BJP’s blunder in Beijing


What seems to distinguish the Congress from the BJP is that the former seeks subservience to America and the latter to China, writes rajinder puri



That BJP president Mr Nitin Gadkari went to China on a goodwill visit just after Beijing administered a snub to India by giving stapled visas to Arunachal Pradesh residents was bad enough. His subsequent performance in China was worse. It seems that the BJP was so thrilled with being noticed by China that like the proverbial small town yokel it went salivating to Beijing assuming that it had arrived on the big international stage.
Apart from the conventional inanities that inform such visits, Mr Gadkari reportedly told his hosts that since China had great influence on Pakistan his party expects Beijing to use its good offices with Islamabad to put pressure on it to stop exporting terror to India and act against all jihadi acts of terrorism on Indian soil. This must have sounded like music to his hosts. It is hard to imagine a more damaging request by any Indian leader to China ’s rulers.

New Delhi has rightly and stoutly resisted all moves by America to intercede in India ’s Kashmir dispute with Pakistan . The implicit logic is that as a regional power India cannot concede a big brother role to any third power. India will deal with Pakistan bilaterally. Now the BJP in its wisdom is pleading with Beijing to exercise the big brother role that India has rightly denied to America . What compounds the irony is that the terror machine that Mr Gadkari wants to be defanged in Pakistan is sustained by Beijing ’s unstinted military support to the Pakistan army that helps Islamabad export terror to India .

Beijing’s ambition to act the big brother in South Asia is encouraged by those segments of the American establishment committed to advancing US ties with China as a way of getting out of its economic mess. The argument put forward by these segments is that to stabilise South Asia Beijing can act peace maker between India and Pakistan. That is exactly what Beijing wants. If India can also become China’s proxy in South Asia like Pakistan, Beijing would have achieved its goal. That would of course make South Asia stable, but at whose cost?

The BJP has proved that it is truly a Hindu party. The Hindu attitude to foreigners resulted in India being under the tutelage of foreign rule for centuries. It is a different matter that foreign invaders after settling down in India became very Hindu in their way of life and attitude. That is why India was continuously subservient to foreigners and allowed foreigners to rule them. It seems nothing has changed. What seems to distinguish the Congress from the BJP is that the former seeks subservience to America and the latter to China. Meanwhile, America and China are joined at the hip!

The writer is a veteran journalist and cartoonist