15 years after the British decided to leave India, our neighbors decided they wanted a piece of India. The country’s leadership was caught napping! The self-nominated Prime Minister didn’t expect China to move into India! China!! After all this self-nominated PM had done for China, like sacrificing the Security Council seat so China could plunk itself in there! As an aside, it’s the very same China that has blocked India’s candidature to the Security Council, but more of that later. We lost a significant amount of land in the war, but more importantly, we matured as a nation.
The naïveté that existed in the leadership of Nehru was exposed. Nehru himself is supposed to have said, “I didn’t expect Zhou Enlai to do this!” The war lasted 31 days and India, expectedly, lost the war. Was this an expected incursion from the Chinese forces, or was this completely unexpected? Some, like Kuldip Nayyar, would have us believe that this was suspected but ignored by the administration. After all, Aksai Chin existed before ’62 and China had always coveted it. Others were of the opinion, that this was out of left field. After all, India had made every attempt to be friendly with China and had never seen, till then, any animosity from them.
There was another attempted incursion into Indian territory back in 1967. This was successfully thwarted by the Indian security forces. Since then, there have been several attempts which have always been thwarted; however, it does seem these incursions into Indian territory was more to gauge Indian response than anything else. Till a few years ago, when Doklam happened, this kind of incursion always ended up with India giving up some of its territory, the two sides then having flag meetings and the Chinese seemingly satisfied, albeit temporarily! Well, not anymore! The new Sherriff in town has new rules that he plays by! Where flag meetings were the norm of the day, it now became a thing of the past. Where India tended to turn a blind eye to these incursions, they now take a hard look and retaliate. Not something China, or for that matter Pakistan, expects.
Take the case of Pakistan. Earlier Indian governments used to send dossiers, to their Pakistan counterparts, with the details of attacks which probably ended up with all other dossiers, in a pile on the floor of some clerk’s office. The new Sherriff in town doesn’t believe in dossiers. He believes in doses. China should probably have talked to Pakistan. However, they didn’t. Where previous governments had put a leash on the armed forces, the new Sherriff took all leashes off. Net result, Chinese troops, so used to nonresponses from earlier Indian forces, were shocked to see brutal retaliation from jawans. India lost around 30 soldiers, per sources. Apparently, some Chinese troops, according to sources numbering around 60, were killed, too. Remember, all this with no guns nor arms! Death by breaking the necks of the intruding soldiers!! In the aftermath of the Galwan Valley face-off, many countries have decided to side up with India, starting from the USA, Japan, the Phillipines, Australia, South Korea and many more. How does this affect China?
When the Indian government banned 59 apps of Chinese origin, this was not a token protest from the Indian government. It showed extreme intelligence from the center. What better way to hurt another country than economically!! China was making upwards of $15 Million per month from the Tiktok application alone! Factor in 3 months since India banned the app, the CCP is losing nearly $50 Million! In addition to Tiktok, the Indian government has banned 58 other apps. Taking a conservative $2Million per month in sales, that is $116 Million per month or $348 Million since the ban began! Totally, China stands to lose nearly $400 million in revenue, definitely not pocket change!!! If one were to add the other countries that have begun to realize this strategy, China could end up losing over $5 Billion and that’s not something China wants happening to their economy, EVER!!! We are not talking pocket change but amounts that could define a country’s budget!
Pakistan has, till recently, been taking potshots at the Indian economy. This should be taken with a pinch of salt, as Pakistan’s economy is probably the ONLY economy in the world that runs, based on how much money they receive from the IMF and countries that pity this pathetic, failed country!! That this country would actually compare itself to India is in itself a joke; that they actually think that 15-20 years ago, their economy was doing a lot better than India has to be either a self-goal or ignorance at it’s worst (remember their PM actually thought Japan and Germany were neighbors! Honest truth!!).
China seems to cultivate friendship with countries that have been shunned by the global community. This is NOT out of any magnanimous change of heart, but to take over that country physically and politically. They did this with North Korea and Sri Lanka, even though Sri Lanka has never been shunned by the world; they’re on their way to do this with Nepal and Pakistan. While it does look like they’re trying to surround India, rest assured this will not happen. India has taken measures to put its bases around Asia and friends, like Israel, Australia, Japan and other countries have ensured India’s interests are never forsaken.
Asia has always been a mystery to the west. People have come to believe that this is what is alluring about the region, it’s mysterious nature. However, the mystery that surrounds the politics in Asia shows a lack of maturity and trust in its own beliefs and ideology. Case in point, the Communists in India crying “Modi has caused the death to democratic values” is probably the biggest joke! This hasn’t happened, but let’s humor this clueless party!! Shouldn’t they be lauding the PM rather than lamenting? After all, the communists DO NOT believe in democratic values, or have these people forgotten this basic difference? When Pinarayi Vijayan, Communist Party Leader and Chief Minister of Kerala, has to travel to New York to get treated for a common cold and not his ideological mentors, China (Beijing), it shows how little confidence they have in their own ideological mentors!!!
Be that as it may, situations have changed and a meek country has now gained confidence in itself. God help those that believe they can come in and take what is NOT theirs. Indian forces are capable enough that they WILL destroy any such attempts. Years of being invaded have given Indians the mental toughness, something that was surprisingly missing back in 1962. Maybe it was the person in charge and not the people of the country. One thing is for certain, however. The people have grown up and are now screaming from their roof-tops, “There’s 58 years between 62 & 20, buddy! We are not letting you get off that easily this time around!!”
जय श्रीराम। जय सीयाराम। उत्तिष्ठ भारत। जय माँ भारती
God Bless the USA.