Independence - a byproduct of power

What a striking contrast does July 2008 makes to July 2009. In 08, GOI was breaking ties, rules, paying bribes to ensure that they stay in power and ensure passage of the Nuke deal with US.

Not only did GOI succeed but it also make Dr a hero. From being unable to take a stand to somebody who would do anything to ensure his stand prevails, the change was immense.India was the new counterweight to its large neigbour and it seemed finally India had made it and righted all wrongs...and then Obama won.

Under Bush, US and India saw eye to eye on almost all issues. India had to turn its back to the happenings in Iraq and what could happen in Iran.We were on the same page on 'Outsourcing', NPT/CTBT, Kashmir....everything....Now, apart from being flawed democracies, India and US share nothing.The change that Obama promised has happened....The economy sunk, with which its ability to live without China and vice versa.The world loves Obama except India (the reverse was true during Bush years). India does not agree with most of what Obama wants...

- Insourcing
- NPT signing
- Gift Kashmir
- Climate change

The change has implications that have overnight changed India's status from an aspiring Superpower to a also ran regional one.Perhaps, the truth is that India is neither of the above. Also, perhaps Obama is a god send opportunity to correct its course and become a superpower on its own rather than as someone else's stooge; one way or the other.

This begs the question, how did we land here?We landed here simply because we do not understand geopolitics. At the stroke of Independence, India was poor. It wanted to be a big power but by keeping its independence during its journey to power.

This was a fallacy in itself. India needed external assistance to grow and not non-alignment. Nehru or Gandhi might have ideologically disagreed with the powers to be in 47 but did they really think they could deliver to India the industrial revolution without a close alliance. The whole arguement is flawed, basically as it assumes the current powers will be stupid enough to allow a new power to develop amongst them which professes independence from the system of nationhood that they lord over. Why would the US, Britain or others allow the same to happen?If India was to become a big power using 5 year plans, it failed miserably. It failed in being pragmatic. It failed in doing simple maths. Its easy to calculate how many years will a non trade dependent economy take to grow its GDP 10 times over.

What the Nehru generation believed in luck. It expected to get away by bashing up China on morality. Instead got bashed itself.Basically, it seems the people in Power in India were intellectuals with no understanding of how Power is attained and once attained how its used. What gave India the divine right to be able to develop without the assistance and cooperation of external powers.At the end of the day, while the British Raj was bad for India and is despicable but we had allowed it to fester. Britain and the imperialist powers had done what they had to do to remain in power and get richer.

Even if Nehru was to be non-aligned why did they screw up the execution of the plans. Why did they go around preaching the world?People know whats model book behaviour, Nehru lecturing them wouldnt have helped; they had chosen their path.The preaching got India to a situation where the big powers never trusted India. In world politics, if you preach something it better be backed by facts action. India's preaching was just professoring !

It made India join a loose alliance with Russia and profess non-alignment. So in other words, we anotgonised US/UK and did not fully embrace USSR fully. To the world, it was hypocrisy.By 1965, it was very clear our policies have been an utter failure.Nehru had died, but sowed the seeds of professoring without action.

Today, we face the issues with US because of policy years of Nehru and their successors. Holbrooke's of the world see India as hypocritic and insincere.China got its nukes in 1964 a decade before India. China started its capitalism a decade before India.China was never in doubt to its policies at the global stage. It was always anti-american. Ironically, Sino-American trade tops USD 1 Trillion. It was never non-aligned but rather always aligned with its own interests.The policy India takes cannot change with each change in the American President or Indian PM. It has to have a longer lasting ring to it.India cannot expect to be Independent and be awarded for it. It will invite sanctions or quasi unstated sanctions amongst other things.Why did India explode a device in 74 and stop instead of continuing and building an arsenal?The muddle or the middle path is strewn with mediocrity that we tolerate in the name of democracy.India missed the bus in 50's and 60's.

It missed a train in 80's and 90's and seems to missing the flight now. Why India didnt have a WMD program in 50s while China had one and exploded it in 64.If we were in the soviet camp, then why did we not collaborate with them just like China did. In fact, China initially took training and knowledge from them and them continued its development once they had a fallout. However, its record thereafter is impressive. India still doesnt have a thermonuclear device, China had one by 1967. The NPT came into being on July 1, 1968.Till today, India per external experts does not even create as many bombs as they could given the technical and material resources available.

Clearly, China used the initial period from 1949 to 1967 in alliance with Russia to get Nuclear weapons and then joined US in an economic embrace in 1979. However, this initial Strategic, Military alignment with Russia and then ecnomic alignment with US has only helped China.India's alignments have followed a similar path with have beem more muddled and therefore ineffective. Even in 1980, India and China were on a similar growth trajectory. But once China embraced capitalism it has gone the whole hog. It sits today on a huge stockpile of dollars and a detterence driven military capability.

US is economically bankrupt but militarily a superpower.How about India?

Due to its muddled policies, it neither has the currency of power bought by its military nor does it have actual currency power with a smaller market and stockpile of dollars.India wanted a middle path. Its got itself a middle path to being powerless.China has an GDP 4 times of India, a military maybe 3 times as large. Dollar reserves 8 times as large. Olympic medals 40 times more...Whats India's advantage? The problem is not that India cannot still rise; but the fact that its thinking is flawed and therefore unlikely to rise. It gets bullied by a neighbour with much smaller resources. It also gets bullied by the larger resourced Chinese and americans.In other words, size is unimportant when you want to bully someone.

The victims ability to handle himself or lack of it is all it takes.It might be a good strategy to let a criminal run the policy, given we have so many in Parliament.The thinking is theoretical and project driven instead of being process driven.

We spend a lot of time deciding what to do, instead of actual doing or planning of the doing. For instance, The Air force deal for 126 planes that will be delivered in 2015. It will take India many years to decide which plane to take. By the time they are inducted they will certainly be a generations behind. It might make better sense to induct quickly lower gen plane now.How this simple thing can be missed by the babus is either graft driven or plain stupid.Another issue is the irrational sensitivity to criticism of what we consider top notch in their field. This can range from Bachanan to SU-MKI's. They are great planes, everyone agrees but maybe they arent the best. Its less risky to believe the one's who criticise as Indians tend to overestimate themselves and underestimate advesaries.

To be continued....