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Are Some Pakistanis Feeding into Indian Delusions of Grandeur?
Many Pakistanis are singing effusive praises of India on social media platforms and racking up millions of views, according to a report in the Indian mainstream media. These Pakistanis are boosting their earnings by feeding into the Indians' delusions. The "India Today" report claims that, in the last 6 months alone, the number of channels using the hashtag #pakistanireactiononindia on YouTube increased by 1,000, and the number of videos by 5,000. Calling it an "industry" is an acknowledgment of the profit motive of the Pakistani YouTubers. These YouTubers steer clear of anything that even remotely challenges their unadulterated praise of India. For example, they make no mention of India ranking worse than Pakistan on income poverty, hunger and overall happiness. Nor do they talk about thousands of Indian farmers killing themselves every year. Nor do they mention extremely high levels of unemployment in Modi's India.
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| Modi Claims "chhappan inch ki chhati" (56 inch chest) |
India's Population:
India is the world's most populous country with a population (1.4 billion) over 6 times larger than Pakistan's (230 million). India has the world's largest number of social media users and hundreds of millions of book readers. The profit motive for praising India extends beyond just the social media. It also includes book publishers and authors who see an opportunity to profit from it. India's English language book market is the world's third largest, behind that of the United States at the top and of the United Kingdom at number 2. It is the fastest growing market today which will make India the world's number 1 market in the next ten years. It could happen sooner if the book sales in the US and the UK decline faster or those in India grow more rapidly than they are already.
Indian Delusions:
Delusions are a symptom of mental disorders, and are characterized by a belief in something that is not true. Here's how India Today describes what it calls "The Praise India Industry" and how it is received by Indians:
"Indians love people from abroad lauding their achievements, but seem to derive the biggest satisfaction when Pakistanis gush over India's success. Pakistanis have understood that and have tapped into that, creating an entire industry of YouTubers in Pakistan".
India's leaders and their western boosters have been promoting the country as an emerging superpower to counter rising China. They cite the size of India's economy, demography, military and consumer market to back up their assertions. These claims are challenged by India's former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman, former head of IMF in India, in an article titled "India's Size Illusion". In a similar article titled "The Chinese Threat No One Is Talking About — And How to Counter It", Sameer Lalwani, a senior fellow for Asia strategy at the Stimson Center, has raised serious questions about India's ability to counter China in the Indian Ocean region.
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| Akhand Bharat (Greater India) Mural in India's New Parliament Building |
Modi's 56 inch Chest:
"Desh ka bahut nuksaan hua hai", acknowledged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his military's 2019 failures against Pakistan in Balakot and Kashmir. This marked a major shift in Modi's belligerent tone that has been characterized by his boasts of "chhappan inch ki chhati" (56 inch chest) and talk of "munh tor jawab" (jaw-breaking response) and "boli nahin goli" (bullets, not talks) to intimidate Pakistan in the last few years. These events should force India's western backers to reassess their strategy of boosting India as a counterweight to China.
India's Illusions:
Indian government's former Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian has enumerated and challenged arguments for what he calls "India's Size Illusion" as follows:
1. India’s economic size has not translated into commensurate military strength. Part of the problem is simple geography. (German Chancellor Otto Von) Bismarck (1815-1898) supposedly said that the US is bordered on two sides by weak neighbors and on two sides by fish. India, however, does not enjoy such splendid isolation. Ever since independence, it has been confronted on its Western frontier by Pakistan, a highly armed, chronically hostile, and often military-ruled neighbor. More recently, India’s northern neighbor, China, also has become aggressive, repudiating the territorial status quo, occupying contested land in the Himalayas, reclaiming territory in the east, and building up a large military presence along India’s borders. So, India may have fish for neighbors along its long peninsular coast, but on land it faces major security challenges on two fronts.
2. Then there is the question of market size. As Pennsylvania State University’s Shoumitro Chatterjee and one of us (Subramanian) have shown, India’s middle-class market for consumption is much smaller than the $3 trillion headline GDP number suggests, because many people have limited purchasing power while a smaller number of well-off people tend to save a lot. In fact, the effective size of India’s consumer market is less than $1 trillion, far smaller than China’s and even smaller relative to the potential world export market of nearly $30 trillion.
Indo-Pacific Dominance:
In an article titled "The Chinese Threat No One Is Talking About — And How to Counter It", Sameer Lalwani, a senior fellow for Asia strategy at the Stimson Center, has raised serious doubts about India's ability to counter China in the Indian Ocean region. Here are a couple of excerpts from the article:
1. China has been building dozens of advanced warships that seem poised to head toward the vast body of water through which 80 percent of global seaborne trade transits.....Indeed, a deeper (US) partnership with India — the world’s largest democracy, on an upward economic trajectory, seemingly perfectly positioned to counter China on land and at sea — has been something of a holy grail for at least four U.S. administrations.......Yet what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a decade ago called a “strategic bet” on India does not seem to be paying off. Indian naval and political power in the Indian Ocean region is faltering, giving way to influence by Beijing. Many of these problems are of India’s own making.
2. There is increasing discussion and advocacy among China’s foreign policy scholars and former officials about an Indian Ocean fleet. Indeed, the idea is consistent with China’s efforts to acquire military facilities in the Horn of Africa, on Pakistan’s Indian Ocean coast, in Myanmar and in the UAE, which offers access to the Persian Gulf. China has also engaged in intelligence collection efforts in the region and increased its port visits and diplomatic presence.
India's "Accidental" Missile Firing:
India's March 9 "accidental firing" of Brahmos nuclear-capable supersonic cruise missile into Pakistan has raised serious questions about the safety of the Indian nuclear arsenal. Do the people in charge of India's nukes have basic competence to handle such weapons? Was this really an "unauthorized" or "accidental" firing? Why was there a long delay by New Delhi in acknowledging the incident? Could Pakistan be blamed if it assumed that extremist right-wing Hindu elements had taken control of the missile system in India and fired it deliberately into Pakistani territory? Has the Indian government risked the lives of 1.6 billion people of South Asia?
Could this "errant" missile have brought down commercial passenger planes that were in the air at the time of this "accidental" firing? Here's an excerpt from Bloomberg detailing air traffic in the flight path of the Indian Brahmos:
"Several planes passed through the direct trajectory of the missile that day, which flew from the Indian garrison town of Ambala and ended up in Mian Channu in Eastern Pakistan. They included a Flydubai jet heading to Dubai from Sialkot, an IndiGo plane going from Srinagar to Mumbai and an Airblue Ltd. flight from Lahore to Riyadh. All crossed the missile’s trajectory within an hour of its accidental launch, data from flight-tracking application Flightradar24 show. Other international flights in the vicinity of the missile’s trajectory -- and within its range -- included a Kuwait Airways Co. jet heading to Guangzhou, China from Kuwait City, a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight to Riyadh from New Delhi, and a Qatar Airways service from Kathmandu to Doha, the data show. No advisory to pilots operating in the vicinity -- known as a notice to airmen or NOTAM -- was issued".
India: A Paper Elephant:
In an article titled "Paper Elephant", the Economist magazine talked about how India has ramped up its military spending and emerged as the world's largest arms importer. "Its military doctrine envisages fighting simultaneous land wars against Pakistan and China while retaining dominance in the Indian Ocean", the article said. It summed up the situation as follows: "India spends a fortune on defense and gets poor value for money".
"Its (India's) loss of a plane last week to a country (Pakistan) whose military is about half the size and receives a quarter (a sixth according to SIPRI) of the funding is telling. ...India’s armed forces are in alarming shape....It was an inauspicious moment for a military the United States is banking on to help keep an expanding China in check".
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Riaz Haq
Misguided foreign policy leaves India friendless in South Asia, claims Japanese media outlet Nikkei - Muslim Mirror
https://muslimmirror.com/misguided-foreign-policy-leaves-india-frie...
In a recent report, Japanese media outlet Nikkei Asia has criticized India’s foreign policy, claiming that it has led to the country’s increasing isolation in South Asia. The report suggests that India’s diplomatic strategies under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government have backfired, leaving the nation with few allies in its own neighborhood.
The Nikkei report highlights strained relations with key regional players like Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, countries that have traditionally maintained close ties with India. These tensions have reportedly been fueled by a combination of internal political dynamics, mismanagement of regional partnerships, and India’s perceived alignment with global powers like the U.S. and Japan.
Strained Relations with Nepal and Bangladesh
One of the focal points of the article is India’s deteriorating relationship with Nepal. The report claims that India’s heavy-handed approach to Nepal’s constitutional crisis in 2015, followed by its blockade of essential supplies, has left a lasting negative impact on bilateral ties. Nepal has since sought closer relations with China, a move that has caused concern in New Delhi.
In Bangladesh, the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam have led to growing distrust of India. The policies, which many Bangladeshis view as targeting their population, have strained relations, despite decades of cooperation on trade, infrastructure, and security. The Nikkei article notes that Dhaka is now looking to diversify its partnerships, with China emerging as a significant alternative.
India’s Influence in Sri Lanka and the Maldives
India’s relationship with Sri Lanka has also faced challenges, according to Nikkei. Although India has provided financial aid to help Sri Lanka manage its recent economic crisis, the growing Chinese influence on the island nation, including Beijing’s investments in key infrastructure projects, has limited India’s influence.
In the Maldives, China’s expanding footprint has similarly reduced India’s traditional clout. While India has worked to rebuild its influence through initiatives like the “Neighborhood First” policy, the article suggests that these efforts have been slow to produce results.
China’s Growing Influence in South Asia
According to Nikkei, China has capitalized on India’s strained relations with its neighbors by making strategic investments and forming partnerships across South Asia. From large infrastructure projects in Pakistan and Sri Lanka to growing trade ties with Bangladesh and Nepal, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been a key tool in expanding its influence.
The report implies that India’s inability to counter China’s growing presence in the region stems from miscalculations in foreign policy, with New Delhi’s focus on global partnerships coming at the expense of regional diplomacy. India’s reluctance to openly challenge China’s influence while prioritizing ties with the U.S., Japan, and Australia through the Quad alliance has, according to Nikkei, weakened its position in South Asia.
The Nikkei report concludes by urging India to recalibrate its foreign policy and restore ties with its South Asian neighbors. It argues that a more balanced and inclusive approach to regional diplomacy, combined with efforts to counter China’s growing influence, is crucial for India to regain its position as a regional leader.
As India faces significant geopolitical challenges, including tensions with Pakistan and China, its ability to maintain strong ties with its immediate neighbors is becoming increasingly critical.
on Tuesday
Riaz Haq
Ashok Swain
@ashoswai
Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau says Indian diplomats of the Modi regime, together with an Indian criminal gang, are engaged in murder & extortion of Canadians in Canada. When a criminal heads the government, it turns the government machinery to a criminal gang!
https://x.com/ashoswai/status/1845949810932596861
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Canada on Monday ordered six Indian diplomats to leave the country, including India’s top diplomat in Ottawa, Sanjay Kumar Verma, officials said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/14/canada-modi-sikhs-v...
The killing of a Sikh separatist in Canada last year was part of a broader campaign of violence against Indian dissidents directed by a senior official in the Indian government and an operative in the country’s spy agency, according to Canadian officials who cited intercepted Indian communications and other newly acquired information.
Canadian authorities have also identified at least six Indian diplomats serving in Canada who were directly involved in gathering detailed intelligence on Sikh separatists who were then killed, attacked or threatened by India’s criminal proxies, Canadian officials said.
Canada ordered all six of those diplomats to leave the country in notices that were sent early Monday, the officials said. Among them were India’s top diplomat in the country, Sanjay Kumar Verma, and its top consular official in Toronto, the officials said.
The Biden administration, which has cultivated closer ties with India, last year confronted Modi administration officials with intelligence that an officer in India’s Research and Analysis Wing, a spy service known as RAW, was behind an attempt to assassinate a Sikh separatist in New York — a failed plot with parallels to the Nijjar case in Canada. The Post identified the RAW officer as Vikram Yadav, though he was not named in a U.S. indictment accusing an alleged Indian drug trafficker of seeking to hire a hit man to carry out the killing.
Nijjar and Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the target of the New York plot, were leaders of a movement that for decades has campaigned to carve out an independent Sikh state in northern India. The movement was marked by violent clashes in the 1980s, but has been relatively dormant since a crackdown led to a mass exodus of Sikhs to other countries.
Modi, who came to power as a champion of Hindu nationalism, has revived concerns about the supposed threat posed by Sikhs living abroad. Modi and other officials have frequently accused Canada, which has the world’s largest population of Sikhs outside India, of harboring terrorists.
Canadian officials said they only recently began to grasp the magnitude of the covert campaign of violence India has waged against Sikhs as new evidence emerged from an ongoing investigation of Nijjar’s killing that is led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police but has involved other agencies, as well as intelligence provided by the United States and other allies.
Officials said the investigation has uncovered evidence of Indian government involvement in home invasions, drive-by shootings, arson and at least one additional killing.
Officials cited the death of Sukhdool Singh, who was shot in Winnipeg on Sept. 20, 2023, less than a day after he was featured in a wanted list of gangsters posted on X by India’s National Investigation Agency. The killing came two days after Trudeau publicly accused India of killing Nijjar.
on Tuesday
Riaz Haq
Pravin Sawhney
@PravinSawhney
As the SCO meeting which begins in Islamabad today, three Pakistan's bilaterals to watch out for are with:
1. Russian 76 member strong delegation
2. 200 members strong Chinese delegation
3. with Iran delegation.
These bilaterals will likely have impact on Pakistan's sought Brics membership - at 16th Brics in Russia from Oct 22-24.
Pakistan's two big geopolitical advantages (if it can harness them) are:
A. It has developed close ties with two Great Powers (China & Russia) which matter most in Asia Pacific
B. It can play an important role in Middle East - when it is at brink of larger regional war.
India's minister
@DrSJaishankar
is expected to talk about terrorism & sovereignty- which given India's recent spat with Canada is not likely to sound credible!
https://x.com/PravinSawhney/status/1845996235762893255
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Foreign dignitaries arrive for SCO summit spadework
https://www.dawn.com/news/1865054
Informed sources told Dawn that a four-member delegation from India, 76 delegates from Russia, 15 representatives of China, a two-member team from Iran and a four-member delegation from Kyrgyzstan reached Islamabad on Sunday.
Seven delegates of SCO also arrived in the capital.
Government of Pakistan
@GovtofPakistan
Pakistan is honored to host the 23rd SCO Heads of Government Meeting in Islamabad from October 15th to 16th, reflecting its commitment to regional cooperation.
The summit will focus on enhancing regional cooperation, trade, and financial integrity among member states, significantly boosting Pakistan’s image and future prospects. By positioning Pakistan as a trade hub for Central Asia, the summit aims to promote economic integration, a digital economy and cultural exchanges, fostering regional prosperity and stability.
https://x.com/GovtofPakistan/status/1845693140369330493
on Tuesday