Great Power Status - aspiration versus reality

[Pulikeshi]

So India is great power in its own right and needs no example or advice..

Spinstersaab,

Again I have mucho respect for you and several others on this thread that I disagree with,
so let me start at the end. In case what you say above is true, lets close this thread like the silent death of
superpower thread earlier... End of discussion -
India is already a great power in its own right... please leave us alone will suffice no?
Manish Tiwari on Big Fight proposed the building of a wall and forgetting Pukestand exists - workable no?
Real world - hyper realism, cold hard facts are annoying - please to ignore onlee no?

Pulikeshimsaab taking a legal,detour is smart but driving on side walk aka foot path only shows scant respect for law.

The point is law breaking thought should come at at great risk ( taking behavior because of the certainty of law catching up).

If and when law is respected obeyed for internal or external reasons it's a great nation.

Let's take this example

When a person is sworn in as PM president or heck even a lowly law enforcement officer, it is implicit that they follow the rules and execute the laws of the nation. failing to do so would have consequences in open ( even is KSA or Singapore the flogging is open to deter and to show that magnitude of punitive measures)

When no action is taken or accountability is forced in any public activity it is sham nation, ballot box stuffing is not a democracy even if it happens at 30 percent rate...

You will have to spend sometime meditating on why India the nation-state tries to be law abiding internationally -
follow every rule book on international law, take issues to UN, beg to get on the UNSC, NSG, MCTR, etc.
abide by non-proliferation and economic regimes, etc. Take sanctions to test her weapons, etc.
Whereas, per you, her citizens are unlawful and so are elected and unelected officials of the government.
What indeed makes these otherwise rouges become some law abiding 'vishwamanavas?' (world citizens)

Simply put Dharma is enforced in true great power, that's the basic difference between wanna be and real power.

If dharma is not followed , then you have pseudo democracy and pseudo power just like Psikular forces.

Another concrete example is the no plan or action on the part of GOI to recent attacks.

Is this the first time attack on India by terrorist from a very specific country? No

Did we plan and learn from previous attacks ? Form ground reality it is resounding no?

Did we ever try to take punitive action against those who violated the laws of a peace extending nation? Resounding No?

are we ill equipped to handle these kind of events? A resounding yes?

Is there a accountability of any one even a moral gesture of home minister or defense minister taking responsibility. no

So what attributes can we claim to. Have towards great power? I don't know.

The only greatness of India is its Indian people, who have infinite patience and Tolerence to still respect people like Mrs Aamir Khan who said she would like to move out of country.

On this count India is unique and great tolerant society when the laws ar flaunted, money is made by breaking the law, invite terrorists with open arms and recruit them into Police.

Yes these traits no nation can claim except us not US

What does Dharma have to do with great power politics? Chanakya wrote the Arthashastra not a Dharmashastra
there is a important but subtle difference between the two innit?
Why this constant confusion between what India the nation-state must do and what SD civilization must do?
Some of us care about Dharma and are willing to work to protect it, India the nation-state need not worry about it...
Let India the nation-state work for the interest of all her citizens onlee... if there is alignment, then great...

On Pathankot, Mumbai, Kargil - there is enough said on other threads and Ms. Ponnappa's views I mostly concur
However, India as I have said before will not react to Pukestan's provocations - short of them lobbing a missile!
Expect more dosas, chai-biskoot, and never ending talks... for even if there are military options they will not be used.
The one sliver of hope is perhaps a covert op, but here again chances are we may never get to hear about it...
As Mr. Menon uvacha - 6-7 terrorist should not stop talks - it is already been costed for to maintain Paki Buffer state.
You and me may disagree, but the logic of the Indian nation-state is there to see for any serious student.

I see nothing unusual about a peace, loving tolerant citizens of India, like many other civilizations and cultures,
they have taken criticisms such as from Amir Khan (never heard the bedroom conversation with the Missus)
in their stride... The intolerance peddlers hypocrisy stands exposed on its own - what this got to do with power?
Citizens have the right to freedom of expression - even when other citizens disagree with said idiocy.

There is nothing wrong in India seeking to be a better 'great power' than the US, even as per what you said...
However, I am merely limiting my discussion to geopolitics of great power states...
Moral superiority is unmeasurable, the only thing that matters is cold, hard, facts of hard and soft power!

[Pulikeshi]

From the horse's (well an Ex-NSA's mouth) really lines up well with my suggestion - expect nothing on Pathankot
The game being played is different, and indeed India is a reluctant 'great power' it has still not signaled its
willingness to pay the cost to acquire the trappings of a great power - perhaps rightly so, given the need to
transform the lives of its citizens...
The real question someone should have asked him is how effective has been the shift to the Asia Pacific region that started in early 2000s?

You can’t tell Pakistan: Katti, we won’t talk. Katti isn’t policy, says ex-NSA Shivshankar Menon

PRAVEEN SWAMI: In a speech last year, you had mentioned that India’s foreign policy goal was essentially ensuring the transformation of India. This government seems to be concerned with signalling India’s power. Do you think, keeping in mind what happened in Myanmar or the very unpleasant situation with Nepal now, there is a danger of power projection overtaking the first objective of building an enabling neighbourhood?

SSM: ... Most governments of India, until this one, have always defined it as eliminating poverty, illiteracy, diseases and making sure that India becomes a modern, socialist country where we solve our own social and economic problems. That is one set of goals. Yes, you have to be a great power to achieve some of those goals. But whether the time now is to concentrate on being a great power, a projecting power, and doing all the other things that go with it or focussing on organic growth from trying to transform India, that is exactly where you get into a grey area. For me, the problem is the lack of a clear strategic vision from the government, which says either we buy into what has always been or we have an alternative. Now India has grown to the stage where we can change our goals. But you need to have a discussion on that rationally and consciously. If you (decide on the change), you need to signal it to the rest of the world as well, especially your neighbours. I am not sure if that has happened in the last few months.

DEEPTIMAN TIWARY: One stream of thought in diplomacy says that Pakistan is not much of a strategic threat to India, that India should not focus its diplomatic efforts on Pakistan and rather focus on the rest of the world, and that it can isolate Pakistan if it refuses to negotiate. What are your thoughts ?

SSM: If you do a security calculus of what are the big security threats and risks for India, what can affect our ability to transform India, you would come to the conclusion that Pakistan is nowhere near the top. They have thrown everything at us since the 1980s, whether in Khalistan or J&K. But these are precisely the years when India has done best in terms of transforming ourselves. Look at where we were 20 years ago, and where they were, just compare. So I would not rate them very high in that hierarchy. There are other things which will affect your ability to transform India much more fundamentally. One of them certainly is peaceful periphery, and Pakistan is part of the periphery. So it does matter to that extent. But it is not as though tomorrow if you settle everything with Pakistan, your GDP will grow exponentially, your society is going to change, all the internal polarisation is going to stop. You are right when you say why to give so much attention (to Pakistan). If you look at it over the last few years, I think, in effect, our strategic focus has really shifted to the entire Asia Pacific region and we are looking at the maritime strategy since 2004.

[shiv]

The point is law breaking thought should come at at great risk ( taking behavior because of the certainty of law catching up).

If and when law is respected obeyed for internal or external reasons it's a great nation.

Spinstergaru you have brought up a minefield of a topic and the discussion has come up in another context in the Universalism thread. I am not saying that you are wrong and I am not trying to use some backhanded method of posting some argument against what you have said. But a lot of study has gone into this under Prof Balu in University of Ghent, Belgium - so I will merely describe the concept. We are all taught that people who are not law abiding are bad "chee chee"

The concept of "law" and "law abiding societies" has its origins in Christianity. God's word is the law and it must be followed absolutely. Laws are not followed absolutely by humans under normal circumstances, so the concept of punishment for breaking the law comes in for that reason. If punishment is severe, absolute and invariably implemented every time a law is broken, you get a law abiding society,

However there are many pre-Christian and pre-Islamic societies that did not come pre-loaded with absolute dogma as law. In Hindu society the concept of dharma was coined as duties and obligations but not law that would lead to immediate punishment if the duties were not followed. Without going into too much detail, both sets of societies - whether they come with absolute laws or not have a "justice system" that sits at a lower level to decide what must happen.

I will quote a single example. Many years ago in the US (the best holiday I have had in my life) I was driving (crawling) behind 6-7 cars on a normally quiet road. It turned out that there was a drunk or a drug addict jogging drunkenly in the lane and there was a solid line on the road indicating that the line must not be crossed. Not a single car crossed the line. In the opposite lane cars were whizzing past once in a while at 50 mph. I marvelled at this because in India every vehicle would have simply cut the solid center line, overtaken the drunk and gone past.

I do not want to be judgemental about law abiding societies versus others, but there are societies that work in a different way. they may not be great powers, but they are different. As Pulikeshi said in - if we allow monotheism style law abiding dogma into India and start imposing our laws on Indians and others it may be easier to become a great power

[Karan Dixit]

"Great Power" is a generic term and is a vector sum of several component powers (e.g. military power, economic power, dharmic power, dairy power, agro power, etc). But it seems that here the "great power" means military power. If USA is considered a "Great Power" even then one can see her limits. (For example it could not intimidate even Cuba). Hypothetically if India were to reach a status of a USA-like "Great Power" it still will have difficulty dealing with impoverished, stone-aged but nuclear-armed Porkiland.

I think if India wants to be reckoned as a "Great Power", it first and foremost must deal with ToiletStan by either nuking it to stone-age or occupying it ruthlessly (at great human cost if need be) and converting those MOFOs back to Hinduism.

All else is - as they say - academic.

Pakistan can be taken out. India just needs to develop strong anti ballistic missile shield to neutralize Pakistani nuclear armed missiles. India and Israel are working closely on this project because both countries face similar threats. PM Modi is also trying to revive India - Russia military co-operation which may help India with this goal. Russian S-400s can neutralize Pakistani aircraft and non-ICBM missiles. India under PM MM Singh also worked with the U.S. on this but it got India no-where it seems.

I think when U.S. scrapped Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty that it had with erstwhile USSR, the game plan was similar. The objective was to develop anti ballistic missile shield to neutralize Russian missile based threats and then expand NATO under this cover.

[Hari Seldon]

We're not a great power. And likely won't get there in our lifetimes (yup, goes even for the youngest BRFite here, I daresay).

However, if we can claw our way up from lower middle income status to solid middle income (or even oh-dare-I-dream-it upper middle income status) ...

...we're good. We would've done by our people way more than merely hankering for "great power" status, the 'bestowers' of which status (i.e. the P-5) would then simply use that dangled carrot to lead our polity by the nose... Sigh. Been there, seen that.

[member_29247]

Thanks shiv ji Guruvu garu
I have one last post on this topic.

In my thought I had dharma as equivalent to law of the land.
I did not have any thought of God or his dictum while posting.

Dharma iin my context for this topic is the duty of the person, citizen , administrator , ruler , judge, occupational trades etc categories of the populace of the nation state.

A great nation will have laws that are derived form dharma prescribed in which equity, opportunity, education ( mostly civic duties , do'sand dont's in conduct of day to day affairs have some comparators to follow that is precedents )

In nut shell there is no hinderence to pursuit of happiness with in dharma.

Most dharma sutras are evolutionary, situational, contextual, refined to be practical and relavant to the needs of orderly conduct of activities that are constructive and useful to all mankind.

That would be the hallmark of a great power for internal guidance and has a set of rules , dharma to protect the citizenry from external threats from other non compliant societies.

With this I make an exit out this topic

I will read and learn from others views
Thanks

[shiv]

Thanks shiv ji Guruvu garu
I have one last post on this topic.

In my thought I had dharma as equivalent to law of the land.
I did not have any thought of God or his dictum while posting.

The problem is the word "Law". The best Abrahamic definition for the word "Law' came from a fantastic book called "Ishmael" recommended to me by BRFite Primus whom I have known for over 4 decades.

Question: "What do you call a statement that describes what always happens when certain conditions are met?'
Ans: "A law"

Dharma is called a law, or a set of laws, but dharma is not a set of human laws made for humans alone. What this means is that dharma does not prescribe or threaten inevitable and timebound punishment for a law breaker. There is an important difference because human laws allow the domination of one human over the other of humans over nature or animals. Dharma does not do that.

Sorry to digress. The irony is that when the Indian police and judicial system are openly and transparently following the law, Indians can't see it. I can quote dozens of examples but i will quote just one.

Street vendors selling fruit on carts near my area stop on busy roads and block traffic. Local residents complain that the police are taking bribes and they will not do anything, and that they simply chase them away and the vendors come back within 15 minutes.

The fact is that the police have limited powers. Vendors are not supposed to stop and keep carts static, but they do. The police do make them move on and for doing what is right they police are cursed by civil society" (fruit customers" for police cruelty. The maximum the police can do is to impound the carts and take them to the police station and the vendors can have them released after a fine.

The tragedy is that the police are following the letter of the law exactly. It is the vendors and their support from educated people that give the impression of a lawless society. The educated public do not understand the meaning of laws and do not understand why the police simply do not lock up the vendors for a few days or at least give them a thrashing. Ironic innit?

[johneeG]

Shiv saar,
thanks for starting this thread and that first post.


I think the misconception of Bhaarathiyas is due to the belief that 'yatho dharmah thatho jayah'. 'We will win because we are good guys'. This false notion is responsible for the silly behaviour. The reality is the exact opposite:yatho jayah thatho dharmah.

You gave the example of Rama rajya in first post. Let me ask:
Is Raama considered Dharmic and God because He won?
Or
Did Raama win because He was Dharmic?

would people worship Raama if He had lost the war?

My point is that victors decide what is dharma. Victors write history. Victors forge culture.