How Foreign Policy is Stitched Up Elsewhere

Arun Shourie, in his brilliant rhetorical style, reminds us, for those who needs reminding, how foreign policy is made in Bharat. Where bad becomes good and good becomes bad because the right people, who have no interest of the nation at heart, except to prompt their own blinkered views and ideologies, and, ultimately, their own national interests.

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The very highest in this government allowed themselves to be persuaded by the Americans that we should do something that would strengthen Musharraf, as he was the best, it would seem the only option for us. Of course, they were nudged into accepting American ‘advice’ by that one mental ability they have in abundance — the ability to conjure wishfulfilling thoughts, thoughts that exempt them from standing the ground. This combination — American ‘theses’ and conjured rationalisations — led them to almost make a grand gesture of Siachin to bolster Musharraf, and yet again buy ‘peace in our time’, and that too under the exact camouflage that an American think-tank had stitched up.

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The stitch job is actually fairly consistent since Indian independence from British Imperialists. The period under imperialism has taught most foreign policy babus (and coterie of politicians who control foreign policy) not to think for themselves, with national interest at heart, but reproduce, propose, and implement stitched up plans made in London, then in Moscow, and later, in Washington

Sri Shourie prefaces the above with this:

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Here is one of the most deceitful men we have had to deal with. It is not just that he was the architect of Kargil. Here is a general who insisted that the Pakistani army had nothing to do with Kargil, so much so that he did one of the most dishonourable things that any armyman can do: he refused to accept bodies of soldiers who had died in the operation he had himself planned. And yet the same man claims in his book that Kargil was one of the most successful operations of the Pakistani army! Here is a man who has repeatedly dishonoured his word — pledged to the people of Pakistan, to its courts — about sticking to his office. Here is a man who has repeatedly issued decrees exempting himself from law, from his pledged word. Here, then, has been a personification of deceit. And yet, what a buildup he has had in India — eulogising him has been almost a fashion-statement among many Indian journalists.[Where have all the general’s cheerleaders gone? - IE]

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And it's not just Congress I, which takes the biggest laddu, but also the likes of Jaswant Singh, who worked against national interest during Operation Parakram, after Parliament terror attacks, based on stitch up jobs in western press (Jaswant looked to the British for answers also).

This reminds me of early Nehru socialists days when P. C. Mahalanobis went around the world, in the summer of 1954, to get his economic engineering and planning ideas validated.

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"The most brilliant" of these was Joan Robinson, then just back from a trip from China (where she was "much impressed by the progress they were making"). She thought htat the export-import sector in India needed more government control. Mahalanobis agreed, and in turn asked Robinson to visit India as a guest to the ISI [Indian Statistical Institute - that halo institute that could predict exactly how much 30+ crore Bharatitya would consume in terms of cars, scooters, iron, power, and everything else for the next five years]. This visit, he told her, "might be of very great help to us because her support may carry conviction that our approach to development planning is not foolish (sic). She smiled and said - 'Yes, I think I would be able to knock some sense into the heads of the economists in your country.'" [India After Gandhi, pg 215, Ramachandra Guha] (ISI explanation mine)

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