Iraq evokes a paralytic response

What a show it was. Television8217;s power to evokenational chauvinism and make it seem like across-the-spectrum support for government policy is a magnificent lesson for those of us either permanently paralysed by domestic issues, or overwhelmed by the thought of thinking original things ahead.

CNN came of age with the August 1991 coup in the Soviet Union, when the world watched Boris Yeltsin act like a tiger atop a tank. In early 1992, when the US-led Allied coalition bombed Iraq, we saw how Baghdad was quot;lit up like a Christmas tree.quot; Six unipolar years later, Washington has yet again shown with incredibly remarkable finesse how it can transform even the most seemingly independent media, the American press, into an instrument that promotes its own foreign policy objectives abroad.

On the CNN programme this week, Madeleine Albright was not finished yet. To make the world a safer place for our children and our grandchildren, she added over the applause, the US needed to bomb Iraq and end the reign of Saddam Hussein. Then came the chilling reminder: the USwas doing this not only for America, quot;but for all those around the world who follow the rules.quot;

India, on the other hand, is a study in sharp contrast. The leadership8217;s attention is mostly diverted to the unexceptional present and little thought is being given to the Iraq crisis, looming large on the rest of the world8217;s foreign policy screen. New Delhi8217;s stakes remain large in the region: as many as 3.3 million Indians in the Gulf states, who annually send back over 4 billion in remittances and yet we treat them with derision, but that8217;s another story; the source of two-thirds of our oil supplies; and 10 billion in bilateral trade the same as the US.

But is there a strategy on the possible fallout of a possible war? Has India done anything other than write letters to the world8217;s leaders? Is there anything else, in the first place, that can be done?

Sadly, the paralysis seems to be in the mind. Even when there isn8217;t an election process on, the Ministry of External Affairs seems incapable of makingbold moves on the ground. The Gujral Doctrine was intended to clear up India8217;s backyard and enable New Delhi to break out of its subcontinental obsession; unfortunately, there just hasn8217;t been enough action to match the rhetoric. In the extended region, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Myanmar are examples of strategically important nations with whom India has made sporadic policy moves, but failed to create a sustained relationship.

Incredibly, even otherwise applaudable initiatives are carried out with prehistoric vision. India was the first country to open a major supply line of humanitarian relief to the victims of the Afghanistan earthquake last week. The 18-tonne Indian consignment was flown aboard a Tajik Airways plane, loaded onto trucks in Dushanbe, ferried across the Amu Darya river crossing bordering Afghanistan and then reloaded back onto the trucks, to make the snow-swept journey to the epicentre of the quake at Rustaq.

What a story! But what did New Delhi do to tell it to the world? Apartfrom local coverage, nothing. We could at least learn to package ourselves better in the new world order. Watching CNN would do, for a start.