We’re content with image of great power: Bharat Karnad

Bengaluru: Like the illustrious cover of his latest release, ‘Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet)’, India's prominent strategist and author Bharat Karnad believes that India is a sheep in wolf's clothes. The cover, which has a sheep's shadow for a lion, symbolises the country, he asserts. At the book launch and discussion programme held at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) on Friday, he is joined by Prof S. Chandrashekar of NIAS and Nitin Pai, founder of Takshashila Institute.

Introducing different aspects of the book, Mr Pai pointed out that foreign visits have become platforms for Prime Ministers to build domestic credentials and threw open the discussion. “India is a whale size country with the power of minnow. If some think Bollywood dance and music is power, then be content with the inconsequentials,” Mr Karnad said in his opening remark. He recalled how India missed opportunities to achieve power since Nehru's days. “If weaponisation was approved by Nehru and India could test its first bomb before China, imagine the power we would have now,” he said.

On the erstwhile Prime Ministers and Union governments who made India a cowardly state in front of countries like China, Mr Karnad said India only bullies small countries. “Manmohan Singh was a gutless creature. All his responses to any major proposal were incomprehensible,” he recalled. Prof Chandrashekar asked, “There are many components and dimensions to great power, and the general assumption is India is destined to become a great power. So why should we hurry? Why do we have to be aggressive about it?”

Mr Karnad quickly termed this general assumption ‘entitlement syndrome’. He asked, “Everyone thinks we are doing so much to become a great power. But what exactly have you done? Whatever is done so far is only in the rhetorical realm. The tragedy is we are capable but haven’t achieved yet.” He pointed out that India should lay down its ambition and hemispheres. Later, stressing about India’s incapabilities to be armed, he suggested that capabilities should be transferred and tier defence should be introduced. “If we had a strong government in Delhi, we would be doing what China did to us,” he remarked.

Mr Karnad continued to suggest that the country needs to use its resources wisely and distant tiers like Taiwan and Vietnam, which are providing strong base to India, should become armed.
On questions as to why was India building a great Navy instead of great missiles, Mr Karnad pointed out that India was building one huge carrier but what’s needed was small carriers to cross over oceans and monitor that nobody entered the country. He concluded that India is happy with the symbol of great power instead of having great power.