The world has changed, and it's payback time for British colonialists!

A column and a news story from the Economic Times have provided fuel for this article -- again on British aid to India.
First, Swapan Dasgupta writes about how British perception of Indians have changed over the decades as India's riches grew and Britian's declined. This is throwback to a few centuries earlier, or almost, when India's riches attracted the attention of the robbers in London.
Britain has, right from 1947 when it was forced to give India its freedom, tried to weaken this country and deny it its rightful place in the comity of world nations. That country's sole claim to fame is the wealth it plundered from the rest of the world, mostly India, and the way it brutally killed and pushed to poverty millions of people all over the world.
It has since then tried to keep India and the developing world weak through a variety of instruments, like the Commonwealth of Nations and British aid.
British aid in India has now become a joke, with India saying it does not want it and Britain says it won't stop giving it!
Clearly, there is something nefarious about the whole thing. British aid is going to cultivate Indian lobbyists, throgh non-profits and aid projects for the poor that actually line politicians' pockets.
But this time, with India opting for the French Rafale fighter, it is clear that British bribery is not working. India's decision to go for the Rafale is a sound one, and the Brits just cannot stomach it. As in the Mughal times, now they are hoping to overturn the Indian decision by greasing politicians' palms. The danger with India caving in is that buying British defense hardware will keep in place the unequal relationship that has existed between Britain and India. More importantly, it will help India's riches flow into Britain, again, setting off another round of financial exploitation.
The question that we Indians should be asking is why should we let these robbers get away with what they want. Any India politician who tries to scupper the Rafale decision and give the fighter contract to the Brits should be tried and imprisoned. The Brits' statements on tying aid to fighter contracts is enough evidence for that.
Britain should be let to die a slow, painful death, like the one it forced on many poor Indian artisans and farmers a couple of hundred years back. Those gruesome stories are equally horrible to the Nazi holocaust, just that the Brits were the winner of the World War II and were painted angels in history books.
If India wants to help any country in the West, it should be the United States. The steady stream of jobs that has come our way from the United States is responsible in a major way for our prosperity and economic rise. And we should try to reciprocate by giving the some arms contracts that will help them generate and keep jobs.
True, the United States has sided with the Paks several times but it was not with the aim of economic exploitation -- as was the case with Britain. The Americans were guided by their strategic calculus than economy in such decisions.
The second story is about how the Taliban has promised to capture and kill Prince Harry when he returns to Afghanistan. While we should not condone killing or threats of killing in any way, this statement from the Taliban shows how much the Brits have lost respect, and power, in the region.
They had kindled some of the world's worst, simmering conflicts during their colonial days and continued to stoke them by siding with one or the other party. Now is payback time!
This is called the wheel of Karma. For several generations of Indians who were pained to read about British atrocities and exploitation, with a feeling of helplessness, it is a time of joy. The Brits are getting it back!
With the power of the Internet the people of India can now make sure that our politicians cannot be swayed by British 'aid'. And we have nukes and long-range missiles now if the Brits every try any of their usual shenanigans.
Meanwhile, there is hope that it will not be easy for the Brits to swing the fighter contract their way -- read this article by Rajat Pandit in the economictimes.com.

Is the U.S. getting ready to wipe out Pakistan's nukes and terror machinery?

The recent reports about how Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is figting to keep his job and how adamant anti-U.S. forces in the army have become are cause for serious concern.
If Pakistan falls to a military coup by Islamist officers, there is very real danger of the state itself using nuclear weapons for terrorist purposes -- at least making them available to terrorists.
The option before the United States and other world nations in such an event are not very palatable: take out Pakistan and its weapons.
The haste with which the United States is trying to get out of Iraq and Afghtanistan makes me think the Americans are already getting ready for such an eventuality.
They cannot take on and destroy the state-sponsored and protected terror apparatus in Pakistan if the U.S. army continues to be fighting many wars that are bleeding their resources.
And considering that the Pakistanis have a direct or indirect hand in fueling these conflicts, it makes eminent sense to destroy the fountainhead of terror than to let their army fight such bleeding actions which do not achieve much.
So is the U.S. getting ready to finally "bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age?"
Not sure, but from the haste with which they are trying to get out of Afghanistan -- by even talking to the Taliban -- and the simultaneous arm-twisting of the Pakistanis -- show the Americans have finally started seeing sense.
The world of Islamic terror cannot be wiped out without wiping out Pakistan.
And it is only karmic justice if the Americans -- who helped set up Pakistan as a dirty-tricks state -- do it.

West Uneasy About Shift in Balance of World Power

China's rise is forcing its neighbors to forge alliances to defend their interests, says this New York Times article. Good, and expected. Now comes the familiar US-centric view: A whirl of deal-making and diplomacy, from Tokyo to New Delhi, is giving the United States an opportunity to reassert itself in a region where its eclipse by China has been viewed as inevitable.
The Americans are seeing the nascent revival in intra-Asian politics as a way to reassert their power in the region. Come on, NYT. Stop behaving like the colonial British.
That age is over when you could sit in Washington and call the shots easily. Of course, you may still call the shots, but it is becoming difficult day after passing day.
This reminds me of an ancient astrological theory -- that political and economic superiority with move across the face of planet Earth over a period of time -- from the east/Asia to Europe, the New World, to East Asia and finally back to India.
I think right now what we are seeing is that power, both economic and political, is moving definitely from the New World to East Asia.
As Indians, we should prepare ourselves for this great opportunity and also be sure that China, with a political system that can be hijacked easily by a potential dictator, is not allowed a free run
in such a scenario.

Can Obama manage those expectations, and those forces of change?

Finally Barack Obama is president of the United States. A judging by the crowds that attended his inaugural, it seems at least some Americans think the new president has some sort of magic wand to pull the country out of the many problems it is mired in currently, and most of which are being blamed on George W Bush.
It evokes in me memories of the first time Manmohan Singh became India's Finance Minister. The Congress had promised to roll back prices in the run-up to those elections but once he took over Mr Singh famously said: "I do not have a magic wand (to roll back the prices!)".
Well, at least Mr Obama did not say he had a magic bullet for all of America's problems but a lot of Americans and people in other countries seem to think so. The biggest challenge for Obama would be managing those expectations.
And Obama could be classified as a success or failure depending purely on how he manages those expectations, not on how he really performs on the ground.
Will the world change with Obama? I doubt so. The changes we are undergoing right now are so momentous and old solutions simply cannot work. Indeed, we may not realize it but these changes are so sweeping, they are not amenable to any solutions. My feel is they will run their course and trample over any force that is trying to channelize them, till they change the world order and society in hitherto unseen ways.
Will Obama be a victim of those forces, or will he be able to keep his head up?

No Future Left For Left After Congress 'Betrayal'!

The Left is now crying foul.What a bright idea! For four years you misused the mandate extended to you by people from Kerala and West Bengal to support a Congress-led government at the Centre. And you did that by holding strikes almost every week in those states, derailing the life of the common people. And now the Congress having outsmarted you, you cry foul!
I wonder if Karat and co have any moral authority left to point fingers at the Congress. You had four years to keep this government under control and you did nothing. All you did was make life hell for the very same people who elected you.
Compare that with what a regional politician like Karunanidhi did. He could manage to make the UPA government change its policies in his favor even though he did not have the same number of MPs in the Lok Sabha as the Left parties combine did.
If the Left had pulled the rug from under the government the last time it kicked up a furore over the 123 nuclear deal with the US, they would still have had some credibility left. Now all they can do is bawl over the 'betrayal' of the Congress.
I am sure if the country goes to the polls today the Left will end up with less than one third of the number of seats in Parliament as it does now. That is because the misrule in its two main bastions - Kerala and West Bengal - has reached it peak. People in those two states may not care about the nuclear deal, but they do care about how governance has suffered as the party mandarins go about their own agendas.
So keep crying, Mr Karat and co. No one has any sympathy left for you. You were given a chance to help save the country from the American stooges in the Congress and you bungled. Period.

Left Is Right, And So Is BJP!

Is the Left's, and the BJP's, stand on the Indo-US nuclear deal good for the country? Well, it is too early to say. But going by past actions of the US, it is safe to be cautious and not to put too much hope on that deal.
We have seen on several occasions how the United States has left India hanging when it came to national security, while supporting Pakistan to the hilt. One could argue it is a whole new global strategic scenario now. However, that doesn't take away from the fact that the United States, and the West in general, will not repeat what they have done earlier with respect to India's legitimate security concerns.
The West now needs India's help to tame the monster of Islamic terrorism. And yes, it is also something in India's strategic interest. But what I hate about various Congress -led governments that have come to power in Delhi is that they try to see India's geo-political interests through the prism held out by the West. They have forgotten that the Indian have had strong relationships with various other nations and people, relationships spanning various planes. These governments have tried to follow a foreign policy that is largely a remnant of the Raj's policies.
The Vajpayee government, to its credit, made an attempt to go back to our roots and relationships by initiating the 'Look East' policy. But I think the Sahibs in the Congress have shelved that again.
We need to understand that our foreign and strategic interests are not exactly the same as those being preached to us by the West, mainly the United States and Britain. We have an existence of our own, something that predates the era of these two western powers. And our governments need to look at the various equations in that relationship before trying to lick the boots of the West.
In that respect - and not on the merits or demerits of the Indo-US nuclear deal - I would say the Left and the BJP are right. If they can force this government of western lackey Manmohan Sigh, driven by a westerner like Sonia Gandhi, to strike new paths in foreign policy then it is good for the long-term interests of this country.