Why is the West loath to give India its due?

 

Photo by Studio Art Smile: https://www.pexels.com/photo/horizontally-striped-flag-3476860/

India with its 1.4 billion people and the fifth largest economy in the world is finally making its presence felt. It has one of the largest armed forces in the world capable of projecting force well outside its borders. Its geographical position gives it tremendous leverage over the major sea lanes that pass under the Indian peninsula, going from the Middle East region to the Far East. It is self-sufficient in food and in fact exports grain. Blessed with abundant natural resources like vast tracts of fertile land, rivers, plenty of rainfall, a plethora of minerals and a youthful population it has everything going for it.

The county is a force to reckon with in the technology sector, builds cars in the United Kingdom, owns steel plants around the world, is the biggest buyer of defence equipment in the world and buys hundreds of civilian aircraft from both Boeing and Airbus. It champions the cause of the developing nations of the world and extends relief to nations stricken by financial disorders or natural calamities far beyond its borders.

The Western block of nations is finally courting India because it sees it as a counterweight to China and as a huge market for its goods and services. Indian skilled manpower is in huge demand globally, especially when it comes to technology. Indian-origin CEOs head a very large number of the leading corporations of the world, and quite a few people of Indian descent have become heads of state in Western nations. It also has an enviable space programme and has been a nuclear power for decades.

Yet, India’s position of eminence has been long in coming and has come very grudgingly. There is no rational reason for it though. For years the West lionized Pakistan and demonized India oblivious to the fact that India was a secular democracy and Pakistan was a failed theological state run by unhinged military dictators. It took a 9/11 for them to get wise to the fact that that rogue nation was leading them up the garden path to disaster. Along the way, they engaged in bumbling fool-hardy Quixotic misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan while their arch-enemy was safely ensconced near a military garrison in supposed ally Pakistan.

The Chinese similarly pulled the wool over the eyes of the West ever since their so-called rapprochement engineered by their President Nixon who has the Watergate scandal to his credit, apart from threatening to wage war with India. India was a fellow democracy where millions knew English and followed a rule-based order derived from the West, but they chose to rub shoulders with tyrants and dictators instead.

Even today, when the West is courting India as a strategic partner who will check the relentless Chinese onslaught against their core national interests, there isn’t the kind of respect shown that India deserves. Russia and China, happen to be permanent members of the UN Security Council, when the former is really a minor nation with a very large land area and rapidly depleting power and the latter is an oppressive one-party state that cares two hoots about a rules-based world order. It is India more than these two countries or even that tiny island nation of Britain that deserves to be a permanent member of the so far ineffectual UN Security Council.

If you look at the amount of coverage devoted to India in Western media, it is laughable. They cover the Middle East, China and even Africa in way more detail. Whenever India is mentioned, it is done very grudgingly or in a very condescending manner. The tendency to preach to India is always lurking in the background. Why? What’s going on here? Look at the gall of the Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau accusing India of being involved in the killing of a Khalistani terrorist on Canadian soil without a shred of evidence! This is from a nation whose gross negligence in ignoring Indian intelligence inputs led to the bombing of the Air India Jumbo Jet Kanishka in 1985 leading to the deaths of more than 300 Indians who were Canadian nationals. That was under the watch of the then Prime Minister of Canada who was also a Trudeau-the father of the Trudeau of our times. He accused India of interfering in Canadian affairs when he was the one doing so when he spoke against the government of India during a farmer’s agitation going on in India. Under his watch Canada has given a free run to Khalistani goons who have been wantonly indulging in all manner of criminal as well as terrorist activity aimed at India on Canadian soil. That it will likely not augur well for their own national security is beyond the comprehension of the bumbling nitwit of a prime minister that Justin Trudeau is.

Canada as a member of NATO participated in the fake Weapons of Mass Destruction war In Iraq which led to human death and suffering on a colossal scale has no moral standing to lecture India, the land of the Mahatma. And yet this nation of 40 million people founded by dispossessing the native peoples of Canada would come to a grinding stop if the Indian and other immigrant communities decided to vacate their frigid and bitterly cold towns and cities. Canada is but a tiny part (ironically given its very large area)of the West, but is symptomatic of the malaise that afflicts them all. The Americans, British, Europeans, Australians as well as the Japanese( a fellow Asian country with an imperialist track record of its own) need to wake up and smell the coffee. India is hugely important. It is perhaps the most important country after the United States, given that an ageing China is in terminal decay. It has been around for a very long time and boasted cities at a time when the people of North Western Europe were looked upon as savage barbarians.

This is a nation that will dominate the world in the emerging decades- economically, militarily, culturally, technologically and in every other manner. India dominating the world will be a good thing too as it has always been a force for good and peace. Come to terms with it and understand it. You will help make the world a much better place. India with its fine understanding of the values that the West stands for and its warm relations with the emerging nations of the world will help impart stability to the world.