Can India ever shed its 'soft state' image?

Despite India’s massive size, physically or economically, and power, military and economic, the country has essentially failed to act decisively in the face of difficult situations. Our establishment has rarely adhered to the English Axiom “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

Take for instance, the latest Chinese incursion inside our territory. The response of the civilian leadership i.e. the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the PMO was in denial mode. Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid started by dismissing the incident and then describing it as localised “acne” sort of affair. Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh borrowed Khurshid’s term and described the incident as “localised” when he should have led from the front and supported MEA spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin’s statement that the “Chinese should revert to status-quo ante”.

Instead of firmly responding to the emerging challenge, the establishment adopted a despicable pretence to create an artificial environment of goodwill and bonhomie in the run up to the May 20 visit of new Chinese premier Li Keqiang. The meek response of Indian leadership is baffling when Chinese are busy violating the LAC. 

Not so long ago, China denied visa to Arunachal Pradesh chief minister citing it as disputed territory. Before that, it issued a stapled visa to Lt. Gen. BS Jaswal, the head of Indian Army’s northern command or Chinese stance vis-a-vis Indian oil exploration efforts off the Vietnam coast. It only goes to show the extent of Chinese attitude which to say the least is hostile towards India. Their engagement with most of our neighbourhood is to encircle India and subdue our interests. Is it India’s responsibility alone to trumpet peace?

Even if we give the benefit of the doubt to our civilian leadership vis-a-vis China, it is baffling that why India is losing grip in the subcontinent. Is New Delhi’s diplomatic weight in the sub-continental capitals waning or waned? Earlier, India’s supremacy in the subcontinent was contested, primarily by Pakistan and to a lesser extent by Khaleda Zia-led Bangladesh, but it was never challenged by smaller neighbours such as Sri Lanka, Nepal and Maldives. The leadership in these nations heeded Indian concerns. The same cannot be said with conviction today. 

In Maldives, the pro-India president Mohammed Nasheed has been ousted last year in a soft coup. The drama which unfolded since then and involved the Indian High Commission in Male is quite well-known to be recapped here. Likewise, Bangladesh especially under Khaleda Zia led governments adopts a suspecting and bellicose approach towards New Delhi. Not so long ago during Indian President Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to Dhaka, Khaleda cancelled her meeting with the Indian president on dubious pretext. 

Sri Lanka is becoming another theatre for Sino-Indian rivalry. Not only Chinese investments are increasing in the Island, but also the two nations are on the same page on human rights. With Beijing as a leveller in Colombo, Indian calls for better treatment and political reconciliation of the ethnic Tamils in Lanka are being ignored. This is despite whole-hearted Indian support to President Mahinda Rajapaksa during the war with the LTTE.

India’s failure to protect its people has been laid bare in the most embarrassing manner vis-a-vis Pakistan. There has not been any tangible progress on the prosecution of the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. It’s an open secret that the ISI-led anti-India establishment in Pakistani Army is waging an unconventional war and employs all strategies including plotting terror attacks to harm India and its interests. Whether it is within India or abroad, ISI has been doing it successfully against India for more than three decades now.

Unless Indian establishment realigns itself with these hard realities, it won’t earn respect of its people as well as other nations. Time to prove Gunnar Myrdal (the man who coined the soft state term) wrong! 

Sore points in India-China relations 

April 1954: Nehru and Chou En-lai sign Panchsheel Agreement – the Sino-Indian Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between India and Tibet region of China in Beijing.

January 1959: Chou En-lai expresses China's claim on about 40,000 square miles of Indian Territory both in Ladakh and NEFA.

September 1959: China refuses to accept the McMohan Line. Chou Enlai justifies this by stating that China was not a signatory between British India and England. Further, Beijing lays claim to nearly 50,000 sq. miles of territory in Sikkim and Bhutan.

September 1962: Chinese forces cross McMohan Line, skirmishes ensue.

October 1962: China engages in prolonged attack along the border from NEFA to Ladakh

November 15-18, 1962: Fighting breaks out in Eastern and Western sectors.

November 21, 1962: China declares unilateral cease-fire along the India-China border, withdrawing its troops to 20 km behind LAC.

December 8, 1962: Chou En-lai reintroduces three-point cease-fire; India accepts.

1986: Differences surface over the limits of the McMohan Line in Arunachal Pradesh's Sumdorung Chu area.

14 May 1998: China strongly condemns India's nuclear tests.

July 1998: China urges India and Pakistan to give up their nuclear ambitions and sign the NPT.

May 25, 2007: China denies a visa to a government official from Arunachal Pradesh, arguing that since the state is in fact a part of China he would not require a visa to visit his own country.

October 13, 2009: India and China become embroiled in a dispute over Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Arunachal Pradesh. China expresses "strong dissatisfaction" on the visit to the "disputed area." India responds by saying Arunachal Pradesh is an "integral and inalienable" part of India.

August 27, 2010: India cancels defense exchanges with China after Beijing refuses to permit Lt Gen BS Jaswal, head of the northern command, a visa because he "controlled" the disputed area of Jammu and Kashmir. India subsequently refuses to allow two Chinese defense officials to visit New Delhi. 

November 2010- China started the practice of issuing stapled visas to people from Jammu and Kashmir. 

Sore Points in India-Bangladesh Relations 

2001 April - Seven killed in bomb blast at a Bengali New Year concert in Dhaka. Sixteen Indian and three Bangladeshi soldiers killed in their worst border clashes.

2010 March- Pranab Mukherjee recent trip to Bangladesh it a discordant note when opposition leader and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson Khaleda Zia called off a meeting with him.

Sore Points in India-Pakistan Relations  

1999 May - Kargil conflict: Pakistan-backed forces clash with the Indian military in the icy heights around Kargil in Indian-held Kashmir. More than 1,000 people are killed on both sides.

2001 December - India, Pakistan prompt fears of full-scale war by massing troops along common border amid growing tensions over Kashmir following suicide attack on Indian parliament.

2007 February - Sixty-eight passengers are killed by bomb blasts and a blaze on a train travelling between the Indian capital New Delhi and the Pakistani city of Lahore.

2008 December - India blames Mumbai attacks in November on Pakistani-based militants and demands Pakistan take action. Islamabad denies involvement but promises to co-operate with the Indian investigation.

July 2009 - India and Pakistan agree to fight terrorism jointly. But Singh, after talks with Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in Egypt, rules out a resumption of formal peace talks that Islamabad had been seeking.

August 2011- Shooting at the Indo-Pak border resulted in killing of one Indian and three Pakistani soldiers.  Both countries gave different accounts of the incident, each accusing the other of initiating the hostilities.

January 2013- Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire as they targeted Indian posts along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir. A firefight broke out and two Indian soldiers were killed and were 'beheaded by Pakistani troops’. 

Mumbai Attack Trial in Pakistan is still on

More than four years after the Mumbai attack, the trial is yet not complete. Recently, Pakistan’s Anti-terrorism court conducting the trial of seven men charged with involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks issued summons to six witnesses for selling a boat and other equipment to the accused. Earlier, Indian authorities didn’t respond to Pakistan’s request to allow a Pakistani judicial commission to cross-examine and record the statements of four witnesses in Mumbai. The trial was started on October 3, 2009 in Pakistan. 

Whereas in India six months after the police filed the charge-sheet against suspected LeT operative and key plotter of 26/11 Mumbai terror strike Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari, the trial is set to start from May 4, 2013.