By: Rajeev Chandrasekhar
Dok La heralds the arrival of a confident and assertive India. The world’s largest democracy has begun to calmly and maturely assert its place in Asia and in the world.
Dok La was a standoff that lasted over 70 days – a standoff with a belligerent and noisy China, in which India came out calm, confident and sure of its position.
The Dok La crisis was one of the biggest tests for this Indian government’s foreign policy and so the breakthrough using the diplomatic channels on restoring the status quo ante at the Bhutan-China-India tri-junction point on the Dok La Plateau is undeniably one of the biggest diplomatic successes of recent times. In addition, India has signaled its importance and commitment to bilateral treaties by honoring the Friendship Treaty with Bhutan.
This resolution is a good outcome for India’s mature, restrained, but firm response, which assertively conveys that India and China can have a stable relationship, but only if mutual respect is on the table.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to be congratulated for sticking to this measured and mature position, despite the enormous pressure of China’s ratcheted up psychological and verbal propaganda war and rhetoric including the boastful “countdown has begun for India” antics and infamous Chinese racist video that boomeranged so badly.
The Chinese efforts were, of course, helped inadvertently or deliberately by some of our own people. These people ranged from the Left and Congress leaders – who preferred dinner briefings with the Chinese Ambassador – to the sustained efforts of some elements in media, which by seeing their past conduct was expected from them. These elements in media, instead of encouraging the Indian spirit to safeguard our nation, were trying to cowdown India by portraying threatening China as an invinciable country.
Filed under: Contemporary World
