[Assam] Slimy India is cut to size in this very in-depth brief piece. Would Assamese Newspapers care and dare to publish such pieces for wider circulation amongst the Assamese masses, giving the readership access to International news and analysis?

Wed Jun 6 05:43:30 EDT 2007

 China humiliates India; India bullies Sri Lanka
http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/6037

Wed, 2007-06-06 03:38

H. L. D. Mahindapala

Just last week India tried to pull wool over Chinese eyes. India attempted
in its sneaky way to smuggle one of its bureaucrats from Arunachal Pradesh
into China by including him in an official delegation due to visit China.
China issued visas to all other members of the delegation except to the
official from Arunachal Pradesh.

Why? Though it seemed on the surface that India was seeking a simple visa
for one of her officials she was stealthily attempting to gain a huge
diplomatic victory by getting China to recognize that the official from
Arunachal Pradesh was an Indian citizen. India, in other words, was making
an underhand move to trick China into recognizing that Arunachal Pradesh was
a part of India.

If China fell for India's trick and issued a visa to the official from
Arunachal Pradesh – the northeastern state claimed by China as her territory
-- it would have amounted to China conceding this state to India. Knowing
that visas are issued only to foreigners the shrewd Chinese out-manoeuvred
the slimy Indians and rejected the application for a visa confirming that
Arunachal Pradesh belongs to China – or almost all of it. To be precise
China claims 90,000 sq km (34,750 square miles) of Arunachal Pradesh, a
mountainous state that shares a 1,030 km (650-mile) border with China.

Chinese Ambassador to India, Sun Yuxi, made no bones about it when he told
the media last week: "The whole of what you call the state of Arunachal
Pradesh is Chinese territory. ... We are claiming the whole of that."

India which claims to be "a big power of the region", according to M. K.
Narayanan, the Advisor to Prime Minister, back-pedalled tamely. All what
India could do was to push the External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to
stand up in parliament and say defensively: "Arunachal Pradesh was an
integral part of India".

Indian media reports say that India is backing away from this issue without
challenging China. India also accuses China of occupying 8,000 sq km (14,670
square miles) in Kashmir and this "big power of the region" is running away
with its tail between he legs without standing up for its claims, right or
wrong. India has reasons to be scared and back off because China penetrated
deep in Arunachal Pradesh in the border war fought in 1962 and hammered the
Indian army to pulp.

Faced with this massive threat from China the Indian reaction is to be
defensive, according to the consensus of diplomats in India. The noted
ex-Indian diplomat, G. Parthasarathy, known to Sri Lankan circles from the
days he tried fix the Sri Lankan crisis with his failed Indo-Sri Lanka
agreement, had this to say about the Chinese claims: "We have just sat back
when China makes claims on Arunachal Pradesh and does nothing. We have a
tendency to run scared of China, that's one thing we should avoid"

He added: "We gave up any card that we had on Tibet, we eroded our position
on the district identity of Tibet with the passage of time. Unless you
retain those cards, for example can we reciprocate by say agreeing to a
ministerial level delegation from Taiwan. Like other ASEAN countries do like
Japan does."

So how big is India in the region? Is it big only when it comes to bullying
small nations like Sri Lanka? Or is it just the right size to run backwards,
as fast as the Indians can, to avoid confrontation with China? Arunachal
Pradesh is not the only part of India that is claimed by China. China
occupies Aksai Chin in Ladakh and this so-called "big power" of the region
does sweet nothing about it.

Some Indian diplomats say that India should retaliate on Chinese claims over
Tibet and Taiwan. For instance, the Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan
Singh, could invite the Taiwanese MPs to tea as he did in the case of Sri
Lankan counterparts who are the proxies of the Tamil Tigers. Oh, no! Such
invitations are extended only to MPs of small countries in the region which
India continues to bully or destabilize. India also allows Tibetan refugees
to settle down in Delhi without pressing issues of human rights or violating
China's airspace by dropping* parippu* (lentils) over the Chinese border as
they did to force Sri Lanka to accept India's disastrous formula for peace
which never worked.

While India forces its will down the smaller nation she willingly eats
humble pie stuffed down her throat by China. In short, China is giving to
India what India is giving to the small nations in the SAARC. Whether it be
Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan or Sri Lanka the unwanted poking finger
of India is seen everywhere. India even staged a comic saga in the Indian
Ocean when it sent some Tamil terrorists to invade Maldives and then posed
as the savior by rushing in to rescue the Maldives.

The history of SAARC is a depressing graveyard with scattered monuments to
India's folly. Take the case of Sri Lanka again. When India was aligned to
the Soviet bloc it opposed farming out the oil storage tanks in Trincomalee
to the Americans. Now that it is aligned to the American bloc she resents
Sri Lanka getting closer to China and covertly opposes the opening up of the
Hambantota harbour to Chinese developers. India – and America too -- now
fear that Sri Lanka is getting too close to China. Whose fault is it? If
India is capable of playing her cards astutely and decide unambiguously to
tame the Tamil Tiger terrorists (this is their description) Sri Lanka need
not go anywhere.

India's short-sighted policy of trying to play the role of "Big Brother" in
the region has been counter-productive both to India and SAARC. It is clear
as daylight that neither Sri Lanka nor SAARC as a whole will ever get off
the ground as long as India plays this obstructive, destructive and
prescriptive role in the region. The most constructive alternative for SAARC
members is to develop economic, political and defensive mechanisms outside
the Indian cage. If, however, the non-Indian members consider it tactful to
maintain some working relationships with the India it can do so by
continuing to be members of SAARC nominally without tying themselves to the
Indian apron strings. The future opportunities of SAARC are not in
kow-towing to India as the regional super power but in acting collectively
to build another formidable union to the meet the challenges posed by India.

Besides, there is no likelihood of Indo-China rivalry, with all its
intractable border disputes, easing in the foreseeable future. Sensing this
India is strengthening its ties with the American-led coalition designed to
contain China. Despite protestations to the contrary, America, Japan,
Australia – and now India – are linking hands, with a series of treaties, to
put a ring round China. They see China as the next big threat to their
economic and political interests. India is merrily going along with the rest
in the West and the new Indian policy is to view anyone getting closer to
China as a threat to Indian interests.

In other words, SAARC nations are asked to dance to India's tune. Those who
argue that we must accept regional realities fail to recognize that in the
emerging scenario, where the center of power is shifting from the West to
the East, China is destined to play a dominant role, perhaps bigger than the
role played by America today. Nearness to India does not preclude
possibilities of developing closer ties with China. The growth of China as
the next dominant global power should make India realize that it needs Sri
Lanka and the other SAARC nations more than Sri Lanka and others needing
India. Smaller countries have a better chance of survival and growth if they
follow the lead of Cuba than being subservient to India,

Of course, this is a projection into the future. Currently, as things stand,
India's role is critical collectively for SAARC and individually for
nations. It is this role that casts suspicions about Indo-American alliance.
Narayanan has announced that he is due to visit Richard Boucher to discuss
Sri Lanka. His visit is obviously to tie the hands of Sri Lanka advancing
into Tiger territory. This is a repetition of the failed Indian policy when
the Sri Lankan forces were advancing via Vaddmarachchi in Jaffna India
intervened and unilaterally dropped *parippu* under the pretext of
protecting the Tamils of Jaffna. But that pretence was dropped when the IPKF
stepped in and gang raped Tamil women, murdered Tamil civilians and
brutalized Jaffna society with impunity.

India's wavering policies on Sri Lanka, depending on her domestic agenda,
smack of hypocrisy. It is not going to make India look pretty in the region.
Narayanan's statement that Sri Lanka must obey India because it is the big
power of the region has not gone down well either in Sri Lanka or in the
region. Pakistan has promptly blasted India, virtually saying that no one
can dictate to her, whether big or small.

However, knowing that India cannot impose its will unilaterally in the
region her minions are running to her new master, America. Narayanan told
media that he was due to visit to Boucher. Why? Political circles believe
that there is a hidden agenda in this latest move. This is seen as a prelude
to build a joint Indo-American offensive against the Sri Lankan forces
advancing slowly but surely to defang the Tigers. Both America and India
should know by now that there can never be peace until and unless the Tigers
are tamed. Since neither America nor India is willing to do it their policy
objective should be to let Sri Lankan forces complete the job they began at
Mavil Aru.

Of course, there is the serious issue of violating human rights in Sri
Lanka. Human rights violations increase or decrease on a ratio proportionate
to the violence unleashed by the terrorist groups. In fact, a well-known
tactic of terrorist groups is to provoke governments to retaliate violently,
leading to human rights violations. The terrorists then use these violations
as a key propaganda weapon against government. With a sharp eye on
capitalizing on this issue the Tamil Tigers, and their NGO agents, are
focusing on human rights at every given opportunity. Therefore, it is only
fair to treat this aspect with the same quantum of interest shown by the
American, Australian and NATO forces battling terrorism in Iraq and
Afghanistan. It should be neither less nor more.

Hopefully Narayanan will drive this point home to Boucher. This is only fair
given the bloody history on which big powers built their nations battling
internal and external enemies. America, for instance, has a colourful
history – mostly written in blood – in dealing with civil unrest within its
own borders. The history of Americans proves that they never intended to win
the Civil War (650,000 dead) or the West, glorified on the silver screen
with brutal decimation of the native Indians, by waving the rights that were
later enshrined in the UN Charter.

Nor did they drop the first atom bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima to protect
the human rights of the Japanese who were only months away from
surrendering. Historians have established that the war with Japan could have
been ended without dropping those apocalyptic bombs. But that did not deter
America from dropping the bombs to gain a lead over the advancing Russians,
heading towards Japan.

The short history of post-independent India is no better. For instance, when
Goa decided to separate under Portuguese promptings, Nehru sent his forces
into that tiny state not to indoctrinate them with Gadhian principles. It
was to enforce the principle that India's territorial integrity and
sovereignty was indivisible. Her unwanted interventions in the region have
been to serve her self-interests. What it has done to Pakistan, Bangladesh
and Sri Lanka needs volumes to document.

In short, the so-called big powers who had wiped out minorities from their
lands or waged bloody wars to safeguard their sovereignty, territorial
integrity should learn from their own history not to go down the failed path
of do-as-I-say-and-not-do-as-I-do. They must collectively allow Sri Lanka to
find her own solution, more so because the imported Indian and Norwegian
mantrams have failed to restore peace and stability over the last three
decades. Besides, India, with its self-serving misadventures, has bloodied
Sri Lanka enough to drown the Island without flooding it with the waters of
the Indian Ocean.

So is it too much to ask India to mind its own bloody business and let Sri
Lanka tackle the violence unleashed by India to destabilize her friendly
neighbor in the south?

-         Asian Tribune –
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