Is India really the world’s fifth most powerful country?
India is the world’s fifth most powerful country, according to a New Delhi-authored national security document, the Times of India reported on Wednesday, as Indian analysts placed the emerging nation above major European powers.
Outranking traditional global powers such as the UK, France and Germany, India’s ballooning population, defense capabilities and economic clout were cited as reasons for its position behind only the U.S., China, Japan and Russia in India’s National Security Annual Review 2010, which will be officially released by the country’s foreign ministry next week.
Its statistical foundations in terms of population numbers and GDP aside — in terms of purchasing power parity, it should be noted — India’s experience of wielding power on the global stage of late, boosted by its temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council, has been less encouraging.
India has failed to cultivate a wholly reciprocal relationship with the United States, despite warm rhetoric in recent years between New Delhi and Washington and a number of big-ticket diplomatic and industrial agreements.
New Delhi appears to struggle to assert itself in the face of growing Chinese influence in south Asia, has dithered on formulating a firm approach to states such as Iran, and risked appearing naive and out of its depth during the lead-up to international efforts to protect civilians in Libya.
Indeed, an apparent united front from Beijing, Moscow and New Delhi, representing three of the top five most powerful nations according to the report, against the no-fly zone in the North African country has had no discernible effect on the ongoing military action against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.
Furthermore, India still appears more concerned and engaged with, and distracted by, its long-standing rival Pakistan than wider geopolitical issues.
What makes a religious symbol conspicuous?
Last week, a college in Mangalore in India banned a student wearing a burqa from attending class. The principal told local media the college had a policy of not allowing symbols of religion.
The media did not say if there were students on campus with a ‘bindi’ (dot) on their foreheads or crucifixes around their necks or turbans on their heads, other symbols of religion one commonly sees in India, besides the ubiquitous “Om” scarves and t-shirts.
Mangalore, a cosmopolitan city, is no stranger to controversy; it was recently in the news for attacks on bars and women by a fundamentalist Hindu outfit that declared they were against Indian culture.
Nor is the controversy over headscarves and burqas limited to India. UK’s Jack Straw sparked a heated debate when he asked Muslim women in his constituency to remove their veils to promote better relations between people.
Turkey last year lifted a ban on women wearing headscarves at universities, ruling it violated the country’s secular constitution.
More recently, French president Sarkozy said burqas have no place in the country because they are a symbol of the subjugation of women. The issue has divided France, home to Europe’s largest Muslim minority, over how to reconcile secular values with religious freedom.
A 2004 French law bans students from wearing “conspicuous” signs of their religion in state schools, prompting Sikhs to launch a protest to allow them to keep their turbans on.
I would just like to make it clear that Muslim women are NOT forced to wear a hijab by their religion but by the way a country they live in is ruled. There is no rule in Quaran that tells you to ‘always cover yourself’! It is just if a country is quite strict, like Saudi Arabia, you will need to cover yourself, and if it is not, like Kuwait or Kazakhstan, women can dress in whatever they want! It just annoys me so much, when people say that ‘poor Muslim women need to wear the hijab all the time because of their religion’! It is not the religion, people, it is the way a country is ruled! I am a Muslim woman, from a Muslim country, but living in UK and I do not wear a hijab and do not cover myself up.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Escaping history in India and Pakistan
When France and Germany put years of enmity behind them after World War Two, they made a leap of faith in agreeing to entwine their economies so that war became impossible. With their economies now soldered by the euro, it can be easy to forget how deep their mutual distrust once ran - from the Napoleonic wars to the fall of Paris to Prussia in 1871, to the trenches of World War One and the Nazi occupation of France in World War Two.
As India and Pakistan begin yet another attempt to make peace, they face a similar challenge. Can they put aside years of distrust to build on a tentative thaw in relations?
Many analysts argue that a sketchy roadmap to peace is already available, based on negotiations between advisers to former president Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in which Pakistani action against militants was matched by Indian moves towards a peace deal on Kashmir. But reviving that roadmap - or for that matter finding another way forward - would require both countries to put aside their past and accept that history is not the only guide to the future.
Indian newspaper, the Business Standard, summarised what many Indian commentators say about past attempts at peace-making - that Indian peace offers have never been matched by a sincere effort by Pakistan to curb Islamist militants. "Pakistan has a history of trying first to get what it wants on the battlefield and, when that fails, to get it at the negotiating table," it says in an editorial. "Indian leaders meanwhile fall into the traps of magnanimity (make a gesture to a smaller neighbour) or gullibility (concede this or that and it will deliver peace)."
Pakistan has its own version of history, seen from the perspective of a smaller country that believed it was cheated of Kashmir at partition in 1947, and then torn in two with Indian help when Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, won independence in the 1971 war. Both sides accuse the other of breaching the Simla accord which followed that war - the last major peace treaty between the two - Pakistan by sponsoring militants to fight in Kashmir, and India by starting the Siachen conflict in the mountains beyond Kashmir in 1984.
Many other arguments about the past, too numerous to mention, come up every time anybody discusses India and Pakistan until the weight of history becomes an immoveable obstacle to peace.
So how did France and Germany put their history behind them? And are their parallels with India and Pakistan?
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
India – aiming for diplomatic encirclement of Pakistan?
India is piling on the diplomatic pressure to convince the international community to lean on Pakistan to crack down on Islamist militants blamed by New Delhi for the Mumbai attacks.
According to the Times of India, "India has made it clear to the U.S. and Iran as well as Pakistan's key allies, China and Saudi Arabia, that they need to do more to use their clout to pressure Pakistan into acting..." The Press Trust of India (PTI), quoted by The Hindu, said India had used a visit by Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal to Delhi to drive home the same message.
As discussed previously on this blog, in the immediate aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, India's response was to look to the United States to put pressure on Pakistan. It also appears to have won some support from Russia, whose officials said publicly that the attacks were funded by Dawood Ibrahim, an underworld don who India says lives in Pakistan. China, Pakistan's traditional ally, supported the United Nations Security Council in blacklisting the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the charity accused of being a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba. China's Foreign Minister has also telephoned his counterparts in India and Pakistan urging dialogue, according to Xinhua.
And to complete the tour of the permanent members of the Security Council, Britain blamed Pakistan-based militants for the Mumbai attacks, while France has also called on Pakistan to take action.
That's a fairly broad consensus in favour of diplomatic pressure. There certainly seem to be more players more visibly involved than in 2001/2002 when India and Pakistan came to the brink of war over an attack on the Indian parliament that India blamed on Pakistan-based militants. You might therefore be tempted to argue that the diplomatic approach is working -- and as long as this stands a chance, the prospects of military escalation are slim.
So what is going wrong? Despite the flurry of diplomatic activity, the military tensions are rising. Pakistan has cancelled army leave and redeployed troops. The Washington Post said thousands of troops were being redeployed from the Afghan border to the border with India.
What to say more for a country who says lies and lies only–previously it says it has provided all evidences to the world about Pakistan involvement in mumbai incident, forget to remove the thread from so-called terrorist hand and then edit photos and remove wrist band. Their PM is nowing to li_ck US sh_it and beg for help to save them from Pakistan, true nation. india has failed many times in its attempt to defame pakistan but as always this time also it has to lick again his own spit back.
Libya? We have three countries meddling in a ex colony of another European great power (Italy) in the name of humanity and all we are doing is creating a bigger unresolved mess.