PAK 'GIVES' GILGIT TO CHINA, HEADACHE TO INDIA

The surprise is not that the Chinese have done what they have but that, despite ample evidence available in the public domain, we have again been caught napping.

Reports that 11,000 Chinese troops have been deployed in Pakistan-controlled Gilgit-Baltistan area of Kashmir, and the denying of visa by China to the Northern Army Commander who commands troops operating in the state, are not disconnected developments. On the contrary, they are evidently calibrated overt steps that China is beginning to take in furtherance of its overall strategy of projecting its power and protecting its interests in an expanding area of influence.

We should have seen this and more coming, if not earlier, at least when China completed the strategic railway link to Lhasa. With the link enabling quick deployment and maintenance of a large number of troops against India, China has shown increasing aggressiveness about its claims on Arunachal Pradesh and is now revealing its hugely ambitious plans to tap the enormous hydro-electric potential of the Brahmaputra, particularly at the Great Bend before it enters India.

Of greater significance -- and worry for India -- is the 435-mile railway line that China plans to build to Pakistan through Gilgit-Baltistan. That will give China direct access to the Arabian Sea. In Myanmar, a similar railway line and a massive oil and gas pipeline will give China access to the Bay of Bengal. Unlike India, China does not make such huge investments to win friends and then depend on their goodwill. It does so to promote and protect its growing economic interests on its own strength and, increasingly, project its military power in an ever widening arc.

After humiliating India in 1962, China, in utter disregard to India's sensitivities, made Pakistan cede to it the 5800 square kilometer Chaksgam tract in return for support to check and contain India. Now that it is readying to exploit a portion of J&K occupied by Pakistan in pursuit of strategic objectives that are beyond the famous 'string of pearls' around India, it is only logical that it will treat the part with Pakistan as integral to it, and by extension, the part held by India as under dispute.

This is a price any smart nation will willingly pay to a host nation, particularly when the country being adversely affected is a potential adversary, and a toothless one at that. That's probably why, as B Raman tells us, China suddenly started issuing stapled visas to residents of Indian J&K but not to those of POK. The writing should have been seen on the wall then and steps initiated to develop a long-term political and military counter-strategy. Unfortunately, the import of development was, like always, ignored and the matter forgotten after the Foreign Office made a few feeble noises and closed the file, as it were, to be surprised yet again.

PK Singh is of the view that these developments, seen in the light of how China has been hardening its stance towards India in the recent past, indicate that it "is in no mood to accommodate a rising India." R Hariharan believes that the distinct shift in China's policy on J&K has also something to do with the trouble being created by Uighurs in its Xinjiang province and the increased Taliban threat after the Americans leave Afghanistan. Raghavan, pained by China "throwing overboard the heritage of noble tenets and and traditions honed over 5000 years," believes like a true, pacifist Indian that China is doing "greatest harm to itself", while recognising that India's mild but pained response will be "totally lost on the powers-that-be in Bejing."

Former Chief of India's RAW, Vikram Sood, underlines the historical and future importance of Gilgit-Baltistan for China and, after a fine analysis, comes to the the disturbing conclusion that "China is making its presence felt in the sub continent as the next power to reckon with." It goes without saying that if China is 'entering' the sub-continent proper, it is with a definite 'India Plan' in mind. It is also only logical that Pakistan's generals will not host it as a welcome guest and friend in their territory in the manner that they are doing, unless they can extract from it something of great import to them in their ongoing war with India.

Sood is of the opinion that Chinese troops are in Gilgit-Baltistan because Pakistan has sought their support to contain simmering revolt in the area. I find that hard to believe. Which self-respecting nation will invite foreign troops only to quell minor internal rebellion, and that too in an isolated, sparsely populated area in such difficult terrain? To my mind, if Pakistan has already 'given' the area to China by permitting it to deploy as many as 11,000 troops to start with, this cannot be the real reason.

Since Gilgit-Baltistan is going to become the critical funnel through which strategic rail, road and possibly oil and gas links to China will pass in future, it is more in China's interest than Pakistan's to ensure that the area is protected from internal and external attacks. If a hot war breaks out between India and Pakistan in future, India's first strategic objective will probably be to capture at least part of Gilgit-Baltistan so that the bridge between Pakistan and China is broken. If Chinese troops are deployed there, no matter under what pretext, India will think a hundred times before taking them on out of fear of it escalating into a war against China too, with predictable results considering the our limited military power. In fact, China may not even need such a pretext to launch an offensive from Gilgit-Baltistan to do a much worse 'Kargil'.

What this means is that Pakistan has, in one deft stroke, completely secured Gilgit-Baltistan without committing a single additional soldier or gun. This will give its ambitious and aggressive generals that many more military options, China looming large as a directly involved party to keep India pinned down, to wrest at least a part of Kashmir and then get India to make humiliating concessions on the negotiating table.

Some sort of a deal on these lines may well have already been worked out by Pakistan and China. A country of India's size and potential cannot give to any nation the kind of concession and facilities Pakistan has given, is giving and will give to China in pursuit of national security objectives laid down by its military. India and the US may be cosying up. But let us not be under any illusion, like only weaklings are, that the latter will come to India's direct aid if a war does break out.

Kiyani said something very important a few months back. While acknowledging that the threat from India had receded somewhat, he said what interested him was India's military capacity, not its intention. Capacity take decades to build; intention can change overnight once you have the capacity.

China has already built sufficient capacity to walk into India again when it want to. Pakistan has built enough capacity to deter India from fighting a hot war even as it wages an asymmetric one against it. The two together are now creating a combined capacity of a different order altogether.
If we still let things drift, what is a headache now will become nightmare.
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CHINA: RELIGION RETURNS

We have forgotten but the Chinese have not. Thanks primarily to our history written from a alien perspective designed to propagate the myth of colonial superiority to perpetuate colonial rule, we no longer remember that India once dominated much of the world, not by sword or by force, but by its intellectual, cultural and spiritual prowess. But the Chinese, despite decades of communist rule during which atheism has been aggressively promoted and religion frowned upon, still remember their ancient, living civilisation and the enormous contribution that India has made to it.

In 1978, Deng Xiaoping effectively discarded the Marxist model of economic development and replaced it not by a capitalist one copy pasted from the West, but by one unique to that country, one designed to rapidly improve the living standards of its people and close the gap between China and industrialised nations. Although the "China Model" is still under development and the country still considers itself to be a "learning state," the stunning fact is that in almost the blink of a historical eye, it "has created an economic miracle, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty - a record unparalleled in world history."

Three decades after communism was effectively dumped in the economic sphere, China's leaders are rediscovering their religious roots and are quietly facilitating and calliberating their nation's return to it.

On Thursday, The Great Hall of the People, where communist laws and rules on atheism have been framed for five decades, saw a dance drama 'Cosmos' that featured themes like nirvana, karma and rebirth. That this was done in close with the Communist Party at various levels is evident by the fact that China's best names in choreography, dancing, music and stage craft were involved in it. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the show gave an "Oriental cosmic view" about life's dimensions on earth and celestial premiers in heaven. The Beijing Municipality, which organized the event, described it as a human quest "to find answer in the eyes of Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism".

In 2008, Chinese archaeologists had unearthed a four storey miniature pagoda, commissioned by India's Emperor Ashoka the Great in second century BC to house the remains of Buddha. The pagoda found in Nanjing is crafted from wood, gilded with silver and inlaid with gold, coloured glass and amber and contains the only known part of Sakyamuni's skull. According to Buddhist records, Ashoka collected all the sariras that had earlier been retrieved from Buddha's cremation and sent them to different parts of the world, China is believed to have received 19 of them. The pagoda was initially displayed in a museum.

It is important for Buddhism as a religion to have these sarira to be shown to its followers. In a significant departure from practice, the government has now allowed the relic to be enshrined in the Qixia Temple in Nanjing on June 12, 2010. Phoenix TV and Nanjing TV will broadcast the entire event live. The archaeologists who discovered it are also being allowed to take part in the enshrining ceremony and hold a news conference to exhibit photographs of the process of discovery and why they believe it belongs to Buddha.

India's contacts with China are older than history. The first recorded one is of around 265 BCE, when Emperor Ashoka sent a monk there to spread Buddhism. According to one account, around in 67 CE, two monks brought Buddhist sutras containing 600,000 Sanskrit words from India, and these were translated into Chinese. Other Indian Tantric and Buddhist masters also subsequently went to China and imparted knowledge. Most of us know that there are four Vedas. According to an age-old legend, there are actually five: the fifth esoteric Veda is with the Chinese. Very few Indian yogis have knowledge of its contents.

Chinese philosopher Hu Shi aptly expressed the abiding truth about the extent of India's influence on that country when he said "India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border." Lin Yutang in his excellent, 1100 page book, "The Wisdom of China and India", echoes the sentiment when he observes that the average reader does not suspect that "India was China's teacher in religion and imaginative literature, and the world's teacher in trigonometry, quadratic equations, grammar, phonetics, Arabian Nights, animal fables, chess, as well as in philosophy, and that she inspired Booccacio, Goethe, Herder, Schopenhauer, Emerson, and probably also old Aesop."

China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao had that long history in mind when, in 2003, he told India's visiting Defence Minister George Fernandes: “Friendliness accounts for 99.99 per cent of the 2,200-year-old Sino-Indian exchanges and misunderstanding merely 0.01 per cent. It’s high time we buried that 0.01 per cent and re-established the 99.9 per cent.” More recently, during his annual press conference, Jiabao told PTI's Beijing correspondent to convey to the Indian people that China and India are not competitors but friends and quoted from an Upanishad "written more than 3000 years ago in Sanskrit" to ask God to nourish both India and China and to let peace prevail between them.

The return of religion to communist China is a significant development. It may well be the beginning of a new, deeper revolution with which China will lead the world in the 21st century. Ironically, India, the land that China has always looked up to for cultural leadership and guidance, is undergoing a serious crisis of self-confidence and, in some sections of its deracinated society, even identity. Perhaps that is one reason why it has not yet been energised with the pride and fire needed to get into a leadership position. Perhaps that is one reason why those who are in a position to steer the nation into such a position are content to keep playing second best to the West, happy that they are lording over the masses who continue to suffer shaming poverty and deprivation.

It is time for India to shift its gaze from the West whose story is over to China who is writing the next one. Even if we are not yet ready to cast away yokes that have choked our minds and spirit, it will be better if the Guru becomes the shishya, the student, of one who has for long been his own shishya, so that he can remember and reclaim his respect and his leadership role, and enrich his people and the world once again.

EAGLE FALTERS, DRAGON HISSES, ELEPHANT SLEEPS

Like the British Empire that preceded it, America's journey into sunset, distant yet but distinct, has commenced, as the sun begins to rise in the East again.

When Mukesh Ambani said a few days back that "whatever had to be done in the West, has been done", to highlight the fact India will present more opportunities in the future, it would not have occurred to many attending that panel discussion at the London School of Economics, that the US had decisively moved to the wrong side of not just the economic but also the military power curve. A few significant developments in the following days have, however, driven home this imperceptibly unfolding fact in somewhat dramatic fashion.

The world's biggest power is now not only the world's biggest borrower, but, according to the latest US federal budget, things are only likely to get worse. The projected deficit on the coming year is going to be nearly 11% of the nation's economic output. According to President Obama's own optimistic projections, it is not likely to return to sustainable levels in the next 10 years. There is, therefore, real possibility that, like it happened with Japan, as debt grows more rapidly than income, America's influence around the world will get eroded. Unless something miraculous happens. And that, as things appear now, is less likely than ever before.

China, which has for long been consciously working towards reclaiming the leadership position that the West had taken away a few centuries back, has apparently already smelled blood as it were. Seeing that the Eagle has got into a dive that will not end in it swooping on a prey and soaring skyward again, but in a hard crash into the ground, the Dragon has begun to breathe fire in a manner that would have been unthinkable before Bush hastened America's slide by getting involved in a costly war in Iraq.

China has not only threatened the US with sanctions if the latter goes ahead with a $6.4 billion arms deal with Taiwan but has already put on hold military exchanges, postponed vice minister-level talks on security and said it will impose corresponding sanctions on US companies that engage in weapons sale to Taiwan. Its official Xinhua news agency has also warned that the deal "will cause seriously negative effects on China-U.S. exchanges and cooperation in important areas, and ultimately will lead to consequences that neither side wishes to see."

It may be recalled that prior to his visit to China last year, President Obama had declined to meet the Dalai Lama in Washington, so as to not annoy his hosts. According to reports, he had, however, agreed to meet him some time later. Now that the meeting is on in May, a senior Chinese official has "strongly warned" Obama that such a meeting would damage relations and that the US would suffer "serious consequences". China has been protesting such meetings with US Presidents since long. Obama is going ahead with the meeting, as did some of his predecessors, but there is now is little doubt that the shift in the balance of power is very real and seemingly irrevocable, and that China's concerns can no longer be arrogantly ignored.

China has a huge trade surplus with the US and one of the reasons for that is that China has deliberately depressed the Yuan to give its exporters an unfair advantage. On Wednesday, Obama said he would get tougher with China on the issue to ensure that it opens up its market so that "our goods are not artificially inflated in price." China hit back immediately saying that its currency is reasonably priced and warned the US that "criticism and pressing is obviously not helpful to solving problems."

The aggression visible in these responses is neither incidental nor isolated. It is part of a carefully thought-out and coordinated plan by China to project itself not just as America's equal but as a nation that has a plot that is not only fully under control but is superior to what the Americans have or can come up with. China is subtly positioning itself as the new and better leader of a new world along a number of dimensions. To do that, it is drawing upon the strength of its ancient civilisational and cultural heritage, to offer the world what it believes is a paradigm that is better and more durable than what the West has ever been able to offer.

The Pentagon's latest Quadrennial Defence Review (QDR), 2010, also recognises that power dynamics have undergone a dramatic change and that the US is no longer the world's sole super power. "The distribution of global political, economic and military power is shifting and becoming more diffuse. The rise of China, the world's most populous country, and India, the world's largest democracy, will continue to reshape the international system." This, according to the report, will give rise to an international system that is no longer easily defined - ''one in which the US will remain the most powerful actor but must increasingly work with key allies and partners if it is to sustain stability and peace.''

Look at the irony. India has not even given a thought to what this billion-strong nation's role should be in the rapidly changing scenario in which China, with which it has a long standing border dispute and which has been trying to encircle it, is going to increasingly use its power to influence outcomes and settle them in its favour where necessary. It is the Pentagon, more alarmed by the rise of an opaque and inscrutable China than India is, that is reminding India that, given its size and strength, it should become a "net provider of security in the Indian Ocean and beyond." How can it, when our guys have still not been able figure out even India's coastal security? 26/11 has already been forgotten.

Mukesh Ambani, and others like him, are turning India into a land of economic opportunity. This is despite, let us face it, and not because of the government; a subject by itself. These discrete efforts have not been, and are not likely to be, exploited optimally by a security-blind, strategy-bereft Indian state mired in petty politics, pettier corruption and stifling bureaucratic bungling.

India's vision, as defined by those who have been positioned to formulate and articulate it, is effectively little more than the aggregate of their individual dreams. In that narrow tunnel, aspiration ends at getting their kids into Harvard and then telling India how they - and therefore the US - are superior, and how happy they are to see guys back home and their country remain a distant second. There is simply no strategic vision for powering the country to the top, or anywhere else for that matter.

India is being defeated by Indians. That is why, as the Eagle falters and the Dragon hisses, the Elephant, from which the Dragon has learnt much, sleeps.

Like Hanuman, India seems to have been cursed to forget its power. Unfortunately, this curse is not as mild. All it took Hanuman to recollect everything was a gentle reminder by Jamvant. But the Elephant that has been made to discard and deride its thousands of years old habitat, has become so weak and unsure of itself that even nasty reminders have failed to awaken it to realisation.

A persistent Jamvant is sorely needed and quickly. Vultures don't give reminders.
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DON'T 'BEGGAR-MY-BUGGERING-NEIGHBOUR', MAKE HIM BIGGER

Recently, when visuals of a few people celebrating someone's election victory in Rohtak were shown on NDTV, Shekhar Gupta remarked that they, his Haryanvi brothers, were celebrating "just because someone had won!"

That typical remark solved one mystery for me. I used to wonder how a man of Shekhar Gupta's immense experience and reach could write something as ridiculous as he sometimes does. Now I know. This man from Haryana also sometimes says things "just because someone has said so!"

A few months back, he attempted to 'educate' professionals who are in the know of the state of India's military strength and preparedness. He informed them that India was a nuclear power with the fourth largest standing army in the world, and that a resurgent India was now militarily in a terrific position to take on the Chinese. Had he backed his fanciful conclusions, designed to dishonestly lull the nation into complacency, with hard data, one would have believed that he, a journalist, had at least some rudimentary knowledge and understanding of the subject. But, not surprisingly at all, all he spoke about were some old stories, Lata's song, a movie about the 1962 debacle and the skirmishes between India and China in 1967! On the basis of that utter nonsense, he concluded - as he might have been asked to by ossified and ignorant minds in the government and the bureaucracy - that all was well on the Chinese front, and asked those in the military to stop being 'defeatist', stop fighting the 1962 war, stop panic-mongering and "stand down" .

Manifestly, as far as Shekhar Gupta and his educators are concerned, the Indian Army is telling lies when it says that it is so badly under equipped that it cannot fight and win a war; the Air Force is exaggerating when it informs the nation that it is no match for China, and that the balance of air power is worse than it was in 1962; the Navy is misleading the nation when it bemoans the fact that the Chinese have gone far, far ahead, and that we have neither the capability nor the intention to match them force for force; international experts are being being needlessly alarmist when they say that Pakistan has more nuclear weapons than India - and better delivery systems, I may add.

Last month, Gupta went many mindless steps further. He actually said that Pakistan winning its war on terror is in India's "supreme national interest!" If that was not bad enough, he went on to say that India must make "moves, offers, anything that will enhance the power and credibility" of Pakistan's government.

In his latest article in the India Express of December 05, 2009, he has gone even further to say that every dollar spent by the US in strengthening Pakistan's democratic elite "is a million invested in our future." To make this and other illogical deductions designed to ensure that India does nothing at all to strengthen itself, he has seized upon the broad statement of intent of Obama to begin withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan 18 months from now, and quoted Jay Leno! to make the US President and the military look like bums who should be taking lessons in strategy from the deaf, dumb and blind men who rule India.

Gupta talks of India's "foreign-strategic policy" doctrine objective of establishing "India's pre-eminence in its immediate neighborhood." Needless to add that in that map put up by bureaucrats in the MEA and MOD, China does not figure at all in India's immediate neighbourhood, despite a 4,000 km long disputed border. As far as they are concerned, it does not exist. But what about Pakistan, the object of obsession of their petrified minds? How do they, through Gupta, suggest that India should build the strength to "restore" that never achieved, even attempted, pre-eminence after the Americans leave? You got it: strengthen not India but Pakistan!

Gupta is happy to let India remain militarily so weak that it never develops "the traction" to do what it should have done long back in its supreme national interest. As per him, India should forget about the history of the last six decades and pretend that Pakistan's military, its ISI and the LeT either do not exist or will be magically turned into angels by a feudal Pakistani "democratic" elite that, thanks to India's support, will miraculously become powerful enough to dump jihadi terrorism, tear up school text books that preach nothing but hatred for India and re-discover in India the brother that it had violently dumped on the basis of a politico-religious ideology that has only become more extreme and violent in the last 63 years. All that India will have to do is give fatal concessions on Kashmir since it runs in the blood of Pakistanis and no Pakistani leader can survive without it. Simple! Remember Shimla 1972?

In the fifties, Nehru thought that India's foreign-strategic policy objectives (if there were any, that is) would be best served by strengthening not India but the socialist regime in China. We all know how enormously China benefitted from that panchsheel disaster. One would have expected that China would have taught India's political leaders and its babus, the ones who have colluded to keep India weak and the military out of the loop, the hard lesson that national interest can only be secured by strengthening yourself and not you potential adversary, much less an adversary who has your jugular in his cross hairs.

Tragically, that has not happened. Then the magic word of the weak was socialism; now it is democracy. Then there was no one educated or informed enough in the media to expose the harm that was being done to India by that flawed argument based on criminal ignorance and arrogance. Now, there is a powerful, but pliant section of the media that is more than willing to spread that same dangerous argument because it is told to.

Says Gupta, "Beggar-my-neighbour may be a tempting thought each time a big terror attack takes place. But big, serious nations do not run a foreign policy for cheap thrills." So next time Pakistan does another "bugger-my-neighbour" act in the form of a 26/11 or a Parliament or something even more disastrous, India must meekly and quickly run to its democratic leaders and make offers so that Pakistan's democracy is strengthened; that is the shield that will best protect India. Any response that will deter Pakistan for doing what it has been for decades - democracy or military rule - will amount to "cheap thrills."

The US must listen to this, China must listen to this, the whole world must listen to this. And laugh. India must cry.

A nation that does not learn, a nation that accepts leaders, policy makers and opinion makers who do not learn, must expect to face increasingly debilitating consequences. For this continuing criminal dereliction of national interest, India will have to keep paying a heavy price. In blood. Again and again. Till it learns...
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CAN CHINA'S MIGHT A MONK'S POWER FIGHT?

China seems to be more afraid of the Dalai Lama than most of us suspect. The Tibetan spiritual leader has been troubling them no end for decades, and their apprehensions are only increasing with every passing day. For those who believe that non-violence is powerless in these times and that without the gun nothing can be achieved, there is no better example than the Dalai Lama of the enormous power that the path of unyielding truth can generate.

Is it not ironical that super power China is today seriously concerned about virtually no one save a monk in ochre robes? With all their nukes and guns and tanks they can pressurise, even defeat, most nations on the battle field. But with what do they fight a man whose only weapon is the truth he speaks and the spiritual power that all can feel but none can see?

At stake is no small piece of land "on which not a blade of grass grows", that can just be written off, Nehru style; the fight is for a vast region the size of Western Europe, a land that was invaded by China's People's Liberation Army in 1950.

For 60 years, China has systematically replaced Tibetan language and culture with Chinese, and attempted to change the demographics of Tibet by pushing in Han Chinese settlers into it. Estimates of the number of Chinese living there now vary widely, due to opaque Chinese administrative structures, but in many cities, including capital Lhasa, they now outnumber Tibetans.

China claims that Tibet is a part of China; Tibetans believe otherwise. Both cite history to support their claims. Be that as it may, the fact is that 60 million Tibetans do not accept that their country is a part of China. In 1912, the 13th Dalai Lama stated that the relationship between the Chinese Emperor and Tibet "had been that of patron and priest" and that Tibet was an independent nation. The present Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 following the Chinese invasion has, however, accepted the reality of Chinese rule and has been demanding genuine autonomy within China, with three conditions: a) Beijing to control only defense and foreign affairs, b) the regions of Kham and Amdo to be added to Tibet and c) Han settlers to leave. For the Chinese, obsessed with total control and Han domination, this is absolutely unacceptable.

But the Dalai Lama cannot be wished away, as China desperately wants. 50 years after he left Tibet, he continues to exercise enormous influence among most Tibetans living not only in Tibet but also in China. It is surprising that communist China has not realised so far is that the more it tries to demonise him to assert its claim over Tibet and justify what it is doing there, the more respected he becomes in the eyes of Tibetans and the more the power that the Tibetan people's undying quest for freedom from its yoke gets.

The Chinese are afraid of this rising non-violent power that, it may be recalled, was seen by the whole world when it erupted suddenly in 2008, despite choking Chinese control. They remember the energy that Mahatma Gandhi unleashed, the undying fire that an incarcerated Nelson Mandela lit. So they are desperate to knock it out, before it is too late. But they just don't have the right tools to do it. So, almost like mindless robots, they continue to repeat the same mantra ever time the Dalai Lama visits a country and is honoured and received with respect by heads of state. The more he travels, the more vicious becomes China's criticism of him; the more China abuses, the greater the honour this holy man of peace receives.

That is probably why China seems to be losing it. Concerned about reports that President Obama will meet the Dalai Lama on his return from a visit to China, it has made an absolutely absurd call to America's first African-American President. It has likened slavery in America to the state of Tibetan society under the Dalai Lama!

"He is a black President and understands the slavery abolition movement." These are not words of Tibetans who want freedom from Chinese occupation and slavery, but of Beijing which wants Obama to buy this ridiculous line and shun the dangerous and "splittist" Dalai Lama. In fact China is even claiming that its stance is like Lincoln's; it too is abolishing slavery in Tibet. If China is to be believed, the Dalai Lama is the racist that the US must shun, and Hans and Tibetans are actually one people!

The US has already yielded to China's pressure. President Obama did not meet the Dalai Lama when he was in the US recently, to avoid annoying the Chinese before his visit to that country. The US may give in even more; supreme national interest and China's growing economic and military might will dictate policy.

Of what use is that awesome power when it comes to tackling a man of God? Communist China has lost its connect with its own spiritual past. It now almost exclusively follows Mao's dictum that "political power grows through the barrel of a gun...whoever has an army has power, for war settles everything." That certainly applies when you deal with nations and people ready to fight you with guns of their own.

But what do you do when someone refuses to pick a gun but also refuses to yield? How do you fight him? The British were not able find out and they left India. The Chinese can also not fight the power of a monk with their might alone. But they can find the answer; they only have to look into their own rich history, the values which they have discarded almost completely. Once they do that, may be they will want to leave Tibet on their own. It is also equally possible that then Tibetans will happily accept being part of China on honourable terms that both have experience of.

One thing is for sure. By continuing to abuse His Holiness the Dalai Lama - he has even been called a "jackal in ochre robes" - China is only accumulating bad karma. It is never going to win over the non-violent people of Tibet or legitimise its oppressive rule over them this way. It has to either annihilate them or yield. The latter will happen; it is only a question of time.

UPDATE

Barkha Dutt spoke to the Dalai Lama after this post was written. Watch him and listen to his words. An illuminating experience:

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Readers may also read: China and India: competition of civilisations

INDIA HAS MUCH TO LEARN FROM CHINA, AND MUST

China's dramatic transformation into an economic power house in virtually the blink of a sleepy Indian eye has shaken some Indian leaders out of their misplaced slumber. It is beginning to dawn on them that India has to get out of the self-congratulatory mindset that it has got stuck in following a few years of relatively rapid economic growth on a small base, because that is not going to get it anywhere close to what China has achieved. But, as always, this reactive response is very limited, and is destined to fail.

It has taken Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to ask the lethargic Planning Commission to wake up to what China has done to its railways and prepare a road map to reform Indian Railways. Two decades back, Chinese railways was behind its Indian counterpart. Today, it carries four times more freight and is expanding three times faster. Since 1992, the Chinese have added 1,000 km of tracks every year as against 100 km by the Indians. But it was India's Railway Minister Laloo Yadav who, at the behest of his bureaucrats no doubt, pompously made a fool of himself by showing off his 'management skills' to students of Harvard, Wharton, IIMs etc.

This is precisely the kind of political and bureaucratic deception that has kept India in darkness even while our biggest neighbour has flooded its almost 1.5 billion citizens with the light of progress and prosperity. The media has helped in this failure too. It has remained completely focused on the West, which is its reference point, and has continuously dismissed China, with which it is unfamiliar, in one line by saying that it has a totalitarian regime while India has democracy. 77% Indians who continue to live in darkness on Rs 20 a day must feel as blessed by democracy as the few who have millions to splurge.

We have gone horribly wrong somewhere. What makes this worse is that we could and should have done much better. This self-inflicted failure is best exemplified by the fact that the two areas in which India has excelled at a scorching pace are those where the shackles put by the government are the weakest. From a situation when there was a waiting period of 10 years to get a telephone from the government - and unaffordable long distance tariffs - to becoming the second largest mobile telephone market in the world with the lowest tariffs, in a little over a decade, is an astounding achievement. Same is the case with the software industry where India has been able to become a global player from nowhere, thanks to a few visionaries and the near-complete absence of bureaucratic interference.

There is little doubt that the whole process of governance and its framework needs to be overhauled. But, there is not even a thought in that direction. That is primarily because those who are benefitting the most by the existing system are the ones who have the power to decide on the changes to be put in place. And they know better than all of us that any real change will render them almost completely irrelevant. That is why no one looks towards China, and that is why everyone keeps going on learning tours to the West - where their kids live/study - only to come back and do nothing.

The Prime Minister must know that piecemeal directions like the one that he has given are not going to make the Indian Railways get ahead of, or even close to, the Chinese, ever. Their railways has not steamed ahead in isolation by accident. Nor has ours failed to get any real move on vital national projects like the two dedicated freight corridors, among many others, by chance or due to bad luck. Or because India is a democracy.

Something has to be done about the sloth and the lack of purpose and pride that afflicts every government department. Something has to be done to put a sense of time and urgency into decision-making and enforce accountability. Something has to be done to end the colonial disconnect between arms of the government and the people, and involve the latter more meaningfully in governance.

Even the Russians, recently 'blessed' by democracy, are not letting that model of governance blind them to the needs of their country. In 1949, the People's Republic of China was born with an ideology it had aped primarily from the erstwhile Soviet Union. Exactly 60 years later, the balance of economic and ideological power has reversed. But Russia is not sitting either on false pride or the idea of democracy. As per a report in The New York Times, it is openly looking at China as a role model. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is examining how his country can emulate China which has used a one-party system to not only keep the country well-governed but also drive unparalleled economic growth. The Russians are keen to learn lessons from the divergent paths taken by the two countries in the last couple of decades in which Russia has had to endure dark days while China has carried out a similar shift smoothly and powerfully. We should have been doing the same too.

Many living Chinese nationals have seen their country change three times almost completely. A feudal and backward nation of opium eaters became a communist state in 1949. That change turned the society on its head and lead to millions of deaths as Mao Zedong tried to put communism into practice at every level. That also resulted in a famine that saw around 35 million Chinese die. Such disasters made it evident that there was an unbridgeable and unacceptable gap between the theory and application of communism. Rapid economic growth required to catch up with West and usher all round prosperity was simply not possible with that ideology. That is why after Mao, Deng Xiaoping wisely dumped communism before if could throw the country into chaos again, and evolved a new brand of capitalism with a one-party rule. China also did not allow dynastic politics to take root, as was attempted by the Gang of Four led by Mao's widow.

In contrast, what have many living Indians seen? As far as governance is concerned, no one can tell when colonial rule ended and free India began; the only visible change that Independence ushered in was that the leaders elected by the people stopped reporting to the Governor General and the British Crown. Thanks to a couple of visits to the the Soviet Union that impressed him, Nehru tried to marry socialism with a colonial government structure, only to gave birth to the licence permit raj, unbridled corruption and many other ills that almost choked India to death. It was only after India had to pawn 47 tons of gold in the early nineties to stay afloat that some regulatory chains were loosened. That one step, forced by extreme circumstance mind you, is what saved India and allowed it to register faster economic growth. But when seen in the light of what China has achieved, our many failures easily swamp our few achievements.

Thus, if there is one nation from which India can learn the lessons it needs to about the whole business of governance and economic upliftment, it is China. The copied model that we have stuck to without daring to change some things laid down around 150 years back, has done nothing at all to give the taste of freedom and economic empowerment to nearly 80% of India's citizens even after 63 years. China, on the other hand, has continuously experimented heavily, from the individual upwards, to evolve a system that works like no other, and become a super power.

What is it in their system of governance, planning and implementation that allows the Chinese, for example, to pro-actively think of and then build the kind of railway system that they have, to construct a railway line into Tibet through permafrost conditions and heights of 16,000 feet? What are the structures of governance, revenue and expenditure in villages and towns that ensure that benefits of economic progress reach the last citizen and do not remain confined to the top 15-20%? What is their unique national security and strategy apparatus that is always ahead of the curve and on course to actualising the power and strength that is required to protect the economic and security interests of a nation of 1.5 billion people?

Answers to these and many other questions are urgently required by India. Piecemeal, reactive efforts to replicate what the Chinese have achieved are not going to take India where it should reach with its enormous and as yet unexploited strengths and capabilities. The Chinese have not reached where they have is so short a time by such reactive and disjointed efforts. Had they adopted that approach, they would surely have still been behind India in most fields, forget about going past America.

India and Bharat have to be united without further delay. And that, as should be evident to everyone by now, is not possible through the use of the very instruments of state that have created them in the first place. To this end, there is much that we can learn from China, more than we can from any other country.

A task force or commission needs to be set up without delay to study in detail every single instrument of governance, from the bottom to the top, in every single field, that China has evolved and put in place based on its experience and cultural genius. The task force should not include a single politician or bureaucrat or anyone vulnerable to them because that will make it a non-starter and ensure that only cosmetic changes that increase their power and authority are implemented. Only a completely honest and open-minded approach that has India, including Bharat, in focus will unshackle the genius of this nation and enable a vast majority of its people to experience the glow of freedom for the first time.
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Readers may also read:
1. Conspicuous consumption and conspicuous poverty
2. Focused China powers ahead of shackled India
3. China and India: competition of civilisations
4. Bharat and India: armed rebellion and mental secession
'

CHINA AND INDIA: COMPETITION OF CIVILISATIONS

In the last decade of the 20th Century, political scientist Samuel P. Huntington propounded the much debated theory of the Clash of Civilisations, according to which the fault lines between cultures and religions will be the battle lines of the future. Huntington believed that the fact that both Christianity and Islam are missionary religions that seek conversions, and hold the belief that only their faith is the correct one, contributed to this conflict. He also argued that civilisational conflicts were "particularly prevalent between Muslims and non-Muslims", and identified the "bloody borders" between Islamic and non-Islamic civilizations.

Huntington also foresaw a major shift in political, economic and military power from the West, primarily to two 'challenger civilisations', Sinic (Chinese) and Islam, and also viewed them as potential allies against the West. Significantly, he did not see any such rise of the 'Hindu' civilisation of India, and classified it as a 'swing civilisation' that may favour either side.

China's explosive rise at a never-before pace, coupled with the sharp decline in America's economic dominance, has signalled the beginning of the return of the balance of economic power from the West to the East after a few hundred years. Whether the politically fragmented Islamic world will also achieve something similar remains an open question still, because it is radical Islam which represents conflict and regression, and not conciliation and progress, that is on the rise.

On the other hand, India's rapid economic growth, signs of which were not visible when Huntington proposed his theory, is not only likely to hasten the process of the shift of power from the West to the East, but may also set in motion a civilisational dynamic that is quite different from the one that Huntington propounded.

China is a great and ancient civilisation, as is India. But, for thousands of years, it is China that has been culturally influenced, even dominated by India; the reverse has never happened. Chinese philosopher Hu Shi was only stating a plain truth when he said: "India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border." That is the deep impact the message and teachings of Gautam Buddha, and many other Indian influences, have made on China for over two thousand years.

How and why did that happen? No one could have said it better than Swami Vivekanand: "Civilizations have arisen in other parts of the world. In ancient and modern times, wonderful ideas have been carried forward from one race to another...But mark you, my friends, it has been always with the blast of war trumpets and the march of embattled cohorts. Each idea had to be soaked in a deluge of blood..... Each word of power had to be followed by the groans of millions, by the wails of orphans, by the tears of widows. This, many other nations have taught; but India for thousands of years peacefully existed. Here activity prevailed when even Greece did not exist... Even earlier, when history has no record, and tradition dares not peer into the gloom of that intense past, even from until now, ideas after ideas have marched out from her, but every word has been spoken with a blessing behind it and peace before it. We, of all nations of the world, have never been a conquering race, and that blessing is on our head, and therefore we live....!"

The Chinese, like the Indians, have historically not been a conquering race; they too have been invaded and conquered; they too have survived the onslaughts. And, like the Phoenix, they have risen again. But this time, they are apprehensive. They are alive to the fact that religion-generated clashes of civilisations and cultures demand dumping of traditional tools of response. They have also learnt from the West that, in the changed global scenario, a nation cannot protect itself and its interests by looking within and fighting its potential enemies on its soil. Wars must be fought and won on enemy territory or the high seas. That is why they are furiously arming themselves to the teeth and seeking to dominate areas and countries well beyond their real borders; the more the padding, the safer the mainland.

Above all, the Chinese can see that, for the first time in history, they have a real chance of becoming the greatest ever power on earth. And they are going full blast to achieve that objective.

That is where India comes in as a painful thorn. They know that India is still not interested in conquering any lands. They are aware that India will never impose its culture on them or anyone else in an offensive, exclusivist manner. They can also see that the India of the present is an underachiever only because it is trying hard to disown its own cultural genius and blindly ape the West.

We Indians have not seen it yet, but the Chinese know that whenever India wakes up and actuates its own potential fully, it can better China not just culturally but also economically and militarily. That is something that they don’t want to see happen. That explains why they are trying everything possible to keep India shackled, even if it means temporarily befriending a culturally incompatible Pakistan, or teaching India a lesson, like they did in 1962.

But, despite all this, there will never be a Clash of Civilisations between India and China. That theory has never applied, and will not apply in future too, to cultures of the East because there has never been, and never will be, coercive imposition or obliteration of any belief.

When India awakens and rises, therefore, there will be a real Competition of Civilisations between India and China. To some extent, a similar phenomenon will also be take place between India, China and other cultures of the East. But, there will be no battle lines between these civilisations and no clash. Why only the East? The US too is undergoing rapid changes culturally, Obama being the most visible symbol so far. How long it will take for the metamorphosis to be completed is anyone's guess, but if it does happen, it will become a very different nation.

Competition of Civilisations may conceptually not be destructive and violent. But that does not mean that there will no armed conflicts in this competitive space. When a Chinese scholar says in the context of India and China that there cannot be two suns (yang) in the sky, what he is trying to say is that China does not want to be the moon (ying), again; it is time for India to accept that role or China will use the power that it has built up to push it into that orbit.

China wants to be the Yang and compel India to limit itself to being the Ying. As far as China is concerned, as long as India accepts that role, there will be a perfect and complimentary union between these two great nations. But should India try and convert itself into Yang, the Dragon will react. India, on the other hand, may not want to be the aggressive yang, but it will soon discover that continuing to play ying is only going to make it more vulnerable, even on its own soil.

The Competition of Civilisations is, thus, going to mirror the everlasting yin-yang play. It may get very dirty and even violent from time to time. But, unlike in the Clash of Civilisations, it will never degenerate into a terminal gladiatorial fight. That is one lesson that India has taught China well, one that the rest of the world will learn at some stage.

Related reading: Focused China powers ahead of shackled India
'

FOCUSED CHINA POWERS AHEAD OF SHACKLED INDIA

"Political power grows out from the barrel of a gun...whoever has an army has power, for war settles everything". 82 years after Mao Zedong uttered these immortal words to guide his country forward, China has erupted dramatically on the international scene from nowhere as a super power that is on course to replace the US as the greatest military power the world has ever seen.

Just 60 years ago, the People's Republic of China (PRC) was born from the ruins of a civil war and an eight-nation military invasion during which millions of lives were lost. The Chinese follow a 60 year Luni-solar calendar. October 1, 2009 marked the completion of the first cycle since the present Republic was established, and the beginning of a new one. That is why the Chinese marked this day with a dazzling show of military might that no one would have thought was possible just twenty years ago.

India became independent two years before PRC came into existence. At that time, both nations were almost equally backward and poor. While India started an uninterrupted but excruciatingly slow march towards development almost immediately after Independence, China went into a near tailspin from which it could not have recovered but for the resilience of its people and their 'chi ku'. The great famine of 1959-61 claimed around 30 million lives, and millions more were killed due to Mao's disastrous cultural revolution. In fact till 1978, when Deng Xiaoping threw classic communism out of the window to get economic cats of all colours as long as they could catch mice, India was economically almost at par with that country, although militarily it had already allowed itself to fall way behind.

But, despite these initial disasters, China neither forgot its history nor its goals, as it saw them, and used its military power to settle all issues decisively and expeditiously in its favour. Within 13 days of the formation of the PRC, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) trooped into Xinjiang and began the process of rapidly changing its demographics. As a result, as per Chinese census, the number of Han Chinese increased from 200,000 in 1949 to 7.49 million in 2000. A year later, Chinese troops marched into Tibet and by September 1951, entered Lhasa and started settling Han Chinese there too. Around the same time, India was incorporating Article 370 in its constitution to help turn Kashmir into a permanent conflict zone that would claim the lives of thousands of Indian soldiers later.

Even as Mao was trying his level best to give Nehru much needed lessons about the inescapability of having of a strong military, Nehru was busy deluding himself that the era of wars was over, that India did not need an Army and that its borders could be managed by the police. Though he could see that China was speedily converting India's buffer against that country into its buffer against India, and pushing Chinese troops, for the first time in history, to India's borders, he reportedly welcomed China's annexation of Tibet on the ground that a dose of socialism would be good for the people of Tibet.

Consistently ignoring the advise of his generals to enhance the capability of the military as the threat from the Chinese grew larger, and letting Krishna Menon play havoc with the ministry of defence, Nehru all but invited the Chinese to rout India's ill equipped and outnumbered troops in 1962. No matter what he may have done earlier, there is no way that Nehru would have got away in any self-respecting country with his monumental blunders that culminated in the 1962 rout. That he is still remembered with respect, not shame, explains to some extent as to why India continues to remain foolishly passive, and mentally and militarily weak.

47 years have passed since 1962. In these years, China has sprinted ahead to become a military giant that evokes awe. India, on the other hand, has remained content with having a much inferior military capability that has not been able to deter even a much smaller Pakistan from vigorously pursuing a proxy war for over two decades now. Mind you this is in spite of the fact that China has never stopped claiming that Arunachal Pradesh and other smaller pieces of territory all along its 4000 km long border with India are a part of China, and has doggedly refused to give up any of its territorial claims in the innumerable rounds of border talks it has held with India over many years.

China knows only too well that no government in India can afford to give up any territory to China on the negotiating table. China also knows that India's strategy-blind politicians have foolishly pushed aside and capped the barrel of India's gun, and mindlessly allowed China to speed away in conventional and nuclear military capability. India, they also know from past experience, will quickly accept reality whenever China invokes the golden lesson of Mao to settle the boundary issue in its favour.

More disturbing than the fact that China has raced ahead of India is the near complete absence of hurt pride among the elite that is responsible for, and has benefitted disproportionately from, the path that India has chosen. Not only is this lot absolutely comfortable with the increasing gap that China has created and is going to maintain, it is also conning fellow Indians and preventing them from reacting in the manner they must, by lulling them with the lollipops of 'democracy' and dishonest half-truths.

Democracy is not the reason why India has fallen behind, just as communism is not the reason why China has powered ahead. The US is a democracy as are all countries of Western Europe, while communism has failed and collapsed everywhere. China is where it is today because its leaders have shown a realism and dynamism to ruthlessly discard, where necessary, copied systems and ideologies, and adopt new ones keeping in mind the nation's objectives. They have thrown into the dustbin virtually everything Mao taught and practiced except the one thing that got into China's fold vast swathes of territory and made it secure against another aggression or invasion. India, on the other hand, refuses to change track; individuals and families continue to take precedence over the nation.

China has not forgotten the fact that it was invaded in WW2; nor has it forgotten the earlier invasions of the Mongols and others. "Remember history well, do not forget the past"; that is what Chinese President tells Hu Jintao tells his people. India's leaders and bureaucrats, with the help of power journalists like Shekha Gupta, on the other hand, want Indians to forget the past; remembering it reveals the harsh truth that they have failed to learn the needed lessons and do whatever it takes to ensure that we are not tripped in the same manner by anyone ever again. It is not out of thin air that Mao spoke of the need of a powerful military much before the communists came to power. It is not by accident that China is today a military super power while India not even in the frame.

We don't need enemies to defeat us; there are many among us who, like always, are doing that job well. That is one reason why some don't want us to remember what happened in the past.

As you would have noticed while watching that awesome show of Chinese military might, the military not only projects a nation's power, it is a powerful symbol that visibly enhances national pride among it citizens and awe, fear and respect among those of other countries. As a result a powerful nation wins many 'wars' without firing a single shot and losing a single life. The Chinese understand that well. But in a nation where cops and generalist bureaucrats can think of nothing better than running the nation's military down just to claim top spot for themselves as individuals with the help of conniving media personalities and corrupt politicians, what better can you expect, except dirty tricks to sweep their dirt under the carpet, even as the nation continues to remain much, much weaker than it should be and therefore almost afraid and ever ready to crawl? Can something so illogical and dysfunctional be even imagined in China and the US?

It is not just the military. China has also put in place a system of governance and employed ideologies that are unique to the requirements of that country. India, on the other hand, has not only not stuck to a model of democracy blindly copy-pasted from a very different and tiny island, but has actually further subverted and corrupted it willfully to suit the selfish interests of a few individuals, cadres and groups, who very well know that the nation has paid and is paying a heavy price for it. For them, the self comes above all else.

More than 30 million Chinese died of starvation 60 years ago. Today there is not one Chinese below the poverty line. Very few Indians have died of starvation in the last 60 years. But today 880 million of them live a sub human existence on less than Rs 20 a day. What meaning does democracy have for them? Should we the better off be so selfish as to be happy with a system that gives us the kind of 'freedom' we want but keeps many, many more just as poor and enslaved as they were 62 years back?

The very, very few who have become very rich and powerful due to their sometimes criminal and almost anti-national decisions that continue to keep nearly 70% Indians in the dark bowels of deprivation and exploitation, and the nation militarily as vulnerable as it was in 1962, want status quo to be maintained. They want Indians to continue to remain ignorant of their many colossal failures because an honest and much needed overhaul will throw them from the perches they have dishonestly created for themselves, mostly at the cost of the nation.

If India has to break free of the terrible shackles that they have put around it, they have to be ruthlessly weeded out. There is no other way.

India desperately needs a Deng Xiaoping.
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Readers may also like to read:
1. Facing the challenge of China's military modernisation
2. China and India:winning wars vs defending the country
3. India's 'Power': weakness=virtue, strength=immorality
4. China and India: bully and forever bullied
5. Democracy, morality and national interest
6. Myanmar lost to China: India's encirclement complete
7. Diplomacy cannot counter China's challenge
8. China gets dangerous, but nothing can move India
9. Admission before accusation, surrender before attack
'

ADMISSION BEFORE ACCUSATION, SURRENDER BEFORE ATTACK

Chinese intrusions into Indian territory are not only increasing disturbingly, they are also occurring in new areas, besides becoming becoming more and more audacious, as if to taunt India. Yet, the response of those who are ru(i)nning India's Ministry of Defence (MOD) continues to be like that of a petrified lamb that has been unexpectedly confronted by a tiger. But even by their standards, the way they have responded to the latest report of Chinese intrusion into India territory is shocking.

In the latest incident, Chinese troops entered nearly 1.5 kilometers into Indian territory, painted rocks with red spray paint, and wrote "China" in Cantonese on them. What makes this intrusion really serious is that this is the first time since Independence that the Chinese have entered this area and graphically claimed it as their own. The 22,420 ft Mount Gya is located at the tri-junction of Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Tibet. Its boundary was marked during the British era and regarded as the international boundary between the two countries.

The Chinese, as always, have rejected India's accusation as groundless and about something that has not happened at all, along with a stereotyped statement that China is committed "to seek a fair and mutually acceptable solution through peaceful and friendly negotiation". The Chinese response is perfectly justified because that country has no illusions about the real estate it must grab by force at the right time, to complete the unfinished agenda and humiliation of 1962. So, it has been systematically and relentlessly projecting its national will, and creating "evidence" all along the more than 4,000 kilometer long border. This will be used later, backed by photographs surely, to justify its occupation by saying that these areas always were part of China.

What does India's MOD have to say? "This incursion is not a major issue". That is not all. It has also given the Chinese a completely clean chit on the logic that there is a difference in perception of the Line of Actual Control (LAC). But the icing on this cake of abject surrender is the statement that "incursions happen from both sides". This "proactive" admission has been made even when the Chinese have not accused Indian troops of a violation, just to make sure that they don't bare their real fangs yet. Have we ever heard of China accusing Indian troops of repeatedly intruding into Tibet like India does almost every second day? (It might start now). Is it not Chinese troops alone who keep entering deep into Indian territory repeatedly on the quiet to leave behind tell-tale signs of their presence, to deliberately let the Indians know that, as far as they are concerned, those cold and inhospitable areas belong to China?

No doubt there are some parts in the difficult terrain along the LAC where it is not easy to identify the watershed. But, will anyone answer as to why all doubts and disputes pertain to areas that fall on India's side of the perceived watershed? Have the Indians ever dared to claim even an inch of Tibet that is now China thanks primarily to the fatal strategic blindness of Nehru?

China's latest military doctrine states that "unresolved border disputes would be one reason for going to war". Its southwest border (with India) has also been identified as a potential theater of war. China has 14 neighbours. It had border disputes with most of them, including Russia. But over the years, it has solved its disputes with 12. The only ones that China has doggedly refused to resolve are the ones with India and Bhutan. Unlike Nehru, who simply wrote off "distant" Aksai Chin, the Chinese are unrelenting in their intention to grab even more land in remote and inhospitable areas which are far away from mainland China.

The latest incursion into Himachal Pradesh/Ladakh has never happened before. The decision to intrude so deep into this area surely would not have been taken locally. There is a significant political message in this display of national will. Is it not a major issue that should cause serious concern? One would like to believe that MOD's statement is for public consumption and that privately India is taking necessary steps to ensure that the Chinese do not dare to try a 1962 again.

Unfortunately, that is not true at all. The babus of MOD have already surrendered to the might of China and are seemingly content to patiently wait for it to put India out of the misery of border violations by grabbing Arunachal Pradesh and other claimed areas to settle the dispute once and for all. Which other MOD will actually pay glowing tributes to China as an "important player in global affairs", proceeding firmly ahead on its "well charted out goals"? In its annual report of 2008, the MOD, in fact, not only pretends that there is no threat from China but also lauds that country for "improving bilateral relations with its neighbouring countries at diplomatic, economic and military levels"! Even the Pentagon is concerned about China's military build up. Perhaps that is because it is in the hands of honest, nationalist professionals, and not unaccountable, time serving bureaucrats.

India's military leaders, unfortunately, are little better. They have meekly played along with the babus, despite knowing better as professionals and as leaders on whose command young sons of India are expected to die without asking why. There is a widespread belief within the services that successive Army Chiefs have sold their souls, and their country, out of greed for post retirement rehabilitation as Governors and Ambassadors. Present Army Chief Deepak Kapoor's very guarded statements and the ominous silence of his not-so-illustrious predecessors lends real credence to this belief that would be a cause of concern in any responsive military organisation. Little wonder these guys do not enjoy the kind of respect that real leaders of men do.

Such being the state of India's national security apparatus, does India have real options? A besieged fort cannot be held by firing flower bouquets from its cannons or by waiving the white flag every time a cannon ball hits it. Perhaps there is an unintended point in Chetan Bhagat's juvenile views. The way things are, India will do well to show great "statesmanship" and "good neighbourliness" by unilaterally giving Kashmir to Pakistan, and Arunachal Pradesh and other claimed areas to China.

Why wait for lakhs of Indians to be slaughtered when you know that defeat is certain whenever the besieger decides to launch an assault? Admission before accusation must logically lead to surrender before attack. No?
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Readers may also like to read:
1. Facing the challenge of China's military modernisation
2. China and India:winning wars vs defending the country
3. India's 'Power': weakness=virtue, strength=immorality
4. China and India: bully and forever bullied
5. Democracy, morality and national interest
6. Myanmar lost to China: India's encirclement complete
7. Diplomacy cannot counter China's challenge
8. China gets dangerous, but nothing can move India

INDIA'S SECURITY CHALLENGES: WHO CARES!

In the chain of adverse developments which must cause serious concern to India, the latest is that Pakistan already has 70 to 90 nuclear weapons and is pushing ahead with a superior plutonium-based nuclear program. A new nuclear-capable ballistic missile and two similar cruise missiles are also under development. This news is serious enough to make India's Army Chief Deepak Kapoor say that Pakistan is going well beyond the "so-called requirement of deterrence".

Consider the following related developments:

• The Obama administration has notified the US Congress that Pakistan has modified US supplied Harpoon anti-ship missiles to hit land targets
• The US has also accused Pakistan of modifying US made P-3C Orion aircraft for land attack missions
• Chinese intrusions into India territory have shown an alarming increase
• Chinese military journals are getting increasingly hostile, reminding India of the 1962 debacle and warning India that the next time China "will not pull back 30 km" as it had then.
• A recent article in a quasi-official Chinese website says that it is in China's interest to break India into 20-30 pieces and that it must recover the 90,000 square km territory of Southern Tibet, or Arunachal Pradesh.
• China is aggressively trying to encircle India from all sides. It latest gas pipeline agreement with Myanmar to supply 100 billion cubic metres of gas annually is a huge step in that direction.
  

One can go on adding to this list which should make it clear to anyone with even ordinary intelligence that India is surrounded by at least two neighbours who are furiously developing offensive military capability. If you view this in the light of the fact that both China and Pakistan do not have unresolved disputes with any country other than India and also face no real security threat from any other nation, then you cannot escape the logical deduction that India needs not only to reactively take measures to protect itself, but it also needs to do something proactively to put it past Pakistan to compete with India militarily, quite like China has done to India.

Unfortunately, in India, national security is often viewed as an unpleasant and unnecessary intrusion into and against national development. The natural, and uninformed, if I may add, Indian impulse is to unilaterally "give in" while negotiating with neighbours, in the fond hope that as a result, peace will prevail and money "wasted" on defence better used "productively". Despite the many nasty experiences of the past, we simply refuse to understand that any concessions given out of a weakness that is visible to all can buy only illusory peace, with serious long term repercussions.

This defeatist mindset tries to cover up its weakness by seeking moral sustenance from Buddha and Gandhi, conveniently forgetting that in their lexicon, the word "cowardice" does not exist.

A perfect example of this debilitating disease that has already cost the nation heavy, is a column by author Chetan Bhagat in the Hindustan Times of August 24, 2009. The arguments put forth by Bhagat are, in fact, so juvenile and out of touch with reality that it is a given that had his name not been appended to them, the essay would have found place only in a trash bin.

That is India's difficulty. Bhagat is not alone. There are many like him out there who, when it comes to national security, effectively say the same thing: "Who cares!".

Sample some of the unbelievable statements made by Bhagat in the column in question:

• How badly do we want Kashmir? At the cost of making colleges for the young generation in the country? At the cost of not doing irrigation projects for our farmers? At the cost of not building roads and power plants? At the cost of living in high inflation forever?
• We can have an alliance with another nation if the aim of defence is to protect our borders. For instance, America has a big need to ensure safety of its own borders and cut global terrorism. We can work with them — yes, by giving them some access to our country. For us, it can save costs of protecting ourselves...We may shudder at the presence of American involvement in our defence, but frankly what advantage could they gain against us if they help us protect our borders?...They have much to gain from our potential market for American products and cheap outsourcing... let’s outsource some of our defence to them, make them feel secure and save money for us. Having a rich, strong friend rarely hurt anyone.
• We need to have peace not only because it is a good thing — but also because we can’t afford to fight or stay prepared to fight for the next 20 years. We are hiring more security guards outside the house when there isn’t money to put the kids in school...Money spent on bullets doesn’t give returns, money spent on better infrastructure does.

Is this guy talking about the security of huge nation of 1.3 billion people or about making peace in some "mohalla" with a small change give-don't-take accommodation?

In the forties, Pandit Nehru effectively said "who cares" about the rest of Kashmir when Indian forces were poised to march to Muzaffarabad. In the fifties, he said the same thing about the 38,000 square kms of territory that the Chinese occupied in Aksai Chin. In 1962, it was "who cares" about the people of the entire North East when Nehru bid them goodbye from India after he came to know that Chinese troops had reached the outskirts of Tezpur.

Today, it is "How badly do we need Kashmir?". Tomorrow the likes of Bhagat will ask the same question about Arunachal Pradesh, what to talk of the 5,180 sq kms of Kashmir ceded to the Chinese by Pakistan in 1963, which has all but been written off. After that, it might be Bengal, Andaman Islands, Punjab and perhaps even the place where Bhagat comes from. How can one forget that Pakistani leaders are already justifying terrorism not just to wrest Kashmir but due to the "condition of Muslims in the rest of India"? No prizes for guessing where that road is headed. But, who cares! As long as some money can be "saved" to build roads, colleges etc.

Even worse is Bhagat's not-smarter-than-a-fifth-grader suggestion to outsource the protection of our borders to the US! I mean how can anyone with even a pretense of intelligence think like that? Why outsource just defence? Why not outsource governance too? And become their de facto colony?(That will automatically happen when you outsource defence). They will then be able to recruit Indians as soldiers to fight and die for them all over the world in return for the kind of "protection" that the British provided to us when they ruled India! Then both Pakistan and China will also not be able to cast an evil eye on this "country". And our kids will be able to go to great colleges, drive on smooth highways, shop in swanky malls, and say "who cares" with gay abandon! Great deal! Wonder why a much smaller Pakistan has never thought of it. It will get Kashmir in a jiffy if it resorts to such terrific outsourcing.

No wonder Bhagat does not have the capacity to question America's "big need to ensure the safety of its own borders and cut global terrorism", even as he dismisses India's security needs. No wonder it has not even struck him that China spends many times more than India on its defence despite not having even a fraction of the threats that India faces, or the fact that it has been doing so since decades and not after it has become economically strong. No wonder he sees in Pakistan a harmless dove - despite a much higher GDP spend on offensive defence and terrorism - that a hawkish India does not want to reconcile with and to whom it wants to teach a lesson, for no reason whatsoever!

Bhagat's closing argument that India needs to have peace because "we can't afford to fight or stay prepared to fight for the next 20 years" sums up not only his abysmal ignorance about the fact that real peace between nations comes at a price, but also lays bare the same fatal misconception that led Nehru to say before 1962 that India does not need an Army and that its borders could be manned by the police.

Unfortunately for India, variants of this view continue to dominate India's security structure. Babus who have the NSA and the MOD in a vice-like grip, have no expertise in matters related to strategy and are also not accountable to anyone. Perhaps some of them are planning to get the government to agree to a surrender on Kashmir. Perhaps Bhagat's column has been sponsored as part of a plan to prepare the nation to meekly accept the impending unlocking of the main gate of the fortress called India.

So what if the fortress falls speedily after that, as it undoubtedly will. At worst India will be back to where it was a little over half a century ago, isn't it? Who cares!

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1. Facing the challenge of China's military modernisation
2. China and India:winning wars vs defending the country
3. India's 'Power': weakness=virtue, strength=immorality
4. China and India: bully and forever bullied
5. Democracy, morality and national interest
6. Myanmar lost to China: India's encirclement complete
7. Diplomacy cannot counter China's challenge
8. China gets dangerous, but nothing can move India
9. Musharraf's shockers on terror, Kashmir and Indian Muslims
10. India, learn how to get Pakistan to walk