If you rent a house in a rough neighborhood, you can move as soon as your lease is over ; sooner if you have enough money to go to the better part of town. If you own your home, you can only sell it- even at a loss . In the long run that would be a better deal than raising your kids in such a neighborhood where drug menace is looming large and a constant atmosphere of fear and mindless violence prevails. What can you do if your country is in a seedy part of the world? You can not all possibly get up and leave.So is the case with India. If this country was in any other corner of the world than it is in now; That corner would simply be "the World". For a change let us look at what India can do to realize her potential other than point fingers and lament her geographical ill luck.Firstly Pakistan on her 9 o'clock is simply obsessed with the fear of India . Their fear is not entirely irrational however they are overcompensating for it by ridiculously audacious proactive policy of killing the enemy by a 1000 cuts. In the process they have practically sold their country to the devil- devil of Fundamentalism; dictatorship; permanent insolvency and dependency. It does not matter to them . They are happy that they have successfully kept India at bay and inflicted humiliating blows on it from time to time. That is their national objective and they are clearly achieving it. India on the other hand is in deep denial. So far she has concentrated on telling Pakistan about shared values , shared history, shared ancestry and hoped for the best. The reason it has not worked is because it is not true. Pakistan is not the same as India. They completely reject even a vestige of sameness. They have forgotten about it and in the last 60 odd years have made conscious and concentrated efforts to distance themselves from it. It is their choice and India has to understand that appealing to shared values and candle light vigil at the borders is not going to yield any results. If one needs to learn from recent history than one would realize that periods of relative calm have followed their military rout.
1947 they lost the battle to take over Kashmir and for the next 19 years there was relative peace, Only in 1965 another war broke out , partly because Pakistan got emboldened by Indian losses in the '62 war with China. More about which later. Pakistan considers that war drawn if not actually won by them, so this time peace lasted only 6 years. Then came 1971 war ; their crushing defeat and break up. That war was followed by another 19 year hiatus, broken by Pakistan's Kargil misadventure. Can you see a pattern here? By that time Pakistan had perfected the art of 1000 cuts and India completely lost her way with them. Pakistan ran a largely successful Islamic terrorist campaign in Kashmir with India only threatening to do something about it without any action on the ground. Then India allowed them to get away with Kandahar and Kargil ;so Mumbai happened and smaller mumbai's happen every once in a while. Can there be any peace, no matter which dispensation comes to power in Pakistan? Only two things will work with Pakistan. Firstly make sure that they do not have any valid reason to fear an attack from India. Secondly make them pay an exceedingly steep price for any misadventure. No half way house will work. Do not tell them we are the same people because we are not same any more and they won't buy it. Make sure that they understand that we do not want to absorb them in " Akhand India". We do not want them - period! Also carry a big stick and use it liberally. Candle vigil at Vagah has not worked and sadly there is no hope for that kind of language to be understood by Pakistan.
Further west Afghanistan needs deeper engagement , remember Kandahar and ensure that a repeat is not feasible. If a forward looking policy is not adopted India will have to rue it at leisure . Learn some lessons from the Tibet debacle.
On India's 12 o'clock is another headache which is kind of a unique problem. Kashmir is a potent poison with both a domestic and a foreign component. Without forgetting the international dimension it would be better if India looked at the domestic component. Again the trouble is one of the Indian state in deep denial. Let us face the facts ;Kashmir problem is simply a problem of the Muslim population of the valley. Pre dominantly Hindu Jammu and Buddhist laddakh pose no concern at all. Comparatively recent converts to Islam largely by force , kashmiri muslims are hell bent on proving themselves more loyal than the king. It will not do to deny the religious nature of this conflict. A fact that all parties roundly deny. kashmiri's call it their freedom struggle and the State likes to call it Civil disturbance. Dishonest - both of them. This is an Islamic separatist movement and as such must be dealt with accordingly. No use blaming Pakistan, al quaida, Hizbul etc. etc. It is the kashmiri muslim bureaucracy represented by municipal clerk to tehsildar; It is the beat constable to heart specialists at the hospital and professors at UGC funded university that sustain and nurture this conflict at the same time that they are getting paid a salary from the public exchequer. Would it surprise you to know that the separatist leader Gilani draws a pension for being an ex member of the same Indian establishment he fulminates against his every waking minute. would it surprise you to know that as a self declared Pakistani ,he gets top class medical treatment for every real and imagined health issue at All India Institute of medical sciences - free unlike other Indian citizens who have to wait forever . No prizes for guessing who is providing him a security cover at public expense. If you guessed India, you'd be right. If this is not a farce than what is ? India has only herself to blame for a muddled, weak kneed Kashmir policy. Forget Pakistan , deal with their agents first. At least stop paying them if at all you are serious!
India's 2 o'clock has a large opportunity wrapped in a bigger problem - China. it would be an understatement to say that India has not been able to understand China completely. China represents simply the biggest most cohesive nation on earth. This is not to say there is no diversity there. But Han Chinese are a monolith , a huge sledge hammer that can work with you or at you. So far this hammer has worked at India. Historically India has deluded herself that since Indian Cultural influences on china are deep seated what with Buddhism etc. etc. ; China would somehow see the Indian Point of view. Much was made of Huen Tsang's visit in some ancient times. Dr. Kotnis was made into a romantic hero representing India's contribution to modern china. Are we stupid or what? No one remembers them in China. They do not base their statecraft on some romantic notion. Moreover how could we forget that China is not a buddhist nation any more. In fact they do not have a God unless you consider the dollar. In addition all those interactions happened thousands of years ago. China adopted Indian concepts and made them their own in their own way . India was just a faint memory for them. Shared religious beliefs anyway are no guarantee of peace. Remember America's war of Independence was fought against British. Their exact photocopies in every respect but in the matters of state and commerce.
India made a blunder by not paying attention to the Tibetan Independence when it was feasible. That would have ensured a buffer state with less chance of a friction between the two. So that opportunity was squandered by a romantic . The other lapse lied in not shoring up Indian defenses even when Tibet was gobbled up by china. That should have told us that "panchsheel " will not work with modern china and " Hindi chini bhai bhai' is just a soundbite. We were caught napping by China again and received a thorough drubbing in '62. Since then China has treated India derisively as a weakling . That was a much weaker china than it is now. That was a China in direct confrontation with USA, unlike now when it is their greatest trading partner. No surprise that it likes to put India in her place periodically , just because it can. Incidentally India is not the pushover she was in 62.
China is an opportunity but that needs to be nurtured carefully. Many centuries ago we may have taught them but now we must learn real politic from them. India has to bide her time and in the meanwhile expand economic ties with China as much as she can. so far India has made a hash of it . All trade is nearly one way as of now. Make it two way and make it big enough for China to never ever entertain the idea of crossing India wrongly. Imagine these two countries have nearly half the worlds people. A vibrant economic relationship is most beneficial and the only way forward. It is not going be easy because there is a sense of competition among the two, but it can be done and only by India becoming economically strong will China once again give her due respect , not otherwise. China will continue to keep putting pressure on India and keep it unbalanced but I do not imagine that it wants to openly confront India on the battlefield. In the meantime India must hold the line on the border, in trade talks, in The UN, everywhere. No confrontation should not mean cave -in. That includes limiting and counteracting their influence in Nepal and Bhutan.
That brings us to India's 3 o'clock which is Nepal. No two countries are so closely related throughout history, culture , economics and at the level of people than these two . Yet we find that all is not going well. Without pointing fingers at anti - Indian Maoist, corrupt monarchy etc. etc. we should look at what we have to do now. Because if this relation deteriorates any further , Indian security will face her greatest danger. The consequences for Nepal will be worse. Does anyone even know how many Nepali citizens actually work in India? What happens if they are asked to go home ?
At 4 o'clock is Bangladesh. If that is a problem, it is one we have created ourselves- literally. In retrospect it might have been better not to intervene in their civil war with west Pakistan. Bangladesh would have been the albatross around Pakistan's neck. Then again India did not complete what it started. Sheikh Mujeeb was allowed to be killed by forces which are Pakistan friendly. Today Bangladesh has a very strong and wide spread anti- India culture; stronger than when it was East Pakistan. Their bug bear was West Pakistan then, it is India now! It is that simple. Illegal immigration by millions, all kinds of smuggling rackets and known terrorist bases are some of the known trouble spots between The two nations. For political reasons the time bomb of illegal immigration is ignored by Indian politicians,; worst being communists in west Bengal. That is the most important area where India will have to crack a whip asap.
Further down that road is Burma which seems to have fallen off Indian Radar entirely. China has filled the void creating yet another potential choke point for India.
At 6 o'clock lies another blunder - Sri lanka. Not all is lost yet at least I hope so ,but our blow hot blow cold response to LTTE has not helped any. We are a friend to nobody even when our stakes in that conflict are huge. Stupidly we have give lot of room to both China and Pakistan to play in our back yard because we could not make up our mind whether LTTE is to be supported or crushed. More influence they have in Sri lanka more trouble it will be for us. India now has to take an active part in the Tamil resettlement. It is too important to be left to Sri Lanka alone.
So Only silver lining - Maldives. That is what I think. But I have been wrong before!
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