If Bump comes to Thump!

Bump!

Things that go bump in the night
Should not really give one a fright
It’s the hole in each ear
That let’s in the fear,
That, and the absence of light!
Spike Milligan


If Bump comes to Thump!

There’s Tibet, the now septuagenarian Dalai Lama and his band of 180,000 restive refugees, and there’s China; and let it be admitted-- we are scared of China. We are afraid of China’s Han temperament, its military might and economic dynamism, and the fear psychosis that has haunted us since they beat us up, without much ado, in 1962.

But for China, having spent USD 40 billion on an Olympic Games makeover, being put over an inconvenient Tibetan barrel feels like its being held to unfair ransom, and brings out the steel in its Maoist soul, along with its army, the secret police, the censor board, and the light persuasion of electric-shocking cattle prods.

But even without the current Olympic overhang, China casts a sinister shadow. She does not accept the existing colonial borders, in either the North East or the North West of India. And let us remember that she made quick work of snatching Akshai Chin from under the chimerical Chatra Chayya of Hindi-Cheeni-Bhai-Bhai and Nehru’s naive nose. That is how China gained land access to Tibet in the first place and we only woke up to a Chinese built road in 1957.

The Red Dragon is not willing to adhere to the Johnson or McMahon Lines, drawn, quaintly, if painstakingly, with a blunt red pencil by the Empire’s designated Cartographer cum Politico of the time. Instead, China asserts, with vomit inducing regularity, that modern countries cannot be bound over by colonial inheritances. What counts is traditional hegemony, calling Arunachal Pradesh-- South Tibet; and Ladakh an integral part of Tibet too. In short: Might is Right.

But on our part, we never seem to let Indian Might or Right or even Potential enter into the equation. Perhaps it’s a Gandhian hangover, but we should not expect a World War, with its third-party decimation of our oppressors and overlords, to come to the rescue of our peace-loving souls every time!

But who will explain this to Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, speaking for the Government of India, after the 300,000 Chinese troops worth of pogrom unleashed in Tibet? We cautioned the Dalai Lama and earned a pat on the back from China. So, as the French say; the more things change the more they stay the same!

But France, under its new President of Hungarian extraction, does have the guts to threaten non-participation in the Beijing Olympics. As does Germany, ruled by a woman. This, even as Britain, mindful of its desire to be Olympic hosts in 2012; and the United States, looking to cheap Chinese goods and Chinese money in their Treasury Bonds, do not. Of course, if India refuses to go to the Olympics, we can’t expect to be missed as a sporting entity.

In 1959, the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan refugees came to us. China wasted no time in asserting that Tibet was an integral part of China with no ifs and buts about autonomy, let alone the independence the younger Tibetan people still aspire to! What a far cry from our perpetual dithering over Kashmir!

We acquiesced in that first show of strength, influenced by our Left leanings; a Fabian Socialist Prime Minister Nehru and a China admiring Defence Minister Krishna Menon; and probably, the romance of playing post-colonial, non-aligned statesmen on the world stage. But Mao and Chou-en-Lai saw our vulnerability, and, they couldn’t, with their peasant cunning, see why China should not push her advantage in 1962.

We pandered shamelessly, over a half century ago, and we are doing it again now, little realising that we are setting ourselves up again both in the North-East and North- West. For we are displaying the same lack of resolve and tacit declaration of military inadequacy, and refusing, on ideological and obscurantist grounds, and hopes of trade considerations outweighing hegemonistic ones; to strengthen our hands while we can.

In 2008, as a nuclear power ourselves, albeit an inferior one, this refusal to even mewl a political protest in support of the Dalai Lama and the people of Tibet makes us unfit to assume our place in history. Every day we seem to make it clear that we are not ready yet. We advertise our self-assessment as a second-rate power, in Asia, let alone the world! We lack “moxy”, even in comparison to a feisty, failing, Pakistan, a destroyed and civil-warring Iraq, a resolute Iran, or a re-talibanising Afghanistan -- undaunted for having been pounded, just recently, into the “Stone Age”.

But let us see what we, an ostensibly “soft” state, could do if we want. Militarily, should we mean business, we can have America’s help backed by NATO and the Western Alliance, and that of our traditional allies Russia’s too. If we stop dithering and actually take sides, we can have access to all the nuclear know-how and uranium we want, along with the most sophisticated military equipment globally available.

Economically, though coming up from a long way behind, we are now the second biggest success story after China in the world today. If the Chinese financial market has lost 35% after a 200% plus rise recently; India has lost 25% after a 100% plus rise too. If China has a trillion plus US dollars in financial reserves, India does have over 300 billion dollars as well, well up from less than the ten we had in 1991.

And, after all is said and done, India is a thriving democracy, with large helpings of political, as well as economic freedom to choose the pathways to our destiny. Our institutions, antiquated and creaky as they are, do work after a fashion. Our checks and balances, crude and unsophisticated, subject to subversion and fraud, do nevertheless keep India more honest than many a developed economy. Our banking system, while much smaller than that of the Chinese, is stronger, better regulated, less likely to be riddled with non-performing assets (NPA) under the eiderdown. We have no need to be so pessimistic about our chances if we look China in the eye. Unfortunately, we are innately timid, and China knows it.


(1,050 words)

By Gautam Mukherjee
Friday, 04 April 2008

Published also in The Pioneer www.dailypioneer.com on 9th April 2008 as "We're Timid and China Knows It" in Leader Edit slot, Edit Page