India's strategic blunder.
It is indeed true that India has been a victim of ideological romanticism and political timidity in dealing with China and Pakistan since Independence as explained by C.Raja Mohan (IE,20/5). Pandit Nehru and Krishna Menon believed that Communist China would not invade India as it is a socialist country. They thought Panchsheel agreement would stop China's expansionism based on some ancient claim. That is why, after the 1962 debacle, President S.Radhakrihnan called Indian policy was based on "credulity and ignorance". The ignominy of 1962 has not drilled common sense in the minds of Congress. When China occupied Aksai Chin, Nehru said it does not 'a blade of grass' and now when China intrudes some 17 km and puts up a military tent, our Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid says, it is just a pimple. Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.
The British had a strategic vision and built a railway system to all the corners of India which made it possible for military to move fast, and of course it also helped trade to grow and the population to move. If, after the 1962 defeat, India should have developed roadways and railways to all the remote corners of Himalayas, North-East,Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, it would have brought these areas nearer to the heart of India both stratagic-wise, trade-wise and population-wise. But Congress is good only in getting elected by dividing people and providing doles. It has the habit of giving away on the negotiating table whatever has been won in the battle-field. Where there is no vision,people perish.
May 20,2013.
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