Tony Blair : Saare Jahaan se achhan!

In the immediate aftermath of the euphoria of the Indian Nuclear tests, there was this scathing diatribe in the Outlook magazine by at that time recent Booker Prize winner Arundathi Roy about the unseemliness of the tests and how India, after the tests, had become an international pariah and how it made her ashamed to be an Indian. I felt completely crestfallen after reading this peroration by this daughter of Mary Roy, a proud and courageous woman who has battled the system time and again at her famous school, Corpus Christi in Kottayam, Kerala. My images of a triumphant Vajpayee, then Indian Prime Minister and of Abdul Kalam, current Indian President, at the testing site and the overwhelming feeling of pride were shattered by this four page scathing attack by Arundathi Roy, which was filled with outrage and scorn.

My faith was shaken. Are we, the Indian Nation, going to continue being consigned to the outer fringe of the Nations of the world as we have been for many decades? Would these tests, as one hoped, not propel the country into the leading Nations of the world? Would we be soon subjected to the ignominy of trade sanctions and other derogatory actions normally reserved for rogue Nations? Many years of discussions on NPT and CTBT and aligned stuff happened. But the doubts continued.

Last night, these fears were forever laid to rest. Tony Blair, not my favorite statesman by any stretch of imagination and a poodle personified, like so many caricaturists have continuously and appropriately referred to him, at a Banquet, repeatedly benchmarked India along with the US and China. True, the entire speech was a justification for the completely unjustified and incomprehensible toeing of the US line, much in excess of the normal sub-servient posture adopted by earlier leaders like Thatcher and Major. But what is now increasingly evident is that India is now talked about as a Global Power on par with the US and China. Even the discussions by the BBC newscasters immediately after Blair’s speech continuously, and respectfully I thought, referred to India as the optional alliance that Blair could look at along with the US and China.

It does not require only Tony Blair’s certification to realise India’s rising stature. The rush to the bandwagon by leading television networks and publications across the world only emphasizes this emerging fact. We are getting there. We are going to be amongst the most powerful nations in the world and it does not require a seat in the permanent council of the UN. It does not require self made ambassadors like Arundathi Roy. We are going to be saare jahaan se achhan!