Torching the lines

A day after the might of the Indian Republic was applied to ensure the safe passage of the Olympic torch through New Delhi, it is time for sober reflection. There is no contesting the responsibility that the government bore to ensure the safety of the torch. The flame is an emblem of the Olympics — the games of all the nations — and it falls upon each host to see to its security as it goes around the world. But the security bandobast that was put together did more than that these past few weeks. It sought to keep the event of the relay untarnished by harmless and assorted protests in this country in the weeks since Lhasa saw the first uprising of the season in early March. The Chinese authorities were, upon that first protest in Lhasa, thrown into an over-reaction born of surprise. The element of surprise was enhanced by the fact that Beijing’s official elite was absorbed in the National People’s Congress session. Beijing reacted with disproportionate force and rhetoric reminiscent of Tiananmen. Nothing surprising. What still confounds is India’s immediate internalisation of that same over-reaction. This over-reaction was incongruous with India’s democratic credentials, and it has also put on India a striking handicap in bilateral relations.

Consider the context in which this development comes. Of late, China has been moving the goalposts on border issues that had been taken to be settled. In January, within days of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s return from China and long after the two countries had agreed to operationalise a trading post on the Sikkim border, Beijing lodged a surprising protest. It argued that India’s military was violating the understanding to maintain peace on the border by building bunkers. The object clearly was to reposition Sikkim on the list of unsettled areas. The Chinese military, for its part, had already destroyed Indian bunkers on the India-Bhutan-Tibet tri-junction in November. This aggressive diplomacy by China is evident in a new edginess by Indian officials on Arunachal Pradesh.

For whatever reasons of pressure from the Left allies that the UPA government chose to show intolerance of Tibetan protests and Tibetans themselves, the repercussions will be felt in foreign policy. In these weeks, China has seen the ease with which it could have the Indian vice president’s long scheduled meeting with the Dalai Lama cancelled — or compel India’s envoy in Beijing to show up at the foreign office in the middle of the night. Tenor in foreign policy creates its own momentum. India will have to reckon with it.