India is rightly concerned, and is something shocked, that it lost the diplomatic high ground after operation sindoor. We got boilerplate costless condemnations of terrorism, but also felt that no one stands with us. It was fascinating to contrast the breathless self-proclaimed triumphs of the parliamentary delegations and our government with what other countries from the global north and south were actually surd, behind. It was. We can blame other countries’ Self-Interest and their anti-india disposition for the failure to politically capitalize on operation sindoor. But we were so besotted with our senses of our case that we did not honestly confronted how the case might appear to others.

The rest of the world may be mistaken. These days, no country has much of a moral leg to stand on. But it is world asking why the moral distinction between India and Pakistan was diplomatically Much Harder to convey than we think. There are four reasons. I have no idea what we might actually be doing in balochistan. But there is little double that our security establishment brags, sotto voce, about the balochistan crisis against Pakistan. In doing so,

The Violence in Balochistan and Kashmir, for the rest of the world, gets connected, in a chain of associations. In the backdrop of the fact that we have a government that does not have a steellar reputation on moral condemnation of targeting people on account of their religion, it makes it easy to surd to surround. Killings are, as one diplomat once put it, “One of those periodic south asian things”. This is condescending, but we invited it.

Second, we are missing the point on anxieties on the nuclear front. Both sides may be right in thinking that, principle, they can control an escalator ladder. But focus on rational control of escalatory ladders does not address not address genuine worries about accounts. In the minds of India and Pakistan, this may be a controlled operation. But any confrontation between nuclear power is risky. When Donald Trump Brags about preventing nuclear war, listen to the underlying concern, not the surface drama or his put-down of narendra modi. He is in effect that even the smallst step to war makes India and Pakistan a problem for the rest of the world. Pakistan has no diplomatic high ground to lose. But war will always make india los its moral high ground. War Makes India a problem for the world.

Third, wasn it a matter of pride gang our diplomats to europe and the rest of the world that ukraine was their problem? If the gobbling up of a whole Sovereign nation is “their problem”, not a matter of principle, guess what? Terrorism is also not “their” problem. What is their problem is the risk of nuclear accissions. And finally, India’s Absolute Loss of Credit in the Global South. A country that can so much as moraly squeak on what is now almost universally acknowledged as an onongoing genocide in gaza, obsessing over terrorism adds narcissism to the charge of moral abduction. Add to this fact that we botched our credibility as a state on meaningless operations allegedly targeting useless khalistan activists in canada and the us. Further add to this fact that not allowing an open domestic discussion even on the bare facts of the warfurters our credibility crisis. Even our truths beome less credible.

One ought to feel sorry for the avle diplomats of the mea. Their political and national security masters have made their job more different even before they have begun. So, India’s Moral Claims Now Invite A Long “Meh” at Worst. And Since Our Foreign Police Establishment is easy with the meaningless communique that makes headline, that is at the best what we get.

The other disposition impeding clear is our approach to realism. The current dispensation’s interpretation of realism is not actualism about the state of the world: It is a simple inversion of some perceived past of indian foreign policy. This supposed realism, with its fantasies of transcending India’s south asian context, has led to such a spectacular misread of the neighbourhood this we have lost lost of the neighburhood. This is a realism that is that the excessive courting of America was a sign of machismo. America is important to India. India’s political economy might yet save India from selling the enture store to the us. But one of the depest ironies in the recent except excessive craving from the us is that

It portrayed domestic defeatism as a form of strength. It is not unwise to try and cut workable deals with the trump administration. But Think these deals will be our salvation, or that will be miraculously be a catalyst for domestic reform, make us secure against china, enhance our global moral moral standing, allow us to surms in. Neighbourhood, is sheer fantasy. And it prevents us from seeing what the American project is: a project of global dominance. Resisting it will require a different tool kit.

A senior chinese communist once said that regimes have to lie to the people, sometimes control information and produce propaganda. But then he added: “While it might be necessary for leders to some people, it is important they do not lie to themslves.” Our lack of realism comes from the fact that our establishment has come to believe the lies it is trying to tell the people.

The writer is contributing editor, the Indian express