Jacob's Politics

End of an era for me

Today Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao were involved with the signing of over 12 agreements that has removed most of the problems that has existed between the two countries for 43 years.

I was in Delhi University in 1962, at the time of the Indo-China War, which saw Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru a shattered man. His trust in the Chinese was broken when the idea of the five principles of coexistence underlined in the Panchsheel (mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit and peaceful co-existence) were thrown to the wind on one side, while on the other, his closest friend, Indian Defence Minister Mr. V. K. Krishna Menon, was exposed for his absolute naiveté as he had converted the war production machinery into producing expresso coffee machines.

The Indian defeat was indeed humiliating as, despite the resistance by a brave Indian Army, they were simply overwhelmed by superior high terrain equipment in the Himalayas and the sheer man power of the Chinese army - to neither of which the Indian Army had any answer but to retreat.

As inexplicable as their forward thrust into India, the Chinese army withdrew. This was to make a strong and simple point - do not question the Chinese with lines of control drawn by the Imperialistic British with no regard to the reality on the ground.

A shattered and drawn Nehru visited our college one evening for a post dinner discussion, and the now Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Alhuwalia, then the host for our distinguished guest in our small staff room, crowded by students who even thronged the doors and windows, we all knew that the end was nigh for our country's leader. He looked pale, drawn and tired. He felt betrayed.

May 27th 1964, Nehru passed on deeply saddened by the fact that he had not achieved what he had wanted to do in the years as Prime Minister. He was a man betrayed on several fronts.

Now it falls on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to bring all Indians, most of them unaware of the deep feelings that were in all of us as we lost that 1962 war, to work closely to bring a unified feeling of oneness in the region and jointly become the world's only superpower base.

The US is a spent horse. It has been defeated in every battle. All it can do now is threaten weak unarmed nations as any bully would. The cowardly nation is led by a coward and a religious fundamentalist and surrounded by bigots. They are doomed to fail and fall, just as the Soviet Union fell on its knees when the financial base crumbled.

The US with its enormous budget deficit is now unable to meet any of its commitments. As Bush pulled out the bonds bearing his signature and said that they were worthless IOUs, has meant that no nation need recognise any debt of the US and they can plunder that country at their will as the dollar has fallen to its lowest level ever and there is no production base to even take advantage of the lower dollar rate.

No doubt the US will try to destabilise the Indo-China region, such as by selling the F-16s to pakistan, but the new feeling of detente that has crossed even that border with the new cricket series in progress and the bus routes in Kashmir opened up, the Americans have become more and more isolated as they nominate imbeciles to head key international posts - the same imbeciles who thought they would be welcomed into Baghdad on a carpet of FLOWERS!

Good riddance and let us hope that the present worthless American culture will also die in the process!

posted by Jacob Matthan @ 02:00