For a little over a week, the hot news in Kerala was the allegations of domestic violence against a Minister by his wife and what unfolded involved more drama than the usual menu of soaps and reached the standards of jam-packed action in some of the male protagonists movies. Newspapers had nothing else to report, there were live panel discussions and the defence minister remarked that it shouldn't turn into a state celebration. Once the minister resigned, panel discussions were about the drop in the price of gold and its various nuances. Now that gold prices are hovering at the same level, it has turned to Chinese "infiltrations" on the border. While the first two issues were restricted to Kerala the last one was a celebration of national scale and by the time the Chinese had camped in Daulat Beg Oldi, my mother had already fallen prey to panel discussionomania so much so that she asked me whether an India-China war was possible.
Then I see a sensible view take on the issue (a) and there is also the obvious fact that it is nothing more than a boundary issue and differences of perspective- I say the boundary is there, but he is saying it is here and there is nothing more to it than that. Television panel debates have only served to vitiate the atmosphere and it was most evident during the issue over beheading of soldiers at the India-Pakistan border. Fuelled by the fact that anyone who spits out anti-Pakistan vituperations would receive ample airtime and be able to appeal to or increase nationalistic feelings to boost their popularity and appear (merely appear) strong against old adversaries. But one forgets that it is easier to shout while in the opposition (or while supporting the government from outside) but an entirely different job to get work done while occupying power. Mamata Banerji and V.S.Achuthanandan are the ones who have found such transitions difficult in India recently.
On to the Pakistan issue, I have read that delaying visas and suspending dialogue is of absolutely no help and we must increase people to people contact to solve the animosity. These are really good theoretical points that appeal to the peace brigade and idealists, but one forgets that even if India were to make any and all concessions to Pakistan, it would not help even in the slightest because it is not the civilian government that calls the shots in Pakistan but the army and it needs the bogey of India to cement its position, irrespective of the changes in the "Green Book" (b) in Pakistan. So, the theory that once the issues are resolved, the army in Pakistan will fade into insignificance is just wishful thinking. Let us make no mistake about the fact that the existence and power the army enjoys in Pakistan and the free reign it has and its ability to use "non-state" actors in Indian Kashmir or Afghanistan owes far less to the civilian government's strategy and the official India-Pakistan stand on Kashmir, but more to the civilian leadership's helplessness.
People to people contact and border trade can promote good relations between the people, promote economic welfare and a better life for the people in the border towns and so it is an end in itself, it cannot lead to anything more, just like cricket can only bring in advertising revenue and a few days of passion and tension without really building up confidence in any measure. What this also means is that they should be isolated from the talks and relations with Pakistan since they have little positive or negative impact and must be seen as separate issues. Let the dialogue process with a civilian government continue too, except under extreme circumstances, since it is quite obvious that they have little say in what the army, intelligence agencies or its proxies do. If there is some untoward incident, do not go roll back the gains, but simply freeze them for the time being and resume from where it was left off. The decision not to send our cricket team to Pakistan is fine since the security situation is not favourable there, but preventing Pakistani players from coming to India is as silly as not permitting Srilankan players from playing in Tamilnadu.
Apart from media antics, there is little to suggest anything seriously alarming along the border with China. It has other bigger worries and battles to fight and a cost to benefit analysis says that there are only costs but no benefits at all by raising a conflict with India. China's disputes against Japan and all the South-East Asian nations is part of its race for resources with cleverly, although not too subtly and effectively, masked historical claims (c) . These are more important, worthwhile and urgent for China to win and the world to resolve and has the potential to draw in the rest of the world as America is intent on acting as the protector of Asia against a rising China. Any conflict has drastic implications for China as it is dependent on exports, and shipping lanes across the South China sea is its lifeline which cannot be kept open by waging a war, but only by a threatening posture.
The cost of conflict with India is minimal for China, but the benefits are almost nothing. Of course, China has attacked India in the past and the signs were missed by the establishment due to its soft corner for a fellow developing nation with problems similar to the one that was confronting India at the time. Our army was ill-equipped and not acclimatised for the war and this holds lessons for us. Let our army be prepared for the eventualities as it should always be, while the civilian leadership tries to settle out the issue by dialogue and removing misunderstandings. China's intention could be not so straight-forward as territorial gains, but to blow the whistle on current world alliances- bring out secret alliances into the open and reveal who stands where and with who and then comfortably go back to its side of the boundary to prevent the conflict from growing out of control. As China advances into India, it can realise who is with itself and who is on the other side- perhaps the US will help India and Russia will side with China (a slight reversal from 1962) and once this is out in the open, China will be able to dominate proceedings freely with energy and resources from Russia to satisfy its growing needs and less dependency on South China sea.
We do not need military alliances, but strong relations with the South-East Asian nations including Myanmar will mean that we have more leverage in the area than China. ASEAN, Myanmar and APEC have sought India's partnership actively and persistently not as just a market or economic partner but to counter an assertive China that is dictating terms, to whom these nations want to say that we have other partners who respect us. This in itself will be a strong deterrent against China and India does not have to grudgingly accept US foothold in the region due to the Chinese threat. Close ties with Russia is also imperative since a China-Russia alliance is a strong possibility as has been recently witnessed with Russia giving China weapons more advanced than the one it delivered to India (d).
India's strategic co-operation with the US involving economic, scientific, technological and educational issues along with its defence co-operation with Russia is actually a wise strategy since it allows India to maintain friendly relations to all without antagonising anyone. It is better to maintain strong ties and lines of communication rather then pissing them off like China is doing to everyone except Russia now. The question what use are friends who will not aid you in times of conflict is pertinent. But it might not come to war, it is true that India's trade relations with these nations are no where near the one they have with China, but it is seen as an exploitative relation- China takes over US manufacturing jobs, there are voices in Russia raising concern over whether it will just be a sparsely populated resource backyard for China which China could easily run over with its large army and population. India must publicise the model of development and co-operation it stands for and contrast it with how others provide aid and support, in return for an exploitative resource extraction hardly benefiting the host country and its people apart from money, without directly pointing fingers. Mitigating climate change is one area where India must take the leadership for its own domestic benefit as well as to built very strong ties with the third world, island states and countries with a coast, but India has only hidden behind the excuse of low per-capita emission rather than take charge and forge ahead by adopting clean technology and working with other nations that too are threatened by climate change.
There is little scope for co-operation with China since our paths conflict almost always and rather than the co-operation due to the common concerns that Jawaharlal Nehru wanted, it is a scramble for resources and development and this is a fact rarely accepted or talked about. One can talk about soft power and diplomatic skills, but without real power to back it up, soft power is useless. It will be a tough balancing act and the priority is in preventing conflict, but our army has to be ready, our diplomats and politician's have to realise these and be ready to protect India's relations with all major nations without making enemies. Our news media must realise that amateurish and jingoistic reporting and ratcheting up the tension will not take us anywhere and calls for war will cost us more than China because, let us accept it, they are militarily and economically far ahead of us and we might have to wage a two-front war.
To sum up, let the people to people contact, trade, cricket and Track 2 diplomacy go on with Pakistan regardless of the dialogue process and except under extreme circumstances since these are ends in themselves. Also allow the dialogue process to move ahead and not backward and not be held hostage to incidents beyond civilian administration's control. As for China, strengthening our border defences and army, better ties with South-East Asian nations and neighbours and maintaining good relations with the major powers will only benefit India and tilt the world to view India favourably and China as more of a reckless rich resource hunter- all of which will add to India's benefit and attempts must be to prevent conflict by building strong relationships rather than using this to raise a conflict.
Then I see a sensible view take on the issue (a) and there is also the obvious fact that it is nothing more than a boundary issue and differences of perspective- I say the boundary is there, but he is saying it is here and there is nothing more to it than that. Television panel debates have only served to vitiate the atmosphere and it was most evident during the issue over beheading of soldiers at the India-Pakistan border. Fuelled by the fact that anyone who spits out anti-Pakistan vituperations would receive ample airtime and be able to appeal to or increase nationalistic feelings to boost their popularity and appear (merely appear) strong against old adversaries. But one forgets that it is easier to shout while in the opposition (or while supporting the government from outside) but an entirely different job to get work done while occupying power. Mamata Banerji and V.S.Achuthanandan are the ones who have found such transitions difficult in India recently.
On to the Pakistan issue, I have read that delaying visas and suspending dialogue is of absolutely no help and we must increase people to people contact to solve the animosity. These are really good theoretical points that appeal to the peace brigade and idealists, but one forgets that even if India were to make any and all concessions to Pakistan, it would not help even in the slightest because it is not the civilian government that calls the shots in Pakistan but the army and it needs the bogey of India to cement its position, irrespective of the changes in the "Green Book" (b) in Pakistan. So, the theory that once the issues are resolved, the army in Pakistan will fade into insignificance is just wishful thinking. Let us make no mistake about the fact that the existence and power the army enjoys in Pakistan and the free reign it has and its ability to use "non-state" actors in Indian Kashmir or Afghanistan owes far less to the civilian government's strategy and the official India-Pakistan stand on Kashmir, but more to the civilian leadership's helplessness.
People to people contact and border trade can promote good relations between the people, promote economic welfare and a better life for the people in the border towns and so it is an end in itself, it cannot lead to anything more, just like cricket can only bring in advertising revenue and a few days of passion and tension without really building up confidence in any measure. What this also means is that they should be isolated from the talks and relations with Pakistan since they have little positive or negative impact and must be seen as separate issues. Let the dialogue process with a civilian government continue too, except under extreme circumstances, since it is quite obvious that they have little say in what the army, intelligence agencies or its proxies do. If there is some untoward incident, do not go roll back the gains, but simply freeze them for the time being and resume from where it was left off. The decision not to send our cricket team to Pakistan is fine since the security situation is not favourable there, but preventing Pakistani players from coming to India is as silly as not permitting Srilankan players from playing in Tamilnadu.
Apart from media antics, there is little to suggest anything seriously alarming along the border with China. It has other bigger worries and battles to fight and a cost to benefit analysis says that there are only costs but no benefits at all by raising a conflict with India. China's disputes against Japan and all the South-East Asian nations is part of its race for resources with cleverly, although not too subtly and effectively, masked historical claims (c) . These are more important, worthwhile and urgent for China to win and the world to resolve and has the potential to draw in the rest of the world as America is intent on acting as the protector of Asia against a rising China. Any conflict has drastic implications for China as it is dependent on exports, and shipping lanes across the South China sea is its lifeline which cannot be kept open by waging a war, but only by a threatening posture.
The cost of conflict with India is minimal for China, but the benefits are almost nothing. Of course, China has attacked India in the past and the signs were missed by the establishment due to its soft corner for a fellow developing nation with problems similar to the one that was confronting India at the time. Our army was ill-equipped and not acclimatised for the war and this holds lessons for us. Let our army be prepared for the eventualities as it should always be, while the civilian leadership tries to settle out the issue by dialogue and removing misunderstandings. China's intention could be not so straight-forward as territorial gains, but to blow the whistle on current world alliances- bring out secret alliances into the open and reveal who stands where and with who and then comfortably go back to its side of the boundary to prevent the conflict from growing out of control. As China advances into India, it can realise who is with itself and who is on the other side- perhaps the US will help India and Russia will side with China (a slight reversal from 1962) and once this is out in the open, China will be able to dominate proceedings freely with energy and resources from Russia to satisfy its growing needs and less dependency on South China sea.
We do not need military alliances, but strong relations with the South-East Asian nations including Myanmar will mean that we have more leverage in the area than China. ASEAN, Myanmar and APEC have sought India's partnership actively and persistently not as just a market or economic partner but to counter an assertive China that is dictating terms, to whom these nations want to say that we have other partners who respect us. This in itself will be a strong deterrent against China and India does not have to grudgingly accept US foothold in the region due to the Chinese threat. Close ties with Russia is also imperative since a China-Russia alliance is a strong possibility as has been recently witnessed with Russia giving China weapons more advanced than the one it delivered to India (d).
India's strategic co-operation with the US involving economic, scientific, technological and educational issues along with its defence co-operation with Russia is actually a wise strategy since it allows India to maintain friendly relations to all without antagonising anyone. It is better to maintain strong ties and lines of communication rather then pissing them off like China is doing to everyone except Russia now. The question what use are friends who will not aid you in times of conflict is pertinent. But it might not come to war, it is true that India's trade relations with these nations are no where near the one they have with China, but it is seen as an exploitative relation- China takes over US manufacturing jobs, there are voices in Russia raising concern over whether it will just be a sparsely populated resource backyard for China which China could easily run over with its large army and population. India must publicise the model of development and co-operation it stands for and contrast it with how others provide aid and support, in return for an exploitative resource extraction hardly benefiting the host country and its people apart from money, without directly pointing fingers. Mitigating climate change is one area where India must take the leadership for its own domestic benefit as well as to built very strong ties with the third world, island states and countries with a coast, but India has only hidden behind the excuse of low per-capita emission rather than take charge and forge ahead by adopting clean technology and working with other nations that too are threatened by climate change.
There is little scope for co-operation with China since our paths conflict almost always and rather than the co-operation due to the common concerns that Jawaharlal Nehru wanted, it is a scramble for resources and development and this is a fact rarely accepted or talked about. One can talk about soft power and diplomatic skills, but without real power to back it up, soft power is useless. It will be a tough balancing act and the priority is in preventing conflict, but our army has to be ready, our diplomats and politician's have to realise these and be ready to protect India's relations with all major nations without making enemies. Our news media must realise that amateurish and jingoistic reporting and ratcheting up the tension will not take us anywhere and calls for war will cost us more than China because, let us accept it, they are militarily and economically far ahead of us and we might have to wage a two-front war.
To sum up, let the people to people contact, trade, cricket and Track 2 diplomacy go on with Pakistan regardless of the dialogue process and except under extreme circumstances since these are ends in themselves. Also allow the dialogue process to move ahead and not backward and not be held hostage to incidents beyond civilian administration's control. As for China, strengthening our border defences and army, better ties with South-East Asian nations and neighbours and maintaining good relations with the major powers will only benefit India and tilt the world to view India favourably and China as more of a reckless rich resource hunter- all of which will add to India's benefit and attempts must be to prevent conflict by building strong relationships rather than using this to raise a conflict.
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