Flips and Flops- Mind Games Over China?

9 February 2021

Imagine when a school scuffle turns bad and reported. Then the boy who was identified as the bully and suitably castigated finds out that the one he thought he took down, is holding fort in class, regaling his audience about the many times he was whipping the bully when no one was looking! It is not a case of word of one boy against another, no, not a ‘he said-he said’, head count. This is the whole new behind the school yard kind of thingie that Biden referred to on the campaign trail about what he would love to do to Trump. It is called whipping without witness and weeping when witnessed.

When Susarma and his forces were gleefully rustling the cattle of Virata, little did he know that Brihannala would come into the contest charioteered by Uttara? That in a small opening at the edge of the forest, the entire Maharathi contingent of the Kauravas would get flayed about, toyed with by the Arjuna in exile? That Duryodhana was actually quite enjoying it, that he brought out the Pandava and could dispute their successful exile? What ever happened to a simple game of cattle rustling, he wondered!

When Krishna sued for peace with the Kurus on behalf of Yudhisthira he sought an audience with Duryodhana, with Kunti and from each he sneaked in an idea which was to keep Karna saved on for a one to one duel with Arjuna. Many wonder, if this was a move to save the Pandava cause, forgetting this demonstration which Uttara the crown prince of Matsya saw, one Arjuna driven by a relatively unskilled charioteer demolishing the formation of the entire who’s who of the Kaurava forces in under one ‘period’ of engagement! What caused this ferocity was the presence of Karna. Actually Krishna was suing for peace sincerely and he was hoping even when the war was enjoined by both camps, at some stage the senseless slaughter of kin could be stopped. For that the war had to be dragged out, for which Karna must be delayed in his encounter with Arjuna. Now if you went back to the battle scenes of each day of the war, what do you find? Krishna and Arjuna seek out Karna on Day 17 and the war is over the very next Day? What if this duel had been staged on Day 1? For at Kurukshetra the Arjuna who wielded the Gandiva was taught by Pashupati Shiva the Supreme Destroyer Himself, was he not? He was only in namesake Drona’s pupil.

We ordinarily like linear narratives. Ramayana and Mahabharata as epics are rich in their offerings, yet even a cursory reader knows the narrative complexity of Mahabharata is what makes it stand out. It is not just the vastness, that it has the entire compendium of all epic cast, is of epical proportions of more than 100000 verses, it is how, in each reading of the epic, each event it describes, you come away with a fresh insight. Mahabharata is like the source code for the game of life. That is why it keeps offering to those who drink from it.

Now let us go back to our present where the bully finds out he has just been condemned twice. First he was admonished and now he was made laughing stock of! For much of 2020, China had unleashed an aura of invincibility and dared not just India but took on a cowering Taiwan. It appeared that the military objectives of PLA as per plan 2020 was to come about to fruition. The world like 1962 was besieged, not by a Missile Crises, but a satanic bug that upended established global supply chains, upset the global pecking order, and for much of this year, the USA has been busy with its own internal situation. Even a premier war asset, a aircraft carrier group was in the eye of the storm of Covid19, recalled to base and its commander sacked. Every one was talking about the new missile threat to shipping in the wider Pacific rim, from Guam to Mischief Reef, the Chinese dart seemed to offer a fix for every thing.

No one disputes the gains of Chinese in the decades after their economic liberalisation, when Deng told them to not mind the colour of their cat as long as it caught the mice. The peaceful rise had been a screen for aggressive military build up. Yet, even the most casual of readers of history will note that the Han who was now dominant in the circumstances of Post World Wars Global Order, was not in pole position for much of Chinese Imperial History, whether it was the Four Kingdoms, the Middle Kingdom, The Manchu or The Mongol. Then there was always going to be the gulf between story telling where a trade voyage led by a ‘eunuch admiral Zheng’ met with the entire recorded history of Cholas, Kalingas, Pallavas, Guptas and Mauryas that conceded the Asiatic waters as Indian Ocean. It was Chinese paper versus the Indian palm leaves apparently, but the details are littered as evidence all over South East Asia, in not just the names of their descended royal lineages, their own epic stories, dance forms, music, but also in their adoption of first Hinduism and later Buddhism. If you look at the Chinese geolocation, Vietnam, Thailand, Java, Sumatra, Bali, Cambodia are proximate to the pond that is SCS. There is only so much that ‘revisionism’ can get you, especially when you are not just confronted with a historic asymmetry, but also a more immediate asymmetry that is always India.

The enigma that is India troubled the British, ended their Imperialism within 100 years of their formal take over by Queen Victoria’s Proclamation. In between the two world wars that Great Britain fought, the conquests in South East Asia she had, were soldiered largely by Indian troops. Only a prejudiced historian will overlook this simple undeniably presence, like our Krishna of Mahabharata. ( Where Krishna is is Dharma, where Dharma is is victory, says Vyasa, remember?)

India remembers 1962 differently for different reasons. Mostly Nehru overplayed the ‘stabbed in the back’ card, when most of the forward posturing was done by Indian troops. The Americans under Kennedy brothers were not interested in Tibet, nor were they interested in fighting for KMT who had now taken possession of Formosa formally and appeared settled there. If Americans sought to ‘liberate Tibet’ back then, India offered all the cards, for it had not just the refugees, but also Tibetans raring to fight back, led by their Dalai, and all that India sought under Nehru was a pushback by way of American air power. No one denies the reverses India suffered in the initial days of 1962, but no one forgets how the Chinese withdrew. In many places, they withdrew even back from lines they held in 1959 as well. After all the Portuguese had been evicted from Goa in 1961 after being there for close to half a millennia, which counts for permanence even by subcontinental standards.

I am not falling prey to revisionism here. I am just alluding to what has always been a Western Problem of the modernity. After centuries seeking India (East Indies to West Indies) and chastised by her, the West adopted Chinese as if to counter her. First the myth of China, then the sponsorship of China and now the problem of China. And rightly, while India is distracted enough to stop the Chinese in their tracks on the Himalayas, she has signalled loud and clear, that China remains the West’s responsibility. So China just found out three things in full media glare in the past one year-

India can ban Chinese Apps with the ease that even USA cannot.
India can stall imports of Chinese goods at ports for months, delay receivables by Chinese, not be bothered by Jack Ma’s disappearance, or Chinese designs in SCS while handling a raging pandemic at home, domestic unrest over Kashmir, CAA, Riots and now Farmers Protest. Is she not signalling resilience loud and clear?
General VK Singh (Retired) made a remark, that looked like off the cuff, out of place and even loony ‘giving the game away’ kind by strategists. But come again, what if that was exactly his role?
Mr Modi has addressed Parliament several times since Galwan clashes, addressed public rallies too. Not once has he mentioned China. You can legitimately think either he is running scared or his is far too contemptuous of the Chinese to mention them, can’t you? Now see India holding the line in Ladakh over one of the harshest winters, undeterred by reports of T99s and ZTQ 15, a light tank being ready to deploy by massed squadrons, while President Xi remarked that he wanted to erect a ‘fortress wall over Tibet’. Now who feels cornered? “…has frequently crossed the Line of Actual Control to encroach on China’s territory and has constantly created friction, which is the root cause of border tension.” is a statement by China’s FM not India’s MEA.

If in President Biden’s reset button for the global order, if the US does not go beyond Secretary Blinken’s warning to China about incursions in Ladakh and military posture over Taiwan, it is not India’s problem. India has the youngest emerging STEM acquainted population growing up in the world right now. Demographically if India can, she will transform into the most sought after people, which her diaspora keep reminding their Western rulers every now and then. If President Biden has not yet picked up the phone to speak to PM Modi, (the conversation has occurred since as confirmed by WH officials https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/08/readout-of-president-joseph-r-biden-jr-call-with-prime-minister-narendra-modi-of-india/) is it not ironical that President Xi is not even in that list? We are India, we have a timeless quality about our understanding of antiquity, history and narratives of culture and social evolution. We can wait, while America gets herself into order at home. China will spend much of 2021 restless as America under President Biden gets herself to battlespeed!