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India only aspires, doesn't act like a regional heavyweight

Does India care? There are three crises going on which involve India in some way or the other, but the response of the government can only be described as lethargic. The first is the ongoing crisis in Sri Lanka, the second is that of the Indian soldiers who have been detained in Sierra Leone, and the third is the plight of the ethnic-Indians in Fiji.

The tragedies are made worse by the obfuscating that the government officials continue to indulge in, denying reports or refusing to issue clarifications, or at best insisting that they stand by their earlier statement, even though the situation may have changed since the time it was first issued.

Perhaps the only thing our country's awesome inaction reveals is that it can hardly aspire to be a great, or even a regional, power when it is so unwilling to act, or care, about its own soldiers. And nothing highlights this more than the razor sharp response of the United Kingdom, a country that an earlier prime minister chose to describe as a 'third-rate power'.

"In both Sierra Leone and Fiji, the UK has sent across naval ships, keeping them out of the territorial waters, but clearly showing its willingness to act to save its citizens. In contrast, India has done absolutely nothing," a retired senior army officer pointed out.

In Fiji, the UK sent across a navy ship in case any of its estimated 600 citizens, stationed on the island, needed help. By contrast, people of Indian origin run into thousands and the very same government that, with much fanfare, issued Persons of Indian Origin cards for the diaspora, has done nothing. India's only action has been to ask the Commonwealth, headquartered in London, to take action.

Similarly, in Sierra Leone, the UK is far more actively involved to ensure that the war ends. By contrast, some Indian soldiers have been kidnapped, some others are engaged in a 'stand-off' (the government's antiseptic description) with rebels, and yet, it was only yesterday that the government deemed it important to fly a joint secretary to negotiate the release of the soldiers. A whole month later!

By contrast, had a bureaucrat been kidnapped, one can be sure that a minister would have flown down to Sierra Leone, or wherever, to secure his release the very next day. But who cares for Indian soldiers and junior officers who have been captured by some rebel gangs.

Not that Army Headquarters has shown much concern, concerned as it is about its image and in keeping things under wraps. For days, the Army was not even willing to acknowledge the detainment of its men, and only when things got bad did it approach the ministry of external affairs for help.

Why are the Indians in Sierra Leone? As part of a peacekeeping mission. "India has a fantastic track record in peace-keeping missions. We have been very active since the days of the Korean War (1951-53), through the Congo war (1960s), Lebanon (1960s and 1980s) and now Sierra Leone," MEA officials point out.

Why? No one is very clear.

Earlier, it was to give India an international image. Today, the mantra for such peace-keeping activities is to get India a permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council (the same UN that has proven so ineffective in tackling wars worldwide and under whose banner Indian soldiers have been captured).

Since, unlike Japan, India does not have money to dole out to buy support for its permanent membership, it sends its soldiers across the world to the various trouble spots in the hope that it will win us some brownie points. And when such soldiers are captured, our ministers and mandarins are too busy to bother about their plight.

The prime minister was, yesterday, in Leh for the Sindhu darshan along with the home minister. The defence minister, responsible for the welfare of the army, is in Japan, the external affairs minister has just finished touring Iran and Singapore and is now off to Poland. For a party that is extremely critical of Jawaharlal Nehru, the foreign policy is quite the same: more worried about problems in distant lands than nearby.

Yet, if Sierra Leone shows our apathy, Fiji and Sri Lanka show our impotence. A nation that talks of a blue-water navy could not spare one frigate to go at least up to New Zealand in a show of support to ethnic Indians, whose forefathers were shipped to the distant Pacific Ocean islands by the British. All New Delhi did was to wait lamely for the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, whose only action weeks after the coup is to suspend Fiji from the Commonwealth, to act. And how on earth suspending Fiji will restore democracy or save Mahendra Chaudhary is unanswered.

And then there is Sri Lanka. Luckily, the Lankan war has not resulted in an outflow of refugees from that island to India, though there is a trickle. The government is caught in a cleft: worried about its political allies and Tamilian sentiments on one side, and about opposing terrorism globally on the other side.

A security affairs expert put the case in perspective. "Being a great power means having the ability to overcome your domestic opposition and other problems to act in accordance with your national interests. In Lanka, we simply cannot act since we are being pulled in different directions, and if we can't do anything in our backyard, we are not even a regional power," he lamented.

In our backyard, Norway is far more active in trying to secure peace while New Delhi twiddles its thumb.

A nation that cares not for its soldiers, for people of its origin, and for troubles in its neighbourhood, is not a great power. It can never be.

Amberish K Diwanji