Abhishek Ranjan

Roll No: 2022160

Sec: D

Missed opportunities
In the history of modern India, our country has had numerous occasions in which it had the
opportunity of amending the problems which have been bothering us since we got
independence. But our political establishment has missed all the major opportunities.
Intellectuals try to defend the position that India took, but I don’t agree with most of their
arguments. The first and foremost duty of the administrator of a state is to protect its
sovereignty, create buffer and prevent its borders from all kinds of external aggressions.
People’s Republic China is an apt example of this. China was actually doing all these things,
during the same time period under Mao Zedong.
The very first instance was the case of the state of Jammu & Kashmir. When India got its
independence, all the princely states had the freedom of joining either the Indian side, the
Pakistani side or remain independent. The ruler of J&K maharaja Hari Singh was reluctant to
join either side and decided to remain independent. However, when Pakistani disguised army
showed aggression, Hari Singh sought help from India, which India provided on the
condition that the state of J&K would join India. Now I am of the view that, after signing the
instrument of accession, the Indian state with the help of army should have forced the
Pakistani disguised army out of the geographical borders of the J&K. There should not have
been any ceasefire until then. Neither should there have been the involvement of any third
party to mediate the dispute. In the mediation by a third party, there is always a danger of the
third party being the Monkey in the two-cat fight over a loaf of bread. In fact, there was no
dispute at all, the Pakistani state was using its hard power to annex a strategically important
region in south Asia.
Second such instance was the defeat of Pakistan in the war of 1965. In this case too, India had
an upper hand to dictate its terms and amend the wrongs that had been done by previous
political leadership. However, the Tashkent declaration proved to be hollow for a victorious
side. Adding salt to injury, India lost its prime minister in that declaration, and there are still
conspiracy theories floating around behind the cause of the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri the
then Prime Minister of India.
The third instance is India’s role in the Liberation of Bangladesh (then east Pakistan) from
the persecution of the Pakistani state. On 16 December 1971, when Gen AAK Niyazi signed
the instrument of surrender, Indian army had some 93000 prisoners of war. India was
victorious party. Thus, India again got the opportunity to amend the wrongs and fix once and
for all the bone of contention. But the Indian government decided not to use this as a leverage
in dictating terms of peace treaty. On the contrary the Indian political establishment fell to
false calculation. India could get nothing substantial from the Shimla agreement. It is said
that Indian state did not negotiate with tough stance because it wanted to change the body
politic of Pakistan and subsequently did not want the newly formed civilian government of
Pakistan to fail.
India’s misplaced calculations and a relatively soft approach towards its sovereignty has
projected its image as a weak state on international fora.