Monday 01 August 2022 | Last update 03:36 IST
Isn’t it a pity that the champions of “atma nirbhartha” (self-sufficiency) still count on the old imperial data order for all foreign news, adding up those of our next neighborhood?
Here is a story that underscores my lamentation.
Among my many memories of Sri Lanka is Boxing Day 2004, Boxing Day, Boxing Day. For the Indian Navy, a wonderful father of traditions, it is what they call a “family vacation”. Ships with officials and families on board pass by. the best seas, drinking gin and tonic.
Like other ports, Kochi was also emptied of its ships. One of them won a pressing message from Navy headquarters: send families home on passenger ships and urgently to Sri Lanka, which is in the eye of the biggest tsunami in history.
I landed at Bandaranaike Airport via Mumbai and drove directly to Trincomalee. One of the most beautiful natural harbors in the world has been the site of unspeakable devastation. I am amazed at the diligent application of the sailors. They were unfazed and ignored the fury of the tsunami.
The scene in Galle is worse as it is a smaller port. It is crammed with blackboards, roofs, trunks, twisted cars harassing, shaking, badly damaged; amid the floating tires were mattresses, familiar appliances, damaged televisions, twisted metal, wooden beds and more driftwood, piling up at the mouth of the harbor in a giant, summarized shape. As if by magic, in 3 days, the port cleared
Less than the scale of the disaster, the relief and rehabilitation paintings in Sri Lanka through the Indian Navy can never be appreciated. I kicked myself for not coming with my cameraman. nor, a fact applicable to the later narrative.
This effusive praise from the Navy has a reason. Among the debris were items such as refrigerators, washing machines, mixed shredders, radios, floating furniture and a hundred things, all meticulously repaired through engineers, sailors and Navy sailors. Our very Indian “jugaad” (do it yourself) proved useful.
What would the U. S. Navy have done?Demonstrate their strength and magnify their presence in the global media, eclipsing everything the Indians had done?That, alas, was precisely what happened.
After what I thought was the end of the mission, I waited at Galle Airport. Bigger than anything shown so far, the USS Wisconsin had swam in my ken. He had dropped anchor in the sea. Smaller boats have emerged. A group of cameramen climbed into those boats. Only when their cameras were placed on their shoulders, the shipment vomited their sailors. All this after the Indian Navy had repaired the east coast and the port of Galle.
When I arrived in Mumbai, I picked up the newspaper of the day. My center tightened. At the top of page 1, four columns wide, a photograph of U. S. Marines entering Sri Lanka. Naturally, not a word about the Indian Navy. Was everything I had noticed in Sri Lanka an illusion?Hadn’t it happened? As Bobby Talyarkhan used to finish his columns: “Do you perceive me, Steve?
Ukraine is the turning point of global affairs as a new multipolar world takes shape. In the face of this evolution, New Delhi has positioned itself brilliantly. The trajectory would possibly lead to a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Until then, we walked on eggshells. In Sri Lanka too. All this requires a coherent technique to be equidistant. This demands a vigorous and independent foreign policy-oriented media that is not unemployed across the West.
What has hit the Russians where it hurts the most is the incessant barrage of The Western media, undiluted propaganda, aimed at demoralizing Vladimir Putin, mobilizing global opinion and getting the chancelleries of the global to make decisions that give more truce to a global order whose most productive objectives have passed days. Notice my words: the Kremlin is immersed in its reflections on this global media war.
Our news channels are so far removed from foreign affairs that in events they turn to the BBC, CNN, Reuters, Associated Press, New York Times, etc. , all representing interests opposed to the new direction of our foreign policy. Where does “atma nirbharta” go?
The Western media is part of one bloc opposed to another. India, however, is committed to all. It will not be easy, of course, to destabilize the foreign policy elite from the old tactics of thought because of their inability to settle for the demise of the unipolar world. This pro-American inclination in the intellectual composition of the elite has its origins not only in the collapse of the Soviet Union, but has a longer history. When Jawaharlal Nehru led the Non-Aligned Movement, his hand-picked Secretary General of the Foreign Office, Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, became more susceptible to the United States where he had served as The Agent General of British India.
Let’s take an example. At a time when India’s ambassador to Moscow can simply speak on the phone with key members of the Central Committee, Birlas and Jain had not sent any correspondents to Moscow.
In fact, the culture of dependence on former colonial masters to fill our foreign pages is widespread. Our new foreign policy will want a new culture of foreign affairs coverage. Not having offices in Kabul, Tehran, Dhaka, Beijing, Moscow, London, Islamabad, Washington and other key stations in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa will leave us breathless, not quite fitting in with an emerging Asian power. Our power in Colombo would have multiplied if we had had competing press offices in the island country during the existing crisis.
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