Widening the Geo-political horizons, and gaining the “Perspective” about “Idea of a nation”
I bet many of us Bharatiya people haven’t thought beyond our own borders, when we were deceived and guilt-tripped, by the so-called “Seculars” driven by Abrahmo-Leftists, when they harassed us in the name of their “Secular Idea of India.”
Their dishonest “So you want a Hindu-Pakistan?” jibe.
But recent… ‘events,’ in international geo-politics, really has thrown the question, thrown it all, really,into a sharp relief.
We’ll soon come to the obvious, but for the sake of maintaining consistency – and in keeping with tradition, we’ll start with our own neighborhood.
Also, to keep things absolutely clear, with no doubt for ambiguity, we’ll not be considering cases where 2 or more countries have a “mere” territorial dispute.
We’re talking about something much more greater, ideological, intrinsic and intense, about a nation’s idea of itself and how it responds to those who contest it or those who just naturally stand totally against it. (There are many resources for it, I picked one from here. WARNING: some of the info may-be outdated, with bilateral relationship status changed, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, which is the main-point of this exercise: to demonstrate international geo-politics around “recognition of nations” across the history. )
Starting with the racist, fire-breathing, imperialist, commie chinese dragon. The PRC.
And its infamous “One China” policy.
It never recognized Taiwan as a separate nation.
And, the feeling is quite mutual.
Taiwan never recognized China as something worthy of nation-hood, either. And considers itself the sole, legitimate representative of all of China.
Similarly, around 15 other countries of the world: Paraguay, Belize, Saint Lucia, Haiti, Saint Vincent, Marshall Islands, Honduras, Nicaragua, Saint Kitts, Guatemala, Palau, Narua, Eswatini Tuvalu, and Vatican City, they do not recognize PRC as a nation, and instead, consider Taiwan to be its sole representative.
Interestingly, Bhutan doesn’t recognize either one! Hah!
To be sure, this was the position of most of the world (of recognizing Taiwan as sole representative of all of China – until 1971. And we all know what changed around those times, don’t we? Kissinger and Nixon and their racist machinations and all that… )
Right now, Taiwan has almost no official political-relations with most of the countries of the world, but they do have unofficial ties and trade-agreements.
Moving on…
After the P****stan’s genocidal war against Hindus and Bangladeshis ended up in a humiliating defeat for themselves, P****stan itself was seething with impotent rage and did its utmost best, in the initial days and years, to not recognize Bangladesh as a separate, independent country. It threw a wild tantrum, called on commie Chinese favors to veto Bangladesh’s admission in UN (China’s 1st veto use), withdrew from commonwealth – for more than a decade! severed ties with several CW members who recognized BD, and after a hectic geopolitical maneuvering, only in 1974, did it grant recognition to Bangladesh as an independent country.
And that’s just our neighborhood.
There are lots of cases like it, all over the world.
North and South Korea both don’t officially recognize each other as a nation – and let me remind everyone, they had a kind of partition too, around the same time we had, and it was arch-statesman Secular Nehru and their cohort, who had mediated in korean-war crisis.
Also, Japan, France and Taiwan, too, don’t recognize North-Korea.
There’s also the case of Cyprus, where Mughals’ ancestors and P****stan’s biggest friend, Turks, had intervened against Greeks, partitioned the island and created a Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Which means, Cyprus itself is not recognized by Turkey and its vassal state TRNC. In return, the OG Cyprus doesn’t recognize TRNC, either.
Turkey also doesn’t recognize a State-less nation: that of Kurds, and regularly launches brutal crackdowns against those who want to claim it.
Then there was also the long running NATO treachery against Yugoslavia, which continued even after the dissolution of it. In 2008, after western intervention and their brutal bombing campaigns had Kosovo separated from Serbia. It is a conflict based largely on – guess what? Religious lines! Serbs were mostly christians. Kosovo were muslim majority. There was separatism from Kosovan side (obviously!), encouraged by the west, (obviously!), with the pretext of it being a strategic maneuver against Russia (obviously!). In any case, Serbia never recognized Kosovo as an independent country, after western backed partition of its territory. In fact, only 97 (or is it 117?) countries of UN, do. Notably, our Bharat is not one of them.
And since we have, indeed, moved on towards Russian borders – just like expansionist, backstabbing NATO, we might as well discuss the other disputes around the region.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia, are recognized only by Russia and its allies. Georgia claims both as its sovereign territory.
There’s also the case of the gothic sounding Transnistria. Recognized by only South-Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Then there’s of course the case of Ukraine, where Russian President Putin, while not yet officially withdrawing the recognition (or has he, ever accepted it, I mean?), has all but declared that Ukraine is not really separate from Mother Russia. In fact, that particular ideological commitment to ‘Idea of Russia’ was so strong, the red-line so big, that Putin was willing to risk international condemnation, charges of hypocrisy (Putin and Russia had greatly criticized western invasion of Iraq), seizure of its assets and unprecedented and unilateral sanctions regime (some 12,000 of it!)
Then we pivot to Africa. Towards Western Sahara, which was invaded and annexed by Morocco since 1974. That annexation is recognized by no-one else except US and Morcco. The latter doesn’t recognize Western Sahara as an independent country. But some 46 UN countries do.
Plus there’s Somaliland, claimed entirely by Somalia and recognized as an independent nation only by Taiwan.
And oh! I almost forgot! The basket-case of our Jihadi neighbor in undertaking one more weird tantrum – proving, once again, that “naya mulla, jyada pyaaj…” idiom once and for all.
In the wake of the recent Nagarno-Karabakh war, between Armenia and Algeria – the latter, backed by Mughal’s ancestors Turkey, in a war that served as the 1st demonstration of deadly potential of drones – P****stan suddenly made a surprise move and became the only country in the world that doesn’t recognize entire Armenia as an independent nation anymore! Leaving everyone scratching their heads about the fact that ‘When the actual warring party, Algeria, itself recognizes Armenia, still, as an independent nation-state, in the wake of a war, no-less, then what kind of uber-zealotry prompted P****stan to withdraw recognition of Armenia?’
Also, if we’re once again talking about Jihadi terrorist States, since the takeover by Taliban in 2021, Afghanistan has also lost its recognition among nations of the world, too. In fact, in 2021, when the dust hadn’t even settled, no other country except P****stan had recognized Taliban ruled Afghanistan.
And of course, we now turn to the raging elephant in the room.
The question of Israel and Palestine.
The Jewish Nation Israel never recognized an independent Islamic State of Palestine.
As for the latter, well, its leading… ahem, ‘political outfits’ believe in “From river to the sea, Palestine will be free!’ Idea of Palestine – meaning total erasure of Israel from the map of the earth. So forget about “recognizing” it as an independent nation.
And in fact, a majority of Muslim countries, powerful and less-so, do NOT recognize State of Israel. As a matter of ideology. As a matter of principle. They don’t even share a border with Israel! Again, we do not wish to go into the debate about whether that principle is good or bad. It’s just to highlight the fact that such commitment to both:
1.) the idea of a nation. And
2.) opposition to that idea of a nation.
exist in real-world.
In fact, this dispute, rooted entirely in religion, is talked about and cited as the most fierce ideological commitment between different nations’ contesting “ideas of who they are?”
So much so that, as I highlighted earlier, even other nations withheld recognition of Israel for fear of incurring the wrath of Muslim nations – including, most shamefully, our own country operating under that illusory ‘Secular Idea of India’ stalwarts. As also their “principle” that given our partition history, a country based on religion is simply unpalatable to that ‘Secular Idea of India.’ A most inexplicable choice given the fact that it was a Muslim Jihadist separatist ideology, that had demanded partition of Bharat, not the Jews and their Zionism, despite the fact that Jews had lived here much longer than Muslims. But they lived here peacefully – unlike Muslims, and they didn’t demand a separate ‘Jewish State of Kerala’. They wanted it in their own religious homeland, something which P****stanis cannot ever claim for themselves regarding their occupation of our lands of Sindhu-n-Saraswati because Islam itself is very explicitly clear about it: it’s the Saudi Arabia, and Mecca and Medina, and then Jerusalem, that matters to Muslims religiously and doctrinally. Not a single religious site in the snazzily named P****stan.
In fact, this ideological commitment to respective core, nation-defining ideologies is so fierce in that troubled region of Middle-East, that the west, and especially the US – not to mention Israel itself, is willing to offer most lucrative trade, technology, military and financial support in exchange for just one thing: “recognition of Israel as an independent State.”
That was the whole deal about now scuttled (or at least postponed) Abraham-Accords brokered by Trump.
So, if we can ultimately conclude, this is what ironclad, ideological commitment to “Idea of a Nation” looks like. Where a nation has so much confidence in “Who they are? As a nation?” that they not only view others from the same lens, stand by it in international relations but also, they have so much distaste for what they consider to be an ‘extreme opposite’ of it, their ‘ideological nemesis’, that they even refuse to “recognize” this entity as an independent nation. Forget everything else that comes after it.
As the examples above illustrate, it’s not even a matter of strong vs. weak.
It’s also not a mere matter of territorial disputes between those who share a border.
And certainly not about democratic Vs. authoritarian
Or our point of the day: Secular Vs. Religious.
It’s a matter of – and I don’t wish to sound corny here – belief. And commitment. To your own nation’s so-called founding principles and values.
The case of Israel-Palestine, Serbia-Kosovo, and Algeria-Armenia are notable examples in this regard, where the decisions are said to be influenced by “Who we are? As Bharat?”
I’ve talked enough about the 1st one but both the latter two disputes resemble – at least somewhat – the situation in Kashmir.
But in the case of Algeria-Armenia, it’s the Armenia, whose behavior is described like that of P****stan’s occupation of Kashmir.
And yet, Armenia declared its support for Bharat’s position on Kashmir, and Bharat too, is understood to have supported Armenia – notably, even after the war and Armenia’s subsequent loss of control over Nagarno-Karabakh, there’s increased overall bilateral co-operation and specifically weapons-sales programs being discussed between our two countries. The star of the show? Pinaka multi-barrel rocket-launcher systems. Like that of HIMARS given to Ukraine.
So what explains it? The apparent contradiction in stands taken by Bharat in Southern Caucasus?
Of course there are multiple reasons, but one sticks out, naturally – which perhaps also explains that there’s no contradiction at all: 1.) A Muslim nation’s aggressive expansionism against ‘kaffir’ nation and its territories and/or unilateral, separatist declaration of secession. 2.) Supported by our Mughal colonizer’s ancestors: the Turks and 3.) Naturally, the two’s alliance with our arch-nemesis: P****stan. The original sinner of Kashmir, and indeed, Bharat.
Turkey, also happened to be one of the first 3 states that had recognized P****stan, way back in 1947. The rest two were Saudi Arabia and Iran. In fact, Iran was the 1st! So at least we can be rest assured that there’s no Shia-Sunni divergence on the matter, when it comes to supporting cleavage of Akhand Bharat and gifting our sacred homeland, the cradle of our Hindu Civilization, to a Sunni-majority Jihadi Separatist monster for continuous defilement and butchery.
Anyway, that’s who we are. As Bharat.
From Nehru’s time until Modi administration.
(To be continued…)
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