Abingdonboy
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2010
- Messages
- 29,597
- Reaction score
- 46
- Country
- Location
Brother, this post can be condensed into two words "optics" and "lobby". Both are highly intangible concepts and, if I may say, a rather disingenious way of spinning what has been Modi's most appalling policy blunder.THis is a comment i picked up on another forum and i thought people here deserved to read this. IF you want to see the atcual discussion in that forum i suggest you PM me...
@Abingdonboy @Levina @ranjeet @Skull and Bones @third eye
----------------------------------------------------
For all those asking "why talks?" and "why invite the JIT to do tamasha in Pathankot"... I have only one answer. It is diplomatic theatre.
Are talks, inviting the JIT etc. going to achieve f___ all as bilateral measures? Are they going to make the Pakis behave any differently at all? Obviously not.
So what is the utility of those things? Optics, only optics. And exclusively for the benefit of third party viewers (i.e. the "international community").
Now some, like my friend CRamS ji, may ask: "what is the use of adopting these postures for third party viewers? Show me one country that has ever been pro-India in the India-Pakistan context."
To this I would only say: remember that when we talk about countries we aren't talking about individuals. Sounds obvious, doesn't it... until you think about a lot of the 140-characters-or-less homilies so often posted here... "Unkil is one of 3.5 fathers, and will NEVER abandon his Munna Pakistan" etc. Sometimes we use these analogies so much that we begin to take them literally. As if the US is one autocratic individual with an inordinate hatred of India (like a continent-sized Rajdeep Sardesai) who acts in a given predictable way in all circumstances with no rational explanation.
Yes, indeed, there is a very strongly anti-India lobby in the US. It includes influential people from the State Dept, the CIA, the Pentagon, the WHOTUS and the COTUS, not to mention various think tanks etc. They have an agenda that includes keeping India contained and tied down. They will always push that agenda.
But that does not mean we have no diplomatic leverage. Indeed, we do. It may not be even 10% of what, say, the Israelis have... but it is there. To say that it is not there at all, is an insult to many generations of Indian diplomats (also Indian private citizens, and PIO US citizens, including some who post on this forum) who have worked very hard for decades to cultivate it. As a result, we do have our own lobby in Washington. Also in other capitals of the world, and in the UN.
Our lobby in Washington is hard-pressed to push our point of view against an effectively stronger and better established anti-India, pro-China, pro-Pakistan lobby. Probably our lobby will never be strong enough to actually induce the kinds of results we fantasize about (B52s over Islamabad etc.) There is too much opposition for anything like that, both from the motivated anti-India lobby and from the indifferent establishment.
But when we really need to do something against Pakistan, our lobby is there for us. It will do whatever it can. As CRamSji suggests, it will probably never be able to overwhelm Washington and create a sea-change in US diplomatic posture towards the subcontinent. But it can stymie those who would want more US involvement in favor of Pakistan and against India... at least for some time. Our calculus is that whatever objective we want to achieve against Pakistan, at the occasion and place of our choosing, can be achieved within the period of time that our lobby buys us. That's all. Once that time period expires it's up to us to present the fait accompli... or face consequences that will make our overt anti-Pakistan action a case of diminishing returns to one extent or another.
So what does this have to do with the optics? Simply this: the optics give our lobbies in Washington DC (and other nations, and in the UN) the ammunition they need to fight our diplomatic battles. That's all. We can argue forever whether this is worth the perceived humiliation implicit in such optics (Pakistan canceling talks, JIT submitting a sham report, etc.) We can express a lot of anger here that nothing is being done visibly to hurt Pakistan, and in fact gestures like talks, inviting the JIT etc. are being made which irritate us. The GOI has to balance our anger and irritation on BRF (and like-minded sections of the Indian polity) vs. the need to provide the ammunition of optics to the lobbies who, when called upon, will fight India's diplomatic battles in foreign capitals.
That's how it is. Anyone can reduce this grim reality to a "log kya kahenge argument" or "why should we care what the world thinks" or whatever makes one feel better about it. It's immaterial. That's how it is.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pakistan has got away scott free and India has legitmised a state sponsorer of terorr by letting the criminals investigate their own crime thus undermining their own long held postion.
