India does not need certificates of character from former imperialist and barbarian nations. The world should remember that this is the land of Ashoka who sent peace missions across the world and not armed forces to establish so-called democracy in Iraq. India believes in peace and does not send jehadis to countries for gaining ascendance.
Winston Spencer Churchill, war-time Prime Minister of Britain and Rudyard Kipling must be turning in their graves. Churchill hated and despised India and had the audacity to call Mahatma Gandhi a ?half-naked fakir?. Kipling, a racist, dismissed India as a ?White Man'sBurden?. It was some burden considering that Britain looted India for full one hundred years before being shown the door.
Now, an American President, George Bush, comes to India, begins an address to a distinguished invited Indian audience with a namaste, says he is ?dazzled? by India'sancient culture, describes India as ? a vibrant democracy? and avers that ?the world now requires India'sleadership for its freedom'scause?.
To sum it all, Bush visits Gandhiji'ssamadhi to pay his respects and tells for all to hear that he has come to India ?as a friend?. All that he needs to do the next time he visits India is to go to Tirupati and received prasad from Balaji'stemple. The circle would be complete. If one remembers that in the fifties India was going begging for food and financial assistance only to be told by a West German Chancellor that ?money does not grow on trees?, one can gauge the distance India has travelled on its journey into the future in the last half a century.
In his address from Purana Qilla, President Bush described the United States and India as ?brothers in the cause of human liberty?. It is a far cry from the days when a former US Secretary General, John Foster Dulles summoned the then Indian Ambassador to Washington, Vijayalakshmi Pandit to give India a dressing down for adopting non-alignment as its basic foreign policy.
Much water, as the saying goes, has flown down the bridge, especially in the last two decades with India showing what it is capable of. The United States tried every trick to keep India down, with the willing support and often encouragement of the United Kingdom. Pakistan was pampered and placated to an unbelievable extent. Nuclear technology was denied and when China liberally helped Pakistan with the same, in a clear example of helping nuclear proliferation, the United States looked the other way. But India survived. First, it brought about the Green Revolution with no help from our White friends. Then it initiated a second and even more sustaining Information Technology revolution, when the United States declined to provide India with a super computer, Indian scientists built one superior to anything that the United States had in its possession. When the world denied India access to a cryogenic engine, it built one with its own available talent.
In other words, India has come of age and has shown to the world that when pushed to the wall, it can stand on its own legs. Ergo, it is now gaining the world'srespect. What is more, as a former US Ambassador to India, Richard Celeste pointedly stated, ?India does not need US help to become a major world power?. India can attain that status on its own, thank you. After being treated haughtily and aloofly for a good part of half a century, India is now being accepted as a ?natural ally? by the United States, how nice! There is a moral here.
A nation does not get respect and attention by being servile to any power, as does our pathetic neighbour. India does not need certificates of character from former imperialist and barbarian nations. The world should remember that this is the land of Ashoka who sent peace missions across the world and not armed forces to establish so-called democracy in Iraq. India believes in peace and does not send jehadis to countries for gaining ascendance.
As matters stand it should not take more than a couple of decades for India to become a power to reckon with. And that imposes on it great responsibilities, towards its own people as towards fellow Asians who have for long been targets of western exploitation. The West, let no one duck the fact, has much to give, whether it is the United States, Britain, France or rest of the European Union. That does not mean that they are in any way intellectually superior to Asians who have now to gain their self-respect. The most admirable thing that Indian nuclear scientists did was to stand up to American pressures to get all Indian nuclear plants under international safeguards. All power to them. And hats off to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh for telling Americans where they got off. Some things needed to be said and the Prime Minister said them. Praise be.
But now comes the next question: How should India disport itself in the coming years? In the first place it should not go round begging again-this time for getting Permanent Membership of UN Security Council. It would be lowering our dignity. It is only when we treat Britain and France with utter disdain that we will command respect. We still seem to be suffering from a colonial hangover. We should tell the Great Powers and also the currently only Super Power, the United States, that we couldn'tcare less whether they vote for our Security Council Permanent Membership or not. And we should take the lead in helping restore peace in Iraq and persuading the Americans to get out.
The Iraqi people surely can take care of themselves. We should talk to the Iranians as friends and refuse to accept the US assessment of Iranian intentions. And we should seek to convince that India is Pakistan'sbest friend and neither China nor the United States. All this does not mean that we have to spurn America's hand of friendship but India should not allow itself to be a tool to further America'sinterests. India should have distinct philosophy of its own, that is humanistic and people-oriented, and respectful of other cultures.
In other words, India should be India. It should take the lead in establishing Asian solidarity to a point when even Turkey will stop seeking membership of the European Union and turn to Asia where it truly belongs. The twentieth century was primarily a Euro-American century. The twenty first century should revert to Asia and it is to that end India must strive. It is an exciting prospect and it must be pursued with unrelenting devotion.
Gorge Bush may have had other things in mind when he proclaimed that Indo-US ties have now become closer than ever. But that only becomes meaningful when the United States looks to India for moral leadership. In matters of bringing peace to a troubled world it is India, in the end, that must be seen to show the way. In this department India is a natural leader as it has been in the past and can be trusted to be in the future.
