Obama’s visit to India opens a new chapter in the relation between the two nations. The Americans have stopped seeing India through the narrow prism of Pakistan. I believe this is the most important message Americans are giving rather than the grandiloquent statements the President of US is making. But have we stopped seeing ourselves as a big brother of one of the most rogue nation in the world? Has the Indian media and civil society realised the truth that India has much better things to worry than Pakistan. I guess not. The proclivity of our country to be tied down to issues of the South Asia is making us miss the wider opportunity awaiting us in the Asia Pacific region. To emerge as the undisputed leader of democratic free states among the giants like South Korea, Japan and Australia. India would be genuinely seen as the savior militarily and in the long term economically by these countries and we should be ready to make the maximum out of these resource rich and technologically superior countries. Are we ready for that?
Then there is China. How many of us really know about the most significant neighbour of ours? Recently I saw a photo in India Today wherein Mr Hu Jintao’s photo was wrongly named as that of Mr Wen Jiabao's. This clearly shows how poor is our knowledge about the 2nd largest economic power in the world.
The idea of Pakistan dominates every policy discourses we have. Even the youth of our country is too much inclined to read about Pakistan rather than Chinese as was evidenced in the innumerable Pak related questions put forth to Obama during his visit to a college. I wonder how much we know about China. Its fast expanding universities, hard working people and all pervading state owned enterprises, about Alibaba, Baidu and numerous other Chinese companies. If we really aspire to dominate the world stage in future, a collective awareness (we should not mind if it develops to paranoia, similar to the one Americans had towards Soviets) on China should be created.
Today a news channel was showing the comments made by Obama in Parliament. A significant one being his support(I wonder whether this is concrete) for India’s permanent membership in UN security Council. I was shocked to see the channel immediately showing Pakistan’s reaction to it. I wondered what impact Pakistan’s opinion might have in India’s fortune in UN. And no one cared what voices in China had to say whose nod is vital for India’s inclusion.
Only when Indians consciously banish the demon of Pakistan out of our mind we can get a clear sight of our challenges ahead. The perpetual competition we will have to fight out for every gram of resource required to drive our growth engine with China, the demise of Dalai Lama which will consolidate Chinese influence in Tibet(the only leverage India has in China) and Chinese growing clout in South Asia and more importantly East Asia and Africa.
The final point takes me to the next topic of our preoccupation with South Asia. The alarm bells are rung every time a Chinese company starts an infrastructure project in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Nepal. But the same vigil is lacking for China’s massive investment in Africa and Latin America which has the some of the most resource rich countries in the world. Have you wondered what would have happened if Americans remained in their continent and never forayed into Middle East or the Brits ensconced themselves in Europe. The wealth that created today’s Britain came from Asia and Australia. Africa is 21st century’s Asia. Ungoverned and backward, Africa presents great opportunity. If we make genuine efforts(not simply oil explorations by ONGC Videsh)to understand Africa and seduce it to our clout with perks like admissions for Africans in Indian Universities we can slowly develop an African mind tilted towards India.
But instead, we are still locked in the petty South Asian politics to be specific Pakistan centric Foreign policy. Our citizens continue to show abject ignorance towards our relations with African or Latin American countries, manifested in the air time a visiting dignitary from those regions generate. But even when a delegation of parliamentarians (the weakest class there) from Pakistan visit India, the newspapers stand up and take note of it.
Hope the next time when Mr Hu Visits India we call him Mr Hu and not Mr Wen or worst Mr Jiabao or Mr Jintao(Chinese write family names first and most people miss this point).
Now I understand how pointless it is to say, 'Let your soul rest in Peace'. The soul without a body would be the wind in desert which touches no trees,
which has no physical manifestations, which is body-less. Adorning peace to the end is just a mythical solace.I am sure it was an end and not peace. I tell
myself, she got released from the protracted suffering. But I know it was an end, final, unfair. Unfair to a bird which just started to fly, who can no more
see the world. Weaving words to dress up death is hard. So I stop.