Our relationship with our neighbors is full of troubles. Pakistan, hitherto a part of our country, is our archenemy. Bangladesh, the country we liberated from the clutches of Muslim atrocities is now a Mullahs-gone-crazy country and a hotbed of Islamic terrorism. Sri Lanka is fighting a civil war with LTTE and holds us responsible for their problems; they have more faith in China and Pakistan than us. Nepal, the only Hindu country in the world is having their own problems for which they hold us, big-brother India, responsible. China, of course, would like to see our emerging power reduced for their dominance and hegemony in Asia and the world. SAARC countries are sick and tired of our fighting with Pakistan like cats and dogs that drags down the cohesiveness of the entire sub-continent and impedes the progress of the entire bloc. None of our neighbors openly supports us in any world fora; in fact, they oppose us at any and every opportunity. We're the Pramod Mahajans of every Pravin neighbour, who detests us for being big-brotherly but demands all types of concessions and aid from us; some even asking us to give J&K to them as a gesture of our big-brotherly magnanimity.

None of the super-powers supports us openly in UN; despite the fact that we deserve to be a permanent member of the UNSC, we've to beg every Tom, Dick or Harry of a country like Niger or Chad to support our claims for it! US provides us with support when it suits them; but, when it comes to choosing a reliable and trust-worthy partner, they openly choose Pakistan at our cost in the never-ending zero-sum game of our hyphenated relationship with Pakistan. US take every opportunity to twist our arms to get their ways and the latest nuclear deal is the ample evidence of that. Russia is too broken and weak to help us much. China openly hates our guts and flaunts their army, industrial base and UNSC veto status to snub us and rub the salt in our North-Eastern wounds. France, UK and the rest of the Europe consider us just a large market but dislike the emerging strength of us brown-colored nation. They'd rather deal with a white-skinned Canadian than allow one of our Indians to take control of their steel business, despite having proven financial, managerial and industrial strength. Pakistan gets aid from all these countries and uses the same to buy arms to be used against us. We're scared of befriending Israel, a victim of Islamic neighbors like us, for fear of antagonizing the Arab world, which never supported us. Islamic world and OIC is too religion based and they'd rather help and support an Islamic country, rather than a Kafir Hindu nation, despite the fact that we've more Muslims than many countries.

Africa is too bhooka to support us. Even there, South Africa and Egypt rather watch us squirm than to help us in our time of need. Latin America is too far off to be bothered by thinking about us.  Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Afghanistan--you name it, and we've no `real' friends in any of them.

The result is: we've no long-term pucca friends in ASEAN, OIC, Europe, Asia, Africa, US, Latin America, Israel, despite the fact that we provide ideological, moral and financial support to one and all. Ours is the largest peacekeeping force in the UN but we've hardly any significant place in the world order.

Have you ever wondered why?

Perhaps it is because we're basically a weak country, overly moralistic about those issues that don't even concern us. Our years of non-alignment has left us friendless; we're not aligned to anyone and hence, no one is aligned to us (though some may claim this as our hypocrisy as we were always aligned to USSR). In a quid pro quo world, we've proved to be a friend of no one--and no one is a friend of ours. After all, a friend in need is no friend of mine, as they say. Moreover, in order to have a life-long and abiding friend, one has to be a real friend first; unfortunately, we have proved to be no friend of anyone. Since we don't know when to keep our mouth shut, we start lecturing our own friends and let's accept that no one likes idealistic, moralizing and preaching friends.

It is time we introspect and frame our nuclear, foreign, industrial, domestic and overall policies such that they suit our own national interests. Like in Politics, in diplomacy also, there are no long-term friends or long-term enemies. What is most important is the long-term interest of the country that decides and designs the policies of any country. Unfortunately, we've been too idealistic, too sermonizing, too tact-less and too moralistic about our policies--and those of others. It is not too late to think afresh so that not one country should be able to blackmail us and take advantage of our weaknesses.

After all, all these countries or group of nations need our market, our goods, our manpower, and our service sector as much as we need theirs.

In this world of today, iss haath se dey, us haath se lay.

Taali do haath se bajti hai

Random Ranter