Recent events have shown how fragile peace is in the present-day world. For instance, the actions of five terrorists in Pahalgam triggered a short-term war between two nuclear armed nations, which could have escalated if matters had gone out of hand. All the effort that has gone into establishing institutions over the years, such as the United Nations and regional groupings, fails to prevent conflict, or provide justice to innocent victims of terrorism. The one lesson learned is that, when push comes to shove, every country must fend for itself.
A country like Ukraine that did not become part of any security alliance with the specific purpose of ensuring peace between the two great powers of the Cold War era, is today suffering because of that ‘noble’ decision. It had even surrendered its nuclear arsenal! Now, it is desperately fighting for survival and is critically dependent on help provided by ‘friendly countries’ with temperamental leaders like Donald Trump seeking their pound of flesh.
India, too, in the past has been critically dependent on weapons supply from other countries, for which it has also had to pay a price in terms of compromising its ideology and policy choices. The strategy of Non-Alignment adopted by Pt Nehru, based on an idealistic worldview and inclination towards socialist values, succeeded in alienating the US, even though for a while it did offer a civilised alternative to a conflict-ridden world. However, China’s cold-blooded focus on its national objectives left Nehru’s idealism in tatters.
During the Bangladesh War of Liberation, then PM Indira Gandhi was pushed further into the Soviet fold, once again, by the ill-considered support provided to Pakistan by the US. Being quite successful democracies, India and the US should have been ‘natural’ allies, but it was not to be. However, important lessons were learned, and India began the process of ‘atmanirbharta’, and it was reflected in its nuclear policy. In PM AB Vajpayee’s time, the nuclear tests asserted India’s resolve to be self-reliant.
In the present, India has to take this policy of self-reliance forward to fashion an integrated response – the primary plank of which is the economy. And, indeed, this economic clout is being utilised to develop relations with the other more self-reliant nations such as France, Israel, Taiwan, Japan, even the UK and Australia. To a large extent, India has reached a level where it can stand on its own in times of crisis. This is why, it can pursue undeterred its campaign against the sponsors and financiers of terror, whether they are based in Pakistan, or Canada, without having to face the pressures it was subjected to in the past.
