Pravin Sawhney

While India aspires to become a major power, its foreign policy objectives and especially the conduct of diplomacy betrays pettiness. On the one hand, we bend over backwards to humour the United States. Our chests swell with glee on hearing that the US will help us become a major power. Never mind the price we need to pay. Moreover, it simply does not occur to us how any nation can become a major power when its neighbours do not respect it. At least three, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal are not connected with us. They accuse us of highhanded behaviour, short of really saying that we are gasbags. Take the case of Pakistan. Our real problem with Pakistan is that we focus on its shortcomings and ignore its strengths. What we correctly say is that Pakistan’s economy is no match to ours, it lacks democracy, size, natural resources, industrial infrastructure and the large educated middle class that we have. Now consider Pakistan’s strengths. It has positioned itself correctly with the US and China, two powers likely to domi