Thursday, June 25, 1998
The enemy is self-doubt
India's nuclear weapon-state status has not only generated critical reactions abroad, a sharp division on its decision to go morally nuclear marks Indian public opinion too. India has to cope with the hypocrisy of the nuclear-weapon powers and their moral posturing while dealing with the contradiction between the moral irrelevance of becoming a nuclear power and the requirements of national security. Managing these contradictions is the overarching challenge of domestic and foreign policies.
For Russia, it's beyond the call of duty
Some thirty years ago Indira Gandhi sent L.K. Jha, one of her closest confidantes, to the world's major capitals on a mission to explain India's continuing fears about China, which had gone nuclear. Jha went from London to Moscow to Paris to Washington seeking security guarantees for India. He was rebuffed by every one of these nations, including the former Soviet Union. It only redoubled Mrs Gandhi's determination to put New Delhi on the world's nuclear map.
Black and white
The discovery of racism in Mumbai's Colaba should occasion no surprise or horror, for it thrives through the length and breadth of the country, from its greatest metros to its meanest hamlets. In India, what is seen in most countries as a most incorrigible perversion is taken to be a fact of life. Indians do not talk about it, of course, but this should not be construed to mean that it does not exist. In fact, though, Indians do talk about it -- in the matrimonial columns of the newspapers.
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