 

Un­der Mikhail Gor­bachev, the world saw a wholly dif­fer­ent kind of So­viet leader. Will­ing to change. Open to democ­racy. Open to in­de­pen­dent states. Ready to en­gage with the West. 

This gen­er­ated a mighty  ‘in­de­pen­dent, de­mo­c­ra­tic mo­men­tum’, which caused the long sub­ju­gated So­viet re­gional, in­ter­nal states to now break open with in­di­vid­ual de­c­la­ra­tions of in­de­pen­dence.  Ar­me­nia, Moldova, Lithua­nia, Es­to­nia, Latvia, Uzbek­istan, Turk­menistan, Kyr­gyzs­tan, Geor­gia, Ukraine, Aber­jain, Kaza­khis­tan, Tajik­istan: were all amongst the many new states emerg­ing on the in­ter­na­tional, global map; from the old un­chang­ing USSR. 

This flux of new states, emerg­ing from the old over­ar­ch­ing sin­gle state struc­ture; was and re­mains a pow­er­ful les­son for world af­fairs and for sim­i­lar over-sized, power-ob­sessed, top-heavy states like In­dia, Pak­istan, Iran, Saudi-Ara­bia and Brazil. 

So what has all this got to with Pan­jaab, Kash­mir, Baluchis­tan, Ma­nipur, Tamil­nadu and so forth? 

His­tory and cur­rent af­fairs have co­gently demon­strated that states and em­pires are never eter­nal! They all rise, fall, ex­pand, shrink, frag­ment or dis­ap­pear into new states.

When Rus­sia marched into Ukraine some 7-days ago; both In­dia and Pak­istan re­mained pas­sive and non-crit­i­cal of Rus­si­a’s ac­tions. In­stead, ap­peas­ing and sid­ing in­di­rectly with the Russ­ian ag­gres­sion. 

The once in­domitable, global British em­pire, which cov­ered a third of the global map: is to­day com­pletely gone, ex­cept for a few dec­i­mated is­land ter­ri­to­ries. Ob­ses­sion with power is nei­ther healthy nor hu­man­i­tar­ian. Nor pro­gres­sive nor de­mo­c­ra­tic. 

The awry, un­equal, un­de­mo­c­ra­tic and op­pres­sive re­la­tion­ship be­tween tiny East Pan­jaab and mighty In­dia, and sim­i­larly East Pan­jaab and mon­strous Pak­istan: epit­o­mises the same per­verse power re­la­tion­ship that we have seen with Rus­sia and its for­mer lost grip on the re­gional na­tions and peo­ples. 

With the cur­rent in­va­sion of Ukraine, though much re­duced ter­ri­to­ri­ally com­pared to be­fore, the Russ­ian elit­ist state is now try­ing to re­store and re­claim some of its past mon­strous power. Vladimir Putin, the dic­ta­tor of Russ­ian power, is try­ing to be the cham­pion of a resur­gent, mil­i­tar­ily pow­er­ful for­mer Rus­sia. 

The very same power and ter­ri­to­r­ial re­la­tion­ship can be seen in the ebb and flow of In­dia and its re­gional in­ter­nal peo­ples and na­tions, and that of Pak­istan. This is the story of su­per­states, and their in­sa­tiable de­sire to be su­pe­rior, dom­i­nant, over­bear­ing and in con­trol at all times. These states are in­tol­er­ant and ob­ses­sive.  

For now, un­like Ukraine, Pan­jaab re­mains in the grip of both In­dia and Pak­istan. The slow ex­cru­ci­at­ing, painful, tor­tur­ous jour­ney to in­de­pen­dence, con­tin­ues at a grow­ing pace.

Both in their si­mul­ta­ne­ous cre­ation, side by side, in 1947 and in their func­tion­al­ity ever since; In­dia and Pak­istan have proven to be a di­rect con­tin­u­a­tion of the stolen, sub­ju­gated mass power ac­cu­mu­lated and cen­tralised into the British In­dian em­pir­i­cal mega-state (the same ter­ri­tory as around 28-in­de­pen­dent states of west­ern Eu­rope). In­dia and Pak­istan were de­lib­er­ately cre­ated in col­lu­sion with the In­dian and Pak­istan po­lit­i­cal elites, col­lab­o­rat­ing neatly with the out­go­ing British im­pe­ri­al­ists, in the ex­pec­ta­tion of be­ing handed over mass power to con­tinue in their place. For Britain, a quick exit, by hand­ing over power to two ter­ri­to­r­ial blocks, how­ever un­de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cally, with the new brown mas­ters tak­ing over in their place was the best prac­ti­cal so­lu­tion in the cir­cum­stances. Cre­at­ing ar­ti­fi­cial bound­aries, par­ti­tions, carve ups was all an ef­fi­cient way of trans­fer­ring power to the elite groups. 

The for­ma­tion and ac­cu­mu­la­tion of the British In­dian colo­nial em­pire were never about democ­racy, fair play, rules and prin­ci­ples and about pro­tect­ing life. It was the ex­act op­po­site. And, cer­tainly, in its crude exit strat­egy; the British elite were not go­ing to sud­denly be­come prin­ci­pled and eth­i­cal. 

For­mer coun­tries like Pan­jaab were now go­ing to be de­stroyed and dev­as­tated even fur­ther. The biggest geno­ci­dal par­ti­tion in hu­man his­tory, of 1-2 mil­lion Pan­jaabi civil­ians. An even big­ger mam­moth dis­place­ment of 10-mil­lion; again un­prece­dented. 

Di­vided, bro­ken, bleed­ing Pan­jaab would now be a fur­ther vic­tim of new im­pe­ri­al­is­tic struc­tures; put into place by the out­go­ing British who had bled and thor­oughly ex­ploited Pan­jaab since con­quer­ing it in 1845. In­dia and Pak­istan as two rather il­le­git­i­mate chil­dren of the em­pire, would now take over and do con­tin­u­ing dam­age and op­pres­sion to Pan­jaab, and many more re­gions and peo­ples across South Asia. 

This is how the story of Ukraine and Pan­jaab, and In­dia, Pak­istan and Rus­sia is so sim­i­lar and com­mon. Power, con­trol, sub­servience, In­di­an­i­sa­tion, op­pres­sion, ex­ploita­tion and geno­cide. The ris­ing feel­ings of re­sis­tance and op­po­si­tion to this rogue In­dian and Pak­istan con­tinue to be seen in the ris­ing wave of en­dur­ing protests, dis­sent and open re­volt in both ter­ri­to­ries. The sup­pressed coun­try of Pan­jaab is not least of a snap­shot and bea­con of that re­sis­tance and hope for in­de­pen­dence and self-de­ter­mi­na­tion. 

Both in their si­mul­ta­ne­ous cre­ation, side by side, in 1947 and in their func­tion­al­ity ever since; In­dia and Pak­istan have proven to be a di­rect con­tin­u­a­tion of the stolen, sub­ju­gated mass power ac­cu­mu­lated and cen­tralised into the British In­dian em­pir­i­cal mega-state (the same ter­ri­tory as around 28-in­de­pen­dent states of west­ern Eu­rope).

For now, un­like Ukraine, Pan­jaab re­mains in the grip of both In­dia and Pak­istan. The slow ex­cru­ci­at­ing, painful, tor­tur­ous jour­ney to in­de­pen­dence, con­tin­ues at a grow­ing pace. Sig­nif­i­cantly and per­ti­nently, when Rus­sia marched into Ukraine some 7-days ago; both In­dia and Pak­istan re­mained pas­sive and non-crit­i­cal of Rus­si­a’s ac­tions. In­stead, ap­peas­ing and sid­ing in­di­rectly with the Russ­ian ag­gres­sion. 

As Pan­jaabis, let us look around the world map, to the events and de­vel­op­ments of other peo­ples and na­tions. Let us watch and learn from the Ukraine ex­pe­ri­ence. Let us un­der­stand our place in the geopo­lit­i­cal ma­trix, and seek to forge our place of em­pow­er­ment and state­hood. Let us pre­pare for our op­ti­mistic fu­ture!