India: The Hanuman Syndrome

Our countries silence and inaction has given an impression to the world that we the Indian people are meek and weak. We pushovers, on the contrary are living in a la la land day dreaming that someday soon we we would be world superpower. The individuality in Santana Dharma together with Gandhi’s non-violence seems to be the perpetual curse of the country. We idiots have conveniently forgotten that need to fight the fights that require fighting, isn’t that the sermon by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita all about. Remember “It’s survival of the fittest and the weak shall perish”.

After the Mumbai Terror attack on 26/11 the D Sivanandan the Mumbai Police Commissioner said “unlike Israel, which immediately reacts to any terror attacks, India lacked the killer instinct against those who carry out such attacks.” Since thousands of years, we have been passively witnessing all terror attacks. We never went to fight with anybody. That's what our main problem is and we lack the killer instinct," he said.
"We cannot go and wage a war against Pakistan, China or anybody else. But Israel never keeps quiet. Israelis go on their flights, bombard the fellows (enemies), come back and keep quiet. But when we become aggressive, we face international pressure," Sivanandan, who has recently been appointed Mumbai's police commissioner, said.

Here is what Rajeev Srinivasan says in today’s Rediff post;

The world has taken its measure of India, and found it to be a second-tier nation. Hence they will continue to insult it subtly and openly. There is no consequence. India does not realize that it is, at least as an economic entity, a desirable partner, and that when the world is in the depths of a financial crisis, the threat of withholding access to the Indian market would immediately encourage snooty Canada’s and Australia’s and Britain’s to fold. We have seen how the British absolutely groveled a few years ago when Malaysia's prickly Mahathir Mohammed cancelled orders with British companies when they said something rude. I have never seen such kowtowing and mea culpas and brown-nosing. India is heavyweight acting like a featherweight. There may be a Hanuman Syndrome in effect here: A country not knowing its true worth. On the other hand, I am afraid it's worse -- the rulers do not pursue India's national interests to the best of their ability, despite their solemn oath to do so.

Click on the following link to read the complete article;
http://news.rediff.com/column/2010/jun/02/rajeev-srinivasan-on-why-india-is-not-taken-seriously.htm