TALES OF TRAVESTY
DR. JITENDRA SINGH
Very soon after the ‘‘Hindi-Cheeni Bhai Bhai” bonhomie between the then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his Chinese counterpart Chou-en-Lai, when the Chinese army took the wind out of sails of India’s defence preparedness by launching a sudden ruthless attack on its northern borders, the entire nation went dumbfound with humiliation. The festival of Deepavali that followed in a few weeks passed off uncelebrated with a section of press describing the Diwali of 1962 as a ‘‘Black Diwali’’.
That indeed proved to be a turning point not only in the Indo-China relations but in the entire outlook of the Indian nation and its realisation of the fragile self-esteem held by it amid the new realities of post-(World) war world. To that extent, the Chinese attack of 1962 served India well in more ways one. It shook a nation fed on Nehruvian idealism out from its vulnerable slumber.
After the China shock of 1962, there was an initial phase of remorse, disgust and introspection. Gen BM Koul, who happened to be a close confidante and infact a cousin of Prime Minister Nehru and who had led the unsuccessful defence against China, passed into oblivion after writing an apologetic account in the form of a book titled ‘‘The Untold Story’’. The charismatic Army commander, Brigadier Dalvi, who was taken as a Prisoner of War (PoW) by the Chinese, came back to write his version of events in a book titled ‘‘Himalayan Blunder’’. Chetan Anand went ahead to create a celluloid masterpiece epic called ‘‘Haqeeqat’’. And Nehru himself was seen wiping tears when on the Republic Day of 1963, Lata Mangeshkar conjured up nation’s conscience with a heart rending ‘‘Ai Mere Watan Ke Logo…’’. But soon, the phase of helplessness and mourning transformed into a pheonix like resurgence of nation’s will. Nehru suffered a stroke never to recover fully and Lal Bahadur Shastri, who took over, led the nation to a decisive victory in the war against Pakistan in 1965 with a clarion call ‘‘Eint Ka Javaab Patthar’’.
In the last 65 years since independence, India and China have shared a unique love-hate relationship. The two Asian siblings have had much in common, yet much to be mutual rivals. Having achieved its independence two years after India, the People’s Republic of China under the pragmatic leadership of Mao Tse Tung took rapid strides to emerge as a global power much to the discomfiture of USA and the then USSR even as Nehru was still experimenting with India to secure for himself a place as a world apostle of peace. It was only in 1970s after Indira Gandhi signed the strategic Indo-Soviet treaty that, even though briefly, both China and the USA began to look at India as a formidable nation-state.
Today, with a new regime having taken over in Beijing, China has mastered the art of acting as a mature bully. For the last several years, Chinese have followed the practice of coming in and going out of the Indian territory at regular intervals….. sometimes putting up tents, sometimes riding horseback, sometimes painting the rocks red. In small doses, they test India’s patience and capacity.
The question, precisely, therefore is what do we do ? Improve your defence capability with potential to strike back without actually striking back… that will serve as a vital deterrant. Improve your business capacity to match the manufacturing economy of China so that instead of Chinese goods selling over here, the Indian goods are sold in the streets of Beijing. Protests and appeals have a self-limiting effect. In the realms of international arena, a nation has to be strong to be taken seriously and to yield significant dividends.
The love-hate between India-China will continue as long as India does not emerge tall enough to be wooed for love and love alone and to be feared for being hated. Only then will a common Indian gain the confidence of being accepted on his terms and conditions while Umapathy will find himself being approached on a reconciliatory note ‘‘…..Teri Furkaten Bhi Meri, Teri Kurbaten Bhi Meri !’’
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