The Many Meanings of Vietnam
Whoopie! We're all gonna die!
I-feel-like-I'm-fixin'-to-die-Rag , Country Joe and The Fish
It was a warm April 30 in 1975. We were busy finishing our term papers and preparing for the semester examinations. A ringing slogan swept through Periyar Hostel on Jawaharlal Nehru University campus. 'Saigon has fallen!' For several days before that, we were closely monitoring events in Vietnam.
It was clear that the war was in its final stages and sooner rather than later, Ho Chi Minh's Viet Cong would overtake Saigon. The classic visual of stranded Americans and their local dependents clambering on to the last helicopter to leave the United States embassy campus in Saigon captured the moment. Coca-Cola and a march to the North Vietnam embassy
Within minutes, hundreds of students and faculty gathered on campus and braving April's mid-day heat, marched all the way to Prithviraj Road where the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, popularly referred to as North Vietnam, had its embassy.
As we marched on we chanted the globally famous cheer that had been heard for years on campuses around the world – 'Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh/ We Shall Fight, We Shall Win' and one that had become famous in Bengal – 'Amar Naam, Tomar Naam/ Viet Nam, Viet Nam'.
On entering the embassy compound we were welcomed by diplomats in suit and tie holding bottles of chilled Coca-Cola. Two years later, in 1977, George Fernandes, the socialist industries minister in the Morarji Desai government, was to ban that American soft drink in India. But Vietnam's victorious communists couldn't care less. They had defeated the world's most powerful army. So what's the problem cooling off with a Coke!
My generation's familiarity with war was defined by India's victory in Bangladesh. We were still too young in 1962 and 1965. Our patriotism was shaped by the glorious victory of 1971. In my home city of Hyderabad, the Indian Army displayed American made Patton tanks seized from the Pakistan army in 1965.
An assortment of guns and equipment were put on display at festive fairs where everyone celebrated the heroism of the armed forces. It was, therefore, a culture shock in those days to read all about the resistance to draft and the anti-war campaigns on American campuses.
The US tested all its latest weaponry in Vietnam, killing ill-equipped peasants with napalm and more, but few around the world accepted the logic of American engagement. As in Afghanistan more recently, so too in Vietnam the US had to make a hasty and ignominious exit. What the Vietnam war left behind was a rich repertoire of music, literature and cinema, depicting the futility and brutality of war.
'Make Love, Not War' was a slogan seen on campuses across the world as young people became familiar with the anti-war songs of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Pete Seeger. Dylan's 'Masters of War' was brutal: 'Come you masters of war/ You that build the big guns/ You that build the death planes/ You that build all the bombs/ You that hide behind walls/ You that hind behind desks/ I just want you to know/ I can see through your masks' .
Seeger's 'Bring The Home' became an instant hit. From Graham Greene's The Quiet American to Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, literature and cinema too contributed to this counter culture of peace.
After pushing the Americans out in 1975, Vietnam gave a drubbing to China's Peoples' Liberation Army (PLA) in 1979, making it the only country in the world to have pushed both superpowers back. What is equally amazing about Vietnam is the manner in which it has risen, phoenix-like, from the devastation of war to become an economic success story within less than half a century. With a national income (GDP) per capita of around $4800 in 2024, Vietnam has overtaken India (per capita GDP of about $2800) as an industrial economy. Vietnam's economic success story
Vietnam's economic success story has been widely written about. The ease with which Vietnam has integrated with the world outside, as a member of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) and as an economic partner of both the US and China draws attention to the essential pragmatism of an industrious and brave people.
What is also impressive about the Vietnamese is the ease with which they now relate to this past. Ho Chi Minh City, as Saigon is now called, is a city at ease with itself. A war museum, with all the distressing memories it brings, sits comfortably next to delightful restaurants, cafes, bistros, patisseries and boulangeries. French delegates at a conference I attended last year were full of praise for the quality of Vietnamese cuisine – both the local cuisine as well as French cuisine. Both Hanoi and Saigon are a tourist's delight.
Vietnam's ability to combine the hard power of military and economic success with the soft power of remaining a bridge between Asia and the West is a unique achievement. Fifty years on, Vietnam is today powering ahead because it has not allowed the burden and the animosities of the past to define its present and constrain its future.
Even as we contemplate the cost of conflict at home in India, it is important to realise that there are no short cuts to development and security. The most important lesson that Vietnam has learnt from its own history of conflict is to focus one's energies at home, always prepared for the worst but investing in building the future through pragmatic relationships with friend and foe.
Sanjaya Baru is an author, former newspaper editor and former adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
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