India's aircraft carrier

When two giants like Russia and India pledge they will not join any military or political blocs and avoid agreements that would infringe on each other's national security interests, Asians like me spontaneously applaud. How much more protected are we now and how peaceful the Asian region will be. Such declarations cannot but invoke thoughts of the spirit of the Bandung Asia-Africa conference in 1955. The only difference seems to me to be that peaceful coexistence is brought about by military strength.

After the meeting at Hyderabad House, New Delhi, between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bahari Vajpayee, Putin promised that economic relations would be stepped up and a strategic partnership would be enhanced, while the fight against terrorism intensified. The strategic partnership is not directed against any other state and does not mean to create a military or political alliance.

The Bandung spirit came to the fore again when the two leaders promised close cooperation inside and outside the United Nations for the reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation. Russia clearly does not want India, which is traditionally non-aligned like Indonesia, to be too close to the United States after Bill Clinton visited the Taj Mahal, so to speak.

What impresses me most, however, is that under the cooperation India will not get a submarine, which it may already have, built by Tata Industries, but a real aircraft carrier, whether new or used it does not matter. That cannot but imply that in addition to a nuclear power (of course, for peaceful purposes) it is also a global power with global responsibilities.

I do not know if Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were still alive they would be happy and proud that India had an aircraft carrier, presumably driven by nuclear power.

Indonesian presidents from the late Sukarno, to the sick Soeharto and the genius Habibie, plus the present cleric politician Abdurrahman Wahid, would spare no money or effort to have such an aircraft carrier. I hope I am wrong if I predict that President Abdurrahman would be the first president who would conquer the waves of the world in an aircraft carrier. He would have less chance to get masuk angin, whatever that means in medical terms.

GANDHI SUKARDI

Jakarta