As the country is hosting the diplomatically significant Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meetings, the Union government faces an unique opportunity to assert its diplomatic heft especially when it comes to asserting its position on the border issues between India and China.
Official reports that have emerged from the meeting indicate that the Chinese side attempted to lock-in the territorial gains they have made over the last months and years, a move that was resisted by the Indian side.
For the Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to effectively lead the negotiations, the Union government needs to first acknowledge the gravity of the situation and not seek to project, at least domestically, that all is fine on the border, a stance that is Chinese side is all too eager to agree with in a bid to project the new status quo as the default going forward.
The country, that currently seeks to brand itself as a Vishwaguru, has been failing to acknowledge its shortcomings not just on the China front but on a host of issues ranging from the failures to adequately prepare for the deadly Covid wave, to how banal the Prime Minister's addresses are.
It is this failure to acknowledge reality and to instead seek to project every single action as a stupendous success that is preventing a correct response to the very many problems facing the country. A lack of data, or deliberately suppressed data is projected as evidence of every programme being a success.
But beneath the rosy coat of paint that is applied to every initiative of the government there is a crisis brewing, not just on the Chinese front where the whole scale of the problem is yet to the officially declared and conceded by the government, but also on the economic front where rural economic distress is not addressed or acknowledged much less been declared a priority area of the government.
Instead every time analysts, journalists, commentators or statisticians attempt to portray the correct picture, they are shouted down with a different set of facts, have their motives questioned or discredited on one specious ground or another.
If this is to be allowed to continue, the country will head down the path not very different from Soviet Russia, that became a victim of its own propaganda and ultimately collapsed under its own weight bogged down by the 'real picture.'
For starters, those who speak up need to be offered a degree of protection from those who seek to do so unjustifiably hound them for simply speaking up. The culture of fear and sycophancy needs to be banished and public discourse needs to mature to a level where not every question is branded as an attack on India, a very childish response, no matter how one seeks to paint it.
People across the board including those in government and especially ruling legislators needs to stand up for themselves and instead of fawning over sheepishly like obedient puppies, learn to call a spade a spade, despite the threat of consequences.
