![]() But great leaders distinguish the tactical from the strategic. ![]() Pathankot, Gurdaspur and other betrayals happened for sure. Narendra Modi too made a dramatic flourish with Nawaz Sharif and then gave up too soon. We had recounted a prescient tutorial by Dr Manmohan Singh on how it was better for India to reach out to Pakistan for peace to deny China this low-cost strategic counterweight. All made at least one effort to reach out to Pakistan and break that triangulation. None had the political capital Modi does. Rajiv Gandhi, Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Dr Manmohan Singh grappled with the same challenge. The substance of strategic and foreign policies is less pretty than the summits. And was neither jingoist nor idealistĪ leader’s isn’t an easy place to be in. It gave her those few weeks’ leeway to finish the war.Īlso read: Rammanohar Lohia was right about China. She signed that Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union, which was a euphemism for a strategic alliance. In 1971, when the Bangladesh opportunity came, she knew she could only win if something could keep China off India’s back. Swaran Singh stalled, and as Nehru declined, Kennedy was assassinated, and the American opportunity was gone. The Western powers dissuaded Pakistan from taking advantage of India’s predicament in October-November 1962, but in December, Sardar Swaran Singh was negotiating under duress with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on Kashmir. Help came, and he permitted the Americans to even set up a military mission in New Delhi headed by a two-star general. Nehru junked his inflated notions of non-alignment and reached out to Kennedy’s America for help in 1962. ![]() Can you trade them for better security?Įvery choice involves compromises. Is India fated by geography and history to endure a two-front situation? How can India change this? Can it reach out to either of the two and break out of the triangulation? If so, which one? And if it has no way out, or until it has a way out, can it still remain essentially non-aligned?įor clarity, if you give up that pretence and align with any big powers, you cannot also hold on to Cold War notions of strategic autonomy. It takes Modi back to the dilemmas all his predecessors have faced. And the way they are digging in, hauling in heavy equipment, they look prepared for the long haul. It doesn’t matter because the Chinese are now at our doorstep. What motivated Xi to initiate this confrontation is not so relevant any more. That is not such an easy option against China.Īlso read: Modi’s foreign policy puts Modi first, India second There is a compulsion to look hard, decisive, risk-taking, start something and then conclude it in a way you can claim victory. From Chumar to Doklam to Pulwama, the Chinese have noticed how vital a factor “face” is for Modi in his domestic politics. That is what Xi has seen as an exposed flank. He, however, shares one weakness with Nehru: A larger than life public image, and a thin skin. The opposition is weak, Parliament is no threat and the armed forces are in an enormously better state, despite the PLA’s modernisation. ![]() His political environment has no resemblance to Nehru’s, whose greatest critics were the nationalists within his cabinet. He will forever be seen as a weakling who went to war against his conviction. Not as a brave, tough leader who “died” fighting, as politically and physically, he never recovered from that decision. Nehru took a decision (“I have told my army to throw out the Chinese”) that might have looked brave, but was divorced from reality. Translated: How to show fellow Indians and the world that you are not Nehru of 1962, without doing precisely what Nehru did under pressure in that fateful year. The pressure on him is to respond immediately, in anger, and exasperation just to be seen to be doing something, as Nehru did. Xi Jinping has thrown the gauntlet at Modi at the moment of his choosing, just as Mao had done in 1962. The most important thing then is to “not repeat his waffling blunders”. The politics and strategic, philosophical and ideological thought he and his ideological and political parents, RSS and BJP, have constructed is founded on not being like Nehru. Simply put, he must respond, but not in a way that looks like Jawaharlal Nehru. So, for once, we can read the main question on his mind as he weighs strategy and politics. Gaming his responses over the Chinese provocations in Ladakh is complex, but there are pointers.
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