By Sampathkumar Iyangar
Kosovo’s parliament has voted 109-0 to sever ties with Serbia, the successor regime of Yugoslavia. The entity with a population of just 1.6 million, predominantly comprising ethnic Albanians and about 130,00 Serbs, has formally become the seventh fragment of Yugoslavia. But, Serbia is seething with anger at the formal declaration of independence by Kosovo, coming on top of the secession of Montenegro – a population of less than a million – in 2006. The US and major EU powers have recognised Kosovo. New Delhi may or may not recognise the new country. It matters little because trade and diplomatic ties with the region is now are minimal. It may probably like to play second fiddle to Russia, the only major nation supporting Serbia. Just as Russia is the successor regime of the now-defunct USSR, Serbia once lorded over parts of Eastern Europe. After all, it is facing a situation similar to Kosovo in Chechnya. A handful of nations, most of them with little clout in the global scenario, like Sri Lanka, Vietnam etc, have sided with Moscow and Belgrade.
Although theoretically a part of Serbia, Kosovo has been run by an EU diplomat since 1999. Nine years of western management had failed to lift the region out of abject poverty, imposed on it by Serbia. Wealth per person is 5 percent of the EU average, with unemployment hovering at 50 percent and corruption and organized crime getting rampant. Prime Minister Hashim Thaci has asked for security guarantees and economic aid to make his country fit to join EU. Enlargement Commissioner of EU, Olli Rehn has said, “The status quo is unsustainable Now we have to move on, and the European Union is bound to take the lead in this process.”
Serbia has a history of committing aggressions, like Nazis Germany, Mussolini era Italy and imperial Japan that kept China and others enslaved. Among Serbs are thousands of hawkish ‘patriots’, oblivious to the fact that prehistoric “Greater Serbia” nationalism is passé, as history has moved on. When Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia broke up with it, Belgrade responded with its tanks, killing more than 250,000 people. Serbs are doggedly unapologetic at so much of bloodletting in the 1990s.
The ultra-nationalist-backed government of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica is stoking the flames of irrational passion for a province that Serbs consider as the sacred heartland of Greater Serbia. He told an unruly mob, “Kosovo belongs to Serbia; Kosovo belongs to the Serb nation . . . No one will ever win a mandate from the Serbian people to accept such an ignoble trade-off. Never, and no one!” He added, “There is no force, no threat, no punishment severe and horrible enough to make any Serb, anywhere, ever say otherwise but Kosovo is Serbia!” However, realising that repetition of the earlier belligerence will only invite NATO attacks and disaster, Kostunica pleaded helplessness to mount military action. Serbian chief of staff, General Zdravko Ponos, too confirmed that Kosovo will not be defended by the army.
Tragically, the hotheaded jingoists of Serbia include religious bigots, who sabotage any integration of the country with the changing world. Expressing disdain at the army chief’s statement, Bishop Artemije, head of the Serb Orthodox Church in the province, told the daily Glas Javnosti, “Kosovo was and always will be Serbian.” He advised the PM, “Serbia should buy state of the art weapons from Russia and other countries and call on Russia to send the volunteers and establish a military presence in Serbia.”
Does the chest-thumping by Christian fundamentalists remind one of the roar of Hindu fundamentalists of India? Of course, yes. The firebrand ranks of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) apparently believe, based on hoary past, Kashmir to be the sacred heartland of ‘Akhand Bharat’ (Greater Hindu nation). Without realising that history has moved on, saffron jingoists root for ‘alliance’ with Israel to decimate part of the country’s population to retain the territory. There is not much difference between the ideas of Serbian psychotics and religious fanatics of India.
Any unbiased observer would find a lot of striking similarities in India, Sri Lanka and Serbia. And there are striking similarities between Kashmir, Jaffna and Kosovo. These may not be immediately visible to domineering groups as well as most of their victims. But, Kosovo proves that unjust subjugation cannot be sustainable forever and justified on historical basis. In 1941, after Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (Serbia + its colonies) snapped ties with Nazi Germany and Axis powers, with whom he had earlier aligned, Hitler crushed the Prince’s defiant General Dusan Simovic. The General, who had aligned with Allied forces, surrendered, leading to the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Nazis established Serbia as a German occupied puppet state. Several Nazi concentration camps, managed by the Germans and run by local collaborators, came up in “Nedic’s Serbia”. The holocaust claimed more than 7 lakh people in gas chambers, most of the victims being Serbs not belonging to the ‘supreme’ Aryan race.
It is worth recalling that local feudal elements of India, indoctrinated by some leaders of MK Gandhi’s Congress Party, did consider aligning with Axis powers during WW-II. Ascendance of a clique of ‘high caste’ political and feudal leaders, and setting up of concentration camps for ‘ethnic cleansing’ were a clear possibility in India too. It was by coincidence and fate – not by design – that Indian troops fought as part of Allied Forces. It is of note that a Congress president Subhash Bose established equations with the Fuehrer and emperor Hiro Hito. Like Serbia, which unleashed inhuman attacks to suppress assertion by ‘inferior’ people until its troops were driven out from Kosovo by NATO, Sri Lanka too is carrying out air raids and inhuman attacks on Jaffna. These territories are inhabited by ethnic Tamil population; but New Delhi tacitly supports Colombo in its campaign. In India, the powers that be are bent upon suppressing ethnically distinct groups – from Assam to Telengana and Kashmir to Gujarat – from asserting their own identity. A very serious humanitarian crisis is feared due to constant tensions along the line of control dividing the Pakistan-administered and Indian-held portions of Kashmir.
One reason why Kosovars have been lucky to get their due, even though their population is much smaller than Kashmirs, is because they are in Europe. Secondly, unlike Kosovars, Kashmiri Pundits do not seem to realize that their future would be secure only as Kashmiris in Kashmir, rather than as refugees under the mercy of a powerful neighbour. But, it will only be a matter of time before Kosovos are repeated in South Asia. To ward off the imminent uprising, ruling cliques in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka must learn their lessons from Serbia. And without delay.
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Sampathkumar Iyangar can be reached at [email protected]