The shadow of the dragon

BY Subarno Chattarji| IN Books | 01/08/2005

Subarno Chattarji

At least two other English newsmagazines, Outlook and Frontline, ran stories preceding and on Wen Jiabao¿s visit. V. Sudarshan¿s ¿Wen, Where Why¿ (Outlook, 18 April 2005, p.67) dealt with the gamut of issues between the two countries and did so in a manner devoid of hype. It described at some length the mechanisms evolved for solving the border dispute and the fact that the resolution would take time. It also strove, as most Indian media reports do, to create an aura of equivalence between the two nations. In sharp contrast to the hyperbole of the Times of India and India Today, Outlook was restrained and factual. Surprisingly it did not devote a cover story to the visit.

Frontline thought Wen¿s visit was crucial enough to warrant a cover and it also put together, in its characteristic manner, a set of thoroughly analytical articles on Sino-Indian relations. The cover story, ¿Moving Closer,¿ inevitably cited some of the platitudes that are an essential part of media shorthand in Indian discourse on the subject. Wen, in his speech to students at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, quoted Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore, and Amartya Sen. ¿He ended his speech with the slogan of the 1950s, "Hindi-Chini, Bhai-Bhai"¿ (John Cherian, ¿Moving Closer,¿ Frontline, 23 April-6 May, 2005, Vol. 22, No. 9, p.5). Cherian also parenthetically cites an U.S. National Intelligence Council study which came to the conclusion that the 21^st century would be led by China and India in the way the 20^th had been by the U.S.

In passing, one may note that Cherian succumbs to the need to seek validation for India¿s future status and equivalent power from agencies outside the country, preferably the US. Thus while Gandhi, Nehru et al might testify to the strength of its anti-colonial struggle, a resurgent, post-colonial India needs testimonies of its promise and prowess from the fountainhead of post-industrial power, the US. The West is not just an imitative model - the malls to McDonald¿s syndrome - it is also a certifying agency imbued with authority that Indians do not have. It is worth observing that such testimonials from the West (Condoleezza Rice, Standard and Poor, Lee Kuan Yew, Wen Jiabao) are an end in themselves[i], while Western models of efficiency, civic development, human rights, or accountability in public life are not emulated with any zeal.

Cherian¿s piece, however, does not shy away from dysfunctional aspects of the relationship. For instance, it clearly enunciates India¿s reluctance to create a free trade zone with China. ¿Indian industry gives the impression of being overawed by the competition from China at this juncture¿ (p.6). This is an understatement, given the lack of parity between the two.

Parvathi Menon¿s ¿Business as bridge¿ looked exclusively at the realities and possibilities of business collaboration. Wen¿s visit to Bangalore and Indo-Chinese cooperation in IT features prominently. Menon notes that Indian companies such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) have set up base in China and are thriving. TCS¿s wholly owned subsidiary, Tata Information Technology (Shanghai) Co. has been operating since July 2002. This is a case of genuine and equal cooperation, and fields such as genomics, nanoscience, and micro-electrical systems are the future of joint commitment. Menon¿s piece is refreshingly factual and steers clear of the type of rhetoric available in mainstream media as well as the series written by Rajeev Srinivasan.

In the final cover story, Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea, Emeritus Fellow and former Director of the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi, analyses the centrality of the border dispute. ¿No matter how the outcome of the recent visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is assessed, it would be difficult to deny that the centrepiece of the summit was the festering boundary problem. In fact, judging by the substance and thrust of the three political documents signed, this appears to have been the real purpose of this visit, as indeed it seems to have been of every prime ministerial meeting since 1954¿ (Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea, ¿Beyond Boundaries¿, Frontline, 6 May 2005, p.10).

Bhattacharjea is quite emphatic that the political drives the economic and not the other way round. She perceives the ¿economic prospect¿ as playing ¿an important DIVersionary role¿ and helping to ¿advance the process forward on this most knotted problem of boundary settlement¿ (p.11). She then details the way in which the current agreements are fundamentally different from the negotiations since the late 1950s: ¿there is now a stated and shared agreement on the nature of the problem, that is, of defining a "boundary", not confirming a border; of reaching a single comprehensive settlement covering the entire stretch, not separate agreements for different sectors; of wrapping this up in a "package" that should shape the form and nature of the future relationship; and, to round all this off, an agreement not to use force "by any means", which can be interpreted as amounting to a no-war pact, complete with demilitarized borders and a border management system to encourage easy cross-border movement of goods and people. Such agreement as has come about, is a truly remarkable achievement particularly for a democracy as untidy and as lacking in unified thinking as ours¿ (p.11).

For the first time amongst the realms of rhetoric I waded through, is an example of clear analysis and a debunking of the idea, a la Varshney, that democracy is some sort of normative, a natural advantage, a magic mantra that condones all problems. Bhattacharjea unravels the intricacies of the border question by showing how entrenched positions on both sides have been modified. ¿In tandem with this development [the stabilization of the Line of Actual Control] has been the gradual attenuation of the extreme claims of the past, whether as historical, or as legal and traditional right, to extended boundaries that were preferred by both in the 1950s. These claims, in any case, were never more than notional. Neither state could hope to realize these claims without breaking up the other state or by all-out war. […] There is also a growing awareness that the military/political equation across this de facto boundary is so well balanced as to render any attempt to alter it by force unsuccessful¿ (pp.11, 12).

In other words, a military solution is no longer viable.

Changes in the global situation have also contributed to the progress in negotiations and alterations in perspectives and positions. The collapse of the Soviet Union, ¿the resultant unipolar distribution of global power, had created large areas of shared concern and strategic commonality between the two neighbours¿ (p.12). These commonalities were and are often stymied by the border question but even that is now amenable to change and progress.

Bhattacharjea¿s essay is informative, incisive, and analytical in a way that the other articles put together are not. It represents a paradigm shift in media discourse in India, although one must not overrate its influence or reach. While she clearly sees political realities, hers is a voice not heard often in mainstream media. Frontline has its dedicated readership, but it is small compared to that of India Today or Times of India. The fabled middle class of India prefer the hype of economic equality and global strutting conveyed by correspondents in India Today. However, readership volumes and the tyranny of numbers cannot obfuscate the real contribution of newsmagazines that prefer to be seriously analytical.

Articles on China proliferate in the Indian media and one could go on forever. Every high profile political visit engenders its own interest and rhetoric, as did the most recent visit of Premier Wen Jiabao. This visit brought to the fore the entire baggage of issues that reverberate between the two nations: the 1962 war and the border dispute, economic development, the need to integrate further into global trade frameworks, the IT industry, and democracy versus communism. It is interesting that all these issues are seen almost exclusively from the Indian point of view, so that these articles tell us more about Indian anxieties, fears, and desires than anything substantial about China.[ii]

The constant harping on Indian democracy as an inherent advantage over China is just one example of the way in which issues of good governance are evaded. Neither are the internal political issues and complexities within China of any but the most superficial interest in the Indian media. Mainstream English language print media in India perceives and projects the Sino-Indian relationship in terms of a race. China is ahead at present but there is the tantalizing prospect that India will not only catch up with, but outperform its neighbour and rival. China¿s economic indices, its presence in the hallways of power (the UN Security Council, for example), its dazzling cities such as Shanghai have coalesced into a mythology of what it means to be developed and therefore one step closer to the West. We learn nothing about what enables these cities, what drives the economic development, what sorts of civic arrangements thrive or collapse in the face of China¿s modernization.

More crucially, we are told little of India¿s own problems because often they are airbrushed to compete effectively. ¿Right at the very heart of news, history threatens to disappear.¿[iii] Baudrillard is referring primarily to television news but it is applicable in the systematic ways in which Indian media representations suppress or misrepresent inconvenient facts. ¿Hindi-Chini, Bhai-Bhai¿ is a phrase that is fraught with sentiment, resentment, and fear towards a brother who has not always been benign and is certainly not equal. The only way to quell that fear is to emulate and outstrip that brother in the path towards the mythical West. In ancient China ¿the West¿ denoted India; in 21^st century India, China is what India wishes to be in its quest for the West.

Contact: chattarji_s@yahoo.com 

[ii] This self-obsessiveness is also evident in Indian media reportage on Indians living abroad, the NRIs, PIOs, OBIs.

[iii] Jean Baudrillard, The Illusion of the End, trans. Chris Turner (Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press, 1994), p.6.