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Wednesday, July 19, 2006
New Signboards at Indian Airports
Talking Of Hypocrisy
There would not have been a better time for India as a nation to exert its newly found international recognition than in the aftermath of the Mumbai bombings, but unfortunately (and expectedly so), we did the “our usual” - which is to alternate between basking in self glory and wallowing in self pity – of course taking no reasonable actions at any point in time. I am not at all an advocate of unnecessary violence, but in the world of politics and policies you do not get counted by merely surviving. It is the ones who can walk the talk that matter. The customary speech of “no one can make India kneel” is nothing more than a required part of our unreasonable response to the Mumbai attacks. At a time when there is strong international support for India, we could have done more than what we did.
I have always been bewildered by many of our positions. To me, it seems we are high on rhetoric, but low on action. Our actions do not necessarily back up our positions. On the one hand, we want to have permanent UNSC membership, but our foreign policy has never been able to mature beyond Pakistan. We do not have any response to the situation in Sri Lanka and take a hands off approach. We hardly did anything that the world noticed in Nepal. We have no comments on the situation in Iraq or Iran. We have had no reaction to the situation in North Korea or the recent crisis in Middle East. We have not offered our diplomatic efforts to any major international affair (at least none that the common man knows of). It is arguable that we are more concerned at this point with our own economic development, but, opportunity does not keep on knocking. If we need to be recognized as a major international power, economic strength is an absolute requirement, but then so is political clout. This is akin to the situation we face daily in our lives. It is not just enough to work hard – you have to be able to work smart to move up!! By the way, if you recall, this is not the first time when our hypocrisy has been so evident. Recall the era of Non Aligned Movement (NAM) – (Do not know why it still exists because the Cold War has been long over), when we were the founder of this movement and we were shamelessly “aligned” to USSR for all practical purposes!!
Finally today we have a government that has more economic sense than any government since our independence. I hope in the near future we get a government that is savvy on the foreign policy front as well!!
I have always been bewildered by many of our positions. To me, it seems we are high on rhetoric, but low on action. Our actions do not necessarily back up our positions. On the one hand, we want to have permanent UNSC membership, but our foreign policy has never been able to mature beyond Pakistan. We do not have any response to the situation in Sri Lanka and take a hands off approach. We hardly did anything that the world noticed in Nepal. We have no comments on the situation in Iraq or Iran. We have had no reaction to the situation in North Korea or the recent crisis in Middle East. We have not offered our diplomatic efforts to any major international affair (at least none that the common man knows of). It is arguable that we are more concerned at this point with our own economic development, but, opportunity does not keep on knocking. If we need to be recognized as a major international power, economic strength is an absolute requirement, but then so is political clout. This is akin to the situation we face daily in our lives. It is not just enough to work hard – you have to be able to work smart to move up!! By the way, if you recall, this is not the first time when our hypocrisy has been so evident. Recall the era of Non Aligned Movement (NAM) – (Do not know why it still exists because the Cold War has been long over), when we were the founder of this movement and we were shamelessly “aligned” to USSR for all practical purposes!!
Finally today we have a government that has more economic sense than any government since our independence. I hope in the near future we get a government that is savvy on the foreign policy front as well!!
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