Saturday, December 27, 2008

Barkha Weaving Back and Forth

Barkha Dutt blabbers about how War is Not an Option for India, but then later ends up saying that India may need to take some kind of action - "an unconventional solution that lies somewhere between war and peace."

Indians always end up seeking unconventional solutions because they usually live by rationalizing their vices so that they wind up in ridiculous predicaments. We end up innovating frugal Tata Nanos because we don't have the spine to create sweeping industrial revolutions which created a middle class in Japan, Korea, or Europe and the US a century ago. We end up relying upon software to power our economic turnaround, because we don't have the guts to confront entrenched labour lobbies blocking industrial reform. We ended up relying on nuclear weapons because we didn't have the guts to confront aggressive neighbors back during the pre-nuclear days.

We always seem to end up relying on innovating band-aid "solutions". As I said in a previous post, it looks like we're going for a token strike, under an expectation brokered by the US. The goal of this is to politically salvage Congress' political prospects so that they can claim some nominal superficial 'victory', while the powers-that-be in Pak can claim some kind of 'victory' on their side, in some kind of bizarre Rashomonic theatre. Manmohan will say 'we taught Pak a lesson', Zardari or Kayani will say 'we resisted the Hindooo aggressors'. Uncle Sam will of course bolster each claim in front of its local domestic audience, while ensuring its 'War on Terror' remains uninterrupted.

And AlQaeda/Lashkar will prepare to strike again. They are not refined theatre-going types, you see.

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