India’s Smoke and Mirrors
That Obama left India a day earlier to pay his respects to Saudi Arabia’s family on the death of King Abdullah should have been a signal to India, but India fooled itself into thinking otherwise. Saudi Arabia is a strategic ally of the USA in the Middle East, while India is only a fair-weather ally. India hasn’t realized this. India wants unflinching American support, but wishes to choose when and how it supports USA. This is simply not good enough.
India wants unflinching American support, but wishes to choose when and how it supports USA. This is simply not good enough.
The Americans see through India’s smoke and mirrors that India wishes to have its cake and eat it too. But, India doesn’t realize it doesn’t work this way. There has to be loyalty. And yes, loyalty is a two-way street, but India is at the shorter end, and has more at stake. India detests the USA because the US withheld spare part supplies of armaments they sold to India during war with Pakistan. But, the USA was not tricking anyone: their conditions were open, and India went in for those purchases with their eyes open. If anything, the USA won’t orbit India, but India will have to orbit the USA. And, if India doesn’t want that, then it gets the status quo where it rows the hoe itself, in which case it shouldn’t be crying, which it is.
Moreover, India didn’t do enough to allay fears of the insecurity felt by the Secret Service should Obama visit Agra. India did not realize that giving the world’s most powerful leader a feeling of insecurity did little for that person to have faith in India. Thus, even if Obama wished to stay on an extra day, he couldn’t[2]. Of course, it wasn’t all that difficult for Obama to pay his respects to King Abdullah one day later. But, Obama wasn’t going to stay when there was nothing else for him to do in India. That itself showed that all discussions had run their course – that everything that had to be discussed on China and Pakistan and regulating the Indian economy had been discussed. Now, Sikh justice stood out as the last thorn between the USA and India, which India is still dragging its feet to iron out.
India’s House not in Order
When India has been unable to put its house in order, how can India accept other countries to accept it in the high club? Hence, Obama proceeded to rightfully lecture India on its unequal treatment of religious minorities. India had to hear it from the US President for it to be noted by Indians and Indian leaders, who for long had probably thought that no one in the world would care to notice their excesses in far-flung Border States.
For a whole decade in the 1990s, India thought that the Babri Masjid controversy was more important than coal, steel, energy, power, industry, shipping, infrastructure, and armament manufacture. That the controversy destroyed the fabric of Indian society…
But, no amount of its own internal thinkers saying what Obama said ever had any effect on Indian leaders. This resulted in India’s excesses in Nagaland and Mizoram; its suppression of already poor adivasis, who are considered casteless by Hindus and thus even below the Harijan; its sponsorship of rebellion in Punjab; and its actions in Kashmir in 1987 that made hair from the Prophet’s beard disappear from a mosque. Very few in India advised Rajiv Gandhi’s government to not invoke the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) in 1985 that was more than abused to make up to one million youth from Punjab to disappear. The 1988 renewal of TADA eliminated assurance of life and liberty in Punjab.[3]The lack of justice against perpetrators of anti-Sikh violence in 1984 has been the latest separating point between USA and India. After more than 125,000 signatures of US citizens were obtained and presented to President Obama by Sikhs for Justice, President Obama had to act on it. The results of that are still being felt negatively in India, and there is still a long journey ahead.
For a whole decade in the 1990s, India thought that the Babri Masjid controversy was more important than coal, steel, energy, power, industry, shipping, infrastructure, and armament manufacture. That the controversy destroyed the fabric of Indian society, and stoked unwanted secularism was of little concern. But, the character of Indian leaders and the Indian majority comes into question. They usually like to see the weak defeated in some manner to satisfy their pride – which is why all minorities in India feel oppressed. This is what Obama was lecturing India on. Almost immediately after Obama’s lecture, Modi issued a speech where he claimed the right to religion for all citizens, and sent a signal to stop forced re-conversions from Christianity to Hinduism, as well as say that harassment of Muslims will not be tolerated. It is only when the minorities in a nation feel accepted that a nation can call itself great. And, this is what makes the USA great, while India fools itself.
Changes in India
Multiple changes are expected in India. And, the tone of the central administration seems to have changed definitely. Within months of taking power, the new Modi government released funds for the indigenous aircraft carrier; sanctioned the construction of the new naval base; made a policy statement for the construction of roads in Arunachal; agreed to the construction of a war memorial; brought FDI contributions from 26% to 49% for defense industries; announced it would take the recommendation of a CDS seriously; promised to implement the one-rank one pension scheme; the prime minister visited Nepal and Bhutan, mainly over Chinese concerns, and visited troops in Kashmir; and the Indian government generally changed its tone on how it would deal with matters of defense. These are only a few examples of additional improvements. From thinking in an impoverished manner, it began to think positively that Indian defense could be transformed.
India still needs to be realized that all resources are really defense resources in the ultimate, because without sovereignty, a nation cannot exist.
But dozens of other issues remain: India’s river and air pollution levels are at an all-time high, far beyond international limits and becoming the worst in the world; the economic regulations that Obama wants India to loosen are still tied in knots; the corruption in small quarters, such as in junior clerks offices and municipalities, still continues unashamedly; the availability of water is seriously threatened, let alone only clean water; traffic is becoming from bad to worse in every city, notwithstanding the increased road construction; tenant laws have yet to be revised such that legitimate landlords can regain control of their own property; electricity production needs to increase fourfold if the per capita electricity consumption is only to equal half of Germany’s; the coal required for steel production and power plants is down to only one week’s inventory; the oil reserves in time of war are only at two weeks, in contrast to six months for China; ammunition in certain areas for fighting a full blown war are down to eight days; we need urgently to rapidly construct high speed trains including maglev trains from Chennai to Pathankot; the roads in Arunachal have not been stepped up to a war footing; alternate energy power plants, such as for solar and wind power have yet to take off in a big enough way; alternate automobile fuels have not been produced in mass scale; the need to manufacture four nuclear-powered submarines a year and one aircraft carrier group a year has yet to be realized; developing a robust indigenous aircraft manufacturing industry has yet to take off; investments in engineering and R&D are behind other Asian countries; the quality of the character of the Indian needs to be improved … and so much more.
All engineering and economic development impacts defense production in a country like India. It still needs to be realized that all resources are really defense resources in the ultimate, because without sovereignty, a nation cannot exist. Thus, all medical, transportation, and engineering resources are defense resources.
India has to realize these gigantic issues – and at the very least acknowledge them. That any nation can really deliver fantastic economic advancement within two decades is not in doubt – like South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, China, and Dubai have demonstrated; while Germany demonstrated in the 1930s that it could build the world’s most formidable fighting military in only ten years. It’s not that India can’t do the same: it’s only that India has to stop fooling itself.
[1] Paul M. Edwards, “Korean War Almanac,” Facts on File, Inc. NY, 2006.
[2] India can take consolation in the fact that Obama didn’t visit Pakistan, partly because of fears over personal security.
[3] Singh, A., “The Case for Declaring a Financial Emergency for Infrastructure Development in India: A Civil Engineer’s Perspective,” Leadership and Management in Engineering, pp. 182-190, April 2011.
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This article is the biggest joke ever written or very pessimistic one
1)Indians may have love for Russia but its not like Indians hate Usa according to pew research Indians have most favorable view towards usa
2)The Usa is keen to always to take india as a partner they asked us to join cold war but we did not join although a very good decession
3)We may have problems in transforming the country because it has been only 30 yrs since economic liberalization it takes another 60 yrs for us to grow into a big important country that can make rules,yes to certain extent we are irrelevant but after 30 yrs we will become too big to ignore
4)Usa has only one ally in Asia it is india they cant rely on russia,china,Pakistan so its naturally us big enough to counter china and we control Indian ocean which is very important part after pacific
5)It is a good thing no one is talking about us remember chinas way- bide your time and hide your strength and dont mae too big noises
6)I would take this article as cautionary article too pessimistic for india to improve our country
CIA Agent
‘It is only when the minorities in a nation feel accepted that a nation can call itself great.’
Really? China is the greatest nation on the planet – yet its minorities are treated far more ruthlessly than India’s, (one of the many lessons New Delhi needs to learn from Beijing) . Japan and Israel – to mention two other great nations, are not renowned for pandering to minorities either.
The strength of a country depends not on its minorities – who are precisely that – minor. The strength of a country depends on the unity and solidarity of its majority community. This was sacrificed by the Congress and its adherents in favour of appeasing minorities – and Bharat paid the price.
Now, finally, that’s beginning to change.
Bang on!
US actively supported Pakistan to become a nuclear power. They will never sell top of the range military equipment. Prudence demands we source our equipment from France as good as the Americans without any strings attached.
Dr Amarjit Singh speaks from the point of view of a foreign observer !
The problems facing the Govt of India are gigantic compared to America’s level of difficulties. 400 years of impoverishment and lack of human development comparable to other developed nations cannot be erased in a democratic setup in 60 years. However momentum is building up. Much will change in the next ten years. There is no escape from the dictates of efficiency which better management and following the rules of economics can alone provide.
There is more religious freedom in India than in any other heterogeneous nation in the world. We are striving to make this even better, as the years roll by. We are learning the hard lesson that we can depend only on ourselves, and not on foreign partners for our development and self improvement. Come on and let us all play this game hard in our generation. Skill sets will further improve in the next generation. We have to keep interacting with leaders of foreign countries and sometimes hear words unpalatable to us, but meant for their domestic audiences.
I commend Dr Amarjit for giving out several positive suggestions.
India had all its share of its bad luck to be ruled by men of straw who had silly hearts. Just dreaming bog does not fulfill the ambitions, you ought to have an attitude to achieve them. The vehicle chosen by Nehru was marred by three flaws:
Socialism
Hidden selfish Objectives
Vociferous rants of self glorification
Dream to be the first Prime Minister of a country that had been drained of all its resources
Since 1947 India’s ruling scum have gone for the low hanging fruit to create a neo aristocracy. In 1949 inequality under law and exceptions to the rule of law were enshrined in the Constitution to further the ends of plunder. The reservations-extortion (aka corruption) Raj dedicated itself with single minded fervour to stealing wealth, right to Hindu religious worship and temples, right to property, right to dignity and self respect, right education, right to employment and so on for the benefit of a some at the expense of others to maintain their grip on power through vote bank politics. Finding new and novel ways to steal and apply the resources of the Nation to the personal pelf, pleasure, pomp, perpetuation and perversion of the ruling scum became the primary pursuit. The masses were kept uneducated, starving and defecating in the open for more than seven decades so that the promise of paradise would continue to garner votes and make stealing easier. Helpless minorities with high standards of integrity, morality and competence were persecuted while majoritarian vote banks became minorities of convenience for votes. What was a great powr that swaggered into Korea to enforce the truce in 1957 between China and the US is now below Sub Saharan Africa in the Human Development Index. The Light Combat Aircraft has been under development since 1963 (HF-24). Cricketers, Actors and Criminals are the highly decorated and respected law maker of the land. For escape from reality and fooling oneself is the most valuable concomitant of living in the reservations and corruption cesspool called India. India’s solutions are always India’s problems as they are directed at changing thaumaturged “legal’ boundaries retrospectively, prospectively or selectively to alter which “class” of persons may benefit while, inter-alia creating further “classes” of persons, primarily with an eye on the vote banks and the money flowing into the kitty of the various Pillars of Indian tyranny.
The communist ideology was the guide for Jawaharlal Nehru, who was described by Sardar Patel as the only “Nationalist Muslim” left in India after 1947. Communists believed in the aristocracy of leadership and ensured the poverty for the masses, who should be only worried for their daily bread and butter, and never to think about the fraud of the rulers. Encouragement to glorifying poverty through Mahboob Productions’ “Mother India”, “Do Bigha Zameen” had the effect of killing individual initiative and encouraging the dependence on the rulers for tiny doles. The result was that the rulers ensured for themselves that the poeple would never question them and meekly vote for them. For this purpose the Muslim vote banks were created by continuing Shariat Act of 1937, not implementing common civil code mandated by Article 44 of the Constitution. In addition, the demand for common civil code and deletion of Article 370 was painted continuously as communal so as to show case the Muslim majority province for perpetually getting Muslim votes. With this backdrop of mindset, the military gains of 1965 and 1971 were deliberately squandered, and simultaneously it was ensured through Krishna Menon and PN Thapar that India remained weaker against China and dependent on Communist Russia for economic and military needs. As these events went on for over sixty six years, hence India was reduced to one vote country in UNO. If Russia had not supported India with its veto in 1971, we would have been reduced to fragmented polity, but the credit does not go the foreign policy but to the relevance of Indian Communists to support the Congress Prime Minister for ensuring Russian interests. It is worth remembering that in return for communists support to VV Giri for President in 1969, the COI exported railway wagons to Russia for Rs. 1500/- each payable in Indian currency only. For the Congress and Communists, Muslim League and AIMIM are “secular” parties.
this article is an joke & the writter itself is a joke, nothing else. One of the worst article I have read in my life.
Dear Sir,
In the changing global economical, strategiical situations it is essential.to reconsider all relevant aspects which are in National and secondly global interests. Anyone would prefer to have close relations with neighbor rather than with a distant country; that’s what Nehru did.Nowwe need to think and ac t.different. ICBMs have made things different so goes with economy. US economy has been.under threat since Germans had challanged to buy all US GOLD RESERVES AT FORT KNOX. We need US they need us too. In Diplomacy..enemy and.friends are simple words with different meanings. We are not going wrong but we.need to be watchful and careful in maintaining. Relations with Neighbors.
With due respects to the author, while the effort is appreciable, yet I have divergent views / feedback :-
1. It must be appreciated that India is one of the most important, largest and democratic economic markets in the world. All the global powers (G -5) are desperate to have a share of pie of the lucrative Indian market.
2. Handling a democratic country of 1.25 billion people with highly diverse cultures, social, economic strata etc. is not an easy task for any leadership
3. India has one the best human resources in the world, with good population profile.
4. Decline in quality of people has a lot to do at our end as citizens
5. President Obama’s decision to accept invitation as our Republic Day Guest carries a lot of meaning for commoners as also the experts within and outside the country
6. Swift and sharper foreign policy moves have impacted the powerhouses, including China, worldwide
Terming India as one of the ‘most unimportant country’ and comparisons with Saudi Arabia are not at all appropriate. Further, author has failed to note that India is opening up to deeper relations with Israel in a major way. Author is apparently pessimistic in overall content… Media coverage of Indian PM’s visit to US and Australia was certainly upto desired standards. There is optimism in the environment now. Let us give the new Government at least 3 good years to perform and then make some assessments… as citizens we should also improve our conduct and support the good initiatives of the Government.
Best wishes and regards,
Rajkaran Singh Bhatti
Nice article.
Request you to please quote me the source of – Clinton statement where he says India is the most unimportant country in the world.Never came across this.
Maj. Som Nath Sharma, Hav. Abdul Hamid, Fg officer Nirmal Jit Singh Sekhon and all those who are not named here never gave a second thought before sacrificing their lives for nation then why India is dividing itself into this vast gap of division. The diversity of any nation is its strength which India must understand before every religion, race or clan claims its part of nation and make a separate state or nation.