His whistling gets interrupted by the sound of clearing up of
throat by the lady. He looks up and finds the beautiful Soviet sitting on the
sofa in the other end of the hall, the golden Hammer and Sickle prominently engraved
on the Red Star batch that she is wearing proudly on the collar of her suit.
The lady asks him – a bit nervously – “Who are you?”
He thinks for a few moments. Then replies – “A friend.”
In his office abutting the hall, Robert F. Kennedy, Attorney
General of the United States of America, is trying to diplomatically resolve
the deadlock with Anatoly Dobrinyn, Soviet Ambassador to the USA. This is the
last round of diplomacy, in the event of the failure of which the two great
powers of the Cold War era lead the world to nothing less than the Third World
War – that too a nuclear one.
The scene is from the movie Thirteen Days and the background
is the Cuban crisis, wherein the Soviets were secretly installing their nuclear
missiles in the American vicinity.
The guy who is whistling in the hall is Kenny O’Donnell,
Special Assistant to the American President; and although the movie does not
mention the name of the lady, given the fact that she is accompanying the
Soviet ambassador on a meeting as crucial as this, it may be safely assumed
that she too must be an important official of her proud nation – though probably
not as important as Kenny.
It is in this dark, sinister background – when an
all-devastating war is lurking just around the corner – that the Special
Assistant to the American President replies to a Soviet that he is a friend of
hers. The same movie portrays how the Americans and the Soviets are trying to
exchange Turkey and Cuba – minnows in the game – in an attempt to resolve the
nuclear deadlock.
--------
Can there be anything more humiliating and inglorious for a
people than preparing an airstrip so that the air-planes of the invading nation
can successfully land in their territory?
What the Austrian national and a respected Sergeant of the
Nazi forces, Heinrich Harrer, witnessed on that bright, sunny day on the
‘Rooftop of the World’ was intriguing, to say the least. Having come from a
part of the world where the Second World War had just kick started and where nations
were furiously baying for the blood of each other, seeing people picking up
earth worms from the pit being dug for the construction of a theatre left him completely
baffled. When he put up the question to His Holiness (child) Dalai Lama, he got
a glimpse into the age-old ‘wisdom’ of probably the most peace-loving race on
the face of the planet. His Holiness said, “Tibetans
believe all living creatures were their mothers in their past life. So we must
show them respect and repay their kindness and never, never harm anything that
lives.”
War is something that seems to be not really wanted by the
normal people and peace – much more than even love – is what the human race,
deep down in its heart, strives for. When the Hindus say Shantih, Shantih, Shantih
at the end of their mantras, they are essentially praying to the Ultimate
Authority for the reign of peace in all the three dimensions of their human
existence – physical, divine and internal.
But then, there is nothing called free lunch in this world
and there is certainly price that must be paid for maintaining peace. A prudent
question to ask here would probably be, “Should
a race as peaceful as the Tibetans even have a right to exist as a nation?”
The answer, theoretically speaking, will be a yes. But then, in order to
maintain their freedom and peaceful existence, they should have had prepared
well in advance – both in terms of forging international relations and in terms
of acquiring a minimum warring capability.
After the Chinese have already invaded their northern borders in the name of national integration, an extremely sad and frightful conversation takes place in the court of His Holiness in between his Regent and the erstwhile defense minister.
-
“When you were defense minister to the
previous Dalai Lama, then you wanted to reorganize the army. Can we do it now?”
-
“The People’s Liberation Army is 1,000,000
troops strong. We have 8,000 men with 50 pieces of artillery and a few hundred
mortars and machine guns. The task is hopeless.”
- “Then you refuse the appointment, do you?”
- “No. I accept it with honor.”
A hopeless round of diplomacy is brought into motion. The
Chinese generals visit Lhasa wherein His Holiness exerts the right of Tibet to
exist as an independent nation. The war continues and Lhasa falls within a
matter of a few days. A rag-tag army of barely 8,000 men with 50 pieces of
artillery and a few hundred mortars and machine guns proved no match to the
1,000,000 troops strong PLA.
At a time-period in the world history, where nations after
nations were shaking off the burden of colonialism and gaining independence one
after another, Tibet was lost into oblivion. It paid the price of taking the preaching
of Buddha too seriously and not preparing well in advance for the impending
national casualties.
(Movie: Seven Years in Tibet).
--------
One thing that history teaches us in no ambiguous terms is
that friendship is a relationship of equality. Probably the last known instance
of friendship among unequal partners was the one between Krishna and Sudama.
And, even this comes to us from mythology and not history, and is a
relationship in which the all-benevolent Lord is more powerful than his human
partner.
In the impossible
situation of the human being more powerful, would it still have been the same?
In spite of the Bible preaching us the wonderful idea of
‘Love Thy Neighbor,’ we humans seem to be simply incapable of following it; and
the failure is certainly not only at the individual human level, but at the
level of nation states as well. Both history and the current times suggest us
amply that neighboring nations are seldom – if ever – good friends – Britain, France
and Germany, India and Pakistan, the two Koreas, Japan and China, Brazil and
Argentina, the lesser known example like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and
likewise. If we take Easternmost Russia and Alaska, we find that even Russia and
the USA are not really far off geographically and can very comfortably
considered to be neighbors for that matter.
--------
‘Everything is fair in love and war’ goes the famous
saying. One must travel extra miles and, if the situation demands, go
unconventional while preparing for wars and attempting to secure one’s
territorial and geo-political interests.
Strength can be defined in two ways. One is the power to
restraint yourself. Here, you are powerful and yet you desist from using your
power. You power lies in controlling yourself. The other is you are not as
powerful as your adversary is, but still – instead of meekly surrendering to
the aggressor – you fight with all the men and material forces that you can
gather. Here, the strength lies in not surrendering, come what may.
Philosophically speaking, both these kinds of strengths must
be respected. But, practically speaking, it, no doubt, is always better to
accumulate as much power as you can and yet restraint from using the same by
keeping diplomatic options open. The above two examples certainly point to the
same.
Keeping that in mind, two dates automatically become
extremely important in the national history of independent India – 18th
of May, 1974 and 11th and 13th of May, 1998, both connected
with the successful carrying out of nuclear tests by the country and eventually
entering the prestigious club of handful of nuclear-weapon-armed nations.
And this is where APJ Abdul Kalam and his ilk become
extremely important for the Indian nation, which being flanked by China to her
North and Pakistan to her West, is the nation that probably (and unfortunately)
has the longest running hostile international borders in the world.
True that wars must be averted for as long as possible by keeping
the channels for talks open and by forming international alliances, thus trying
to balance the international power equations, and this is precisely what is
being attempted by the coming together of India, USA, Japan and Australia in
drills such as joint naval exercises.
But then, it’s ultimately a dog’s world out there, wherein
everyone needs to standup for the protection of his/her own self-interests. This
is what the current occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea by the Russians and forceful,
illegal Chinese construction of airstrips on Spartly Islands (claimed by Philippines,
Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan) suggest. In both the cases, although a
lot of hue and cry has been made, no real and concrete action seems to be taken
by the international community. Tibet is another perfect example that fits in
this picture.
It is in this context that a minimum deterrent warring capability
needs to be built up and accumulated and it is in this attempt that the nuclear
tests conducted by APJ Abdul Kalam and his team of scientists on that fateful
day in the summer-baked deserts of Rajasthan gain importance. This, when
coupled with the successful 'Integrated Guided Missile Development Program'
(IGMDP) – which has armed the nation with missiles such as Prithvi, Akash,
Trishul, Nag and Agni – gives the country a respectable military position
internationally, which no doubt the nation must keep indigenizing and further investing
in.
As far as matters
purely international are concerned, respect flows out of fear and
nothing else. And hence, it becomes important that the country has poison
enough in her arsenal so that she is able take care of her strategic
geo-political interests on her own.
--------
राष्ट्रकवि श्री रामधारी सिंह 'दिनकर' की कविता 'शक्ति और क्षमा' से -
क्षमा शोभती उस भुजंग को, जिसके पास गरल हो,
उसका क्या जो दंतहीन, विषरहित, विनीत, सरल हो.
सच पूछो तो शर में ही बसती है दीप्ति विनय की,
संधिवचन सम्पूज्य उसी का जिसमें शक्ति विजय की .
सहनशीलता, क्षमा, दया को तभी पूजता जग है,
बल का दर्प चमकता उसके पीछे जब जगमग है.
Photo: http://www.tecake.com/india-tests-first-nuclear-capable-ballistic-missile-agni-v/3635/
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