Mindsets with manacles

Take the World Cup, for instance. Here I am seated before a TV set. David Beckham scores that penalty against Argentina. Oh, the celebration among the English fans filling a large section of the stadium! The anchor cleverly cuts to Manchester, where Beckham plays. The streets are packed with celebrating crowds. It was a sight of a nation rejoicing together.

Every time the camera slowly brought into focus Bhaichung Bhutia, the Indian soccer captain, as an expert commentator, the feeling was not one of elation at seeing an Indian among the commentators, but of depression. Is this all we are capable of? Gassing nineteen to the dozen about everything including football? Just imagine, a country of India8217;s size and being nowhere in the global soccer hierarchy. We rank 116th in the world!

Of course there is the hopelessness generated by uninspiring leaders, casteism, communalism, low national self esteem. It is in this depressed state that the mind is receptive to the imagined wrongs of history. Had murderous Muslim marauders not invaded the country, interrupting the evolution from one ball game to another, who knows, we may have been world football champions! Low self-esteem must be cited as one of the reasons behind the pogrom in Gujarat.

Hatred is not a function of generosity, of self confidence; it is a function of a seering inferiority complex. This inferiority complex gets amplified when outsiders equate us with Pakistan. We hate ourselves for having so lowered our league.

Imagine yourself in the year 2008. Our public spaces will be dominated by giant-sized TV screens. And this nation of a billion plus will sit riveted, watching one country8217;s flag go up once, twice, nay, one hundred and ten times. That country8217;s name is China, the host of the 2008 Olympic Games.

Do you know what happened in Moscow when Russia lost in the World Cup? Russians rioted. Anger stoked by low self esteem. Whom would you blame if Indians, smarting under a thousand problems, embarked on an unstoppable spree of rioting when we are reduced to negligible non-entities before the marching colossus of China?

Is there nothing we can do about this state of affairs? Remember, Nadia Comaneci was 14 when she scored a perfect ten in gymnastics for Romania. Countless medals are won by athletes in their teens.

In other words, if we can hunt down talent across the country, girls and boys from about 6 years to 11 years, hire the best coaches in the world, put these kids through the most rigorous training, it is not unthinkable that we may create a few champions by 2008 and beyond. I am aware that a regular programme on these lines has been submitted to the Minister of Sport Uma Bharti, who was last seen doing a jig on the Sindhu river, evoking our very glorious past. Any thoughts for the future, Madam?

Sorry, I am almost missing out on the Loya Jirga. Since the departure of the Soviet Union, the coming to power of the Mujahideen and then the Taliban, we have had no presence in Afghanistan. We did have excellent ties with Tajik hero Ahmad Shah Masood but after his death our contacts have been largely confined to the Panjsher Valley which, alas, may lose a cabinet post or two after the current Loya Jirga.

Once the Taliban were defeated by the US-led coalition and the International Community sanctified Hamid Karzai as the interim ruler pending the outcome of the Loya Jirga, New Delhi was suddenly galvanised into action. The objective situation in Afghanistan favoured India.

Vivek Katju, the Indian ambassador to Kabul, is the only diplomat I have seen have a meal in a downtown restaurant without any security guards. He has considerable access to the nodal points of power.

Unfortunately the mobilisations of our forces on the Pak front following the December 13 attack was also accompanied by a self-defeating measure. By stopping overflights we denied ourselves access to Kabul at a time when maximum travel between Kabul, Delhi and Amritsar was required.

The solitary Ariana Airways plane, flying daily between Dubai and Kabul and deviating to Delhi on a weekly basis, was insufficient. Consequently, traffic across the 1,700 km-long border that Afghanistan has with Pakistan was accelerated instead of being impeded.

Meanwhile, the embassy in Kabul has taken such a hard line on issuing visas to Afghan traders having old links with the Indian hinterland, that the same traders are looking for business in other countries surrounding Afghanistan. There is a tendency to sit back and watch whether Islamabad will bounce back into some sort of amity even with a post-Taliban Afghanistan.

It must have been particularly galling for some policy makers when Niyazov, Karzai and Musharraf of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan respectively held a summit two weeks ago in Islamabad to discuss oil and gas pipeline projects. Our electronic media, so energetic during the Afghan war, has demonstrated no interest in the Loya Jirga.

Well, I am keeping my fingers crossed that the Indo-Pak stand off ends, that the Parliamentary elections two years from now are fought on moderate platforms, that we can outgrow the midget size to which our preoccupation with Pakistan has reduced us.

At international fora Pakistan had become a laughing stock because its diplomats were obsessed with us. Pakistani diplomacy will have succeeded beyond measure had we become that country8217;s mirror image. We should circumvent Pakistan and engage the world.