Our foreign policy is torched: Can we stand up and be counted?

The world is running with the Olympic Torch. Running for it, gunning for it or running it down. The torch, which is supposed to stay lit till the end of the Games, was put out at least five times in Paris. At its previous stopover in London, the police had to put down fiery protests to make sure the flame didn’t die. San Francisco is trying very hard to not let Paris repeat on the Golden Gate.

Delhi is wetting its pants with fear of disruption as the torch comes here for a curtailed 2-km Rajpath run. We are not as combative as Sarkozy’s France, which even talks about boycotting the Olympics. We want cordial relations with Beijing. We also have more Tibetans settled here than Paris. This thought is giving mandarins in South Block sleepless nights. Our diplomacy has suddenly started believing in the comical wisdom: All is well that bends well. We have bent so much for Beijing that the People’s Liberation Army makes incursions in our territory at will, demands Arunachal Pradesh as its own, orders our ambassador to receive a rebuke at 2 in the morning. We in turn betray only slight irritability and a total lack of spine.

Good or bad, India, since its inception, followed a foreign policy of pride. We may differ on the pragmatism part. Today, all we do is lay supine for practical reasons.

We have more reasons to stand up today. We have always been world’s largest democracy, now we are also one of the world’s fastest growing economies. We in fact are the world economy’s silver lining as dark clouds of recession hover over the developed world. Along with China, yes, but we ARE counted. Only, we don’t stand up.