It is an oxymoron: ‘Keep the neighbours far away’. Ask any big nation and its foreign secretary will say, “Oh, I can easily deal with the Big Powers including the US. It is the smaller ones which give us all the trouble, creating an endless process of pin pricks”. After World War II, the US still managed to exist in peace with Germany and Japan as well as the Cold War enemy, the USSR. Look at Cuba, only 90 miles from the US; it is still regarded as an enemy. Its former President, Fidel Castro survived several assassination attempts by the CIA and other US agencies, which led to a lot of cribbing by the US allies.
Yes, size does matter and the bigger nations always accused of being ‘bullies’ have to tread cautiously to avoid being labelled as such. India suffers from such a problem, surrounded on all sides by tiny nations like Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal and so on. Often unjustly, we have been accused of trampling on their rights. This is a major issue for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his NDA government which, as such, has very little experience in handling foreign relations.
Modi tried to remedy this situation and pretended to be a foreign affairs expert by inviting all SAARC representatives to his ‘coronation’, sorry, I mean ‘swearing-in’! That some of them swore at him after the ceremony is neither here nor there. But once SAARC was over, there was nothing else to do to improve the wooing of our smaller neighbours. Ideally, any democratic nation would like to create and maintain excellent relations with its neighbours. The following is a scenario of how India would create a ‘friendly neighbourhood’, where she would be a shining star of peaceful co-existence.
Bhutan, Nepal: Let us admit it. Our ‘foreign desk’ has very little knowledge about these neighbours where the rulers appear to be wearing the same kind of costumes. At the external affairs Ministry, we have the American Desk, the Russian Desk, the Chinese Desk and the African desk, but not a desk for these tiny nations.
Still, we have to maintain good relations with them Only milk and honey for our neighbours and earn their goodwill. Since every nation, small or big, is interested in Bollywood, we can use hindi cinema to win them. Why not plan a sequel to Dev Anand’s super hit movie, Jewel Thief? The country does not matter, it could be in Nepal or Bhutan. Modi could persuade Dev Saab’s son Suneil Anand to release the script of Son of Jewel Thief and rope in BJP stars in the NDA like Vinod Khanna, Anupam Kher, Hema Malini and other members of the glamour brigade to work on the movie. The rulers of these nations could be assigned important guest roles, and within no time, will be eating out of Sushma Swaraj’s hands and supporting our foreign policy.
Sri Lanka: After the civil war and the defeat of the LTTE, our relations are not good with Sri Lanka and we have to win them over. On our side, the initiative should come from Tamil Nadu and its political parties, DMK, AIADMK, DMDK, ABCDEMDK, FGHIJMK and so on. With the Purratchi Thalivi (revolutionary leader) in jail, AIADMK (PTJAIADMK) will represent the former chief minister. A lot of give and take will be needed to make the milk of human kindness runneth over. The elder son in any Tamil family will have to be named Prabhakaran. The Indian Navy along with the Sri Lankan fleet of ships, should use the latest type of trawlers to fish massively in the coastal sea and supply the catch to Sri Lanka.
Pakistan: Because of prevailing conditions, Indian and Pakistani forces posted on either side of the border lines, did not exchange packets of sweets, and this has to be rectified. Orders will be given to the Indian Air Force to air drop big packets of North Indian, South Indian and Bengali sweets to the patrolling Pakistani soldiers. With such friendly gestures abounding, the sweetened Indian foreign policy will be known all over the world and make Modi a certainty for the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize.
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V. Gangadhar
The writer is a well-known satirist.[/column]