India is a democracy and has the right to determine its own national security needs. If it needs nuclear weapons as a deterrent to the two non democratic antagonists that it borders (Pakistan and China), then so be it.

Regarding India's stance on the economy and the environment, let me tell you about something that you may not be aware of as a NY Times correspondent. It seems several years worth of emails have come to light between some of the world's most prominent climatalogists. These scientists discuss faking climate data because apparently there has not been any global warming thus far in the 21st century.

India does not believe it should keep millions of its people in poverty to make you feel better about the environment.

Would like to comment on two points :

1. Nuclear capabilities : Having two hostile countries (nuclear capable) as neighbours, one can hardly expect India to give up its own nuclear weapons program just to please a few Western democracies (namely US). And to add to that, India has already fought two wars with these two countries and is being constantly threatened on its Eastern and Western borders. Wonder if the US was a landlocked country, with such neighbours, what would the US be doing, considering that they started two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after the September 11 strike.

2. Global warming : I don't know whether the climate change / global warming is true or an exaggerated claims by environmentalist. However, I leave you with this quote I read at an exhibition of photographs by Jean Bertrand. It said and I quote :
"If all the people in the world start living like the Americans do, we will need 4 earths to sustain us". unquote.

I hope this author gives a more balanced opinion the next time.

Some excerpts and counter-views

Quote:
[India, first and foremost, believes that the world's rules don't apply to it. Bucking an international trend since the Cold War, successive Indian governments have refused to sign nuclear testing and nonproliferation agreements -- accelerating a nuclear arms race in South Asia. (India's second nuclear tests in 1998 led to Pakistan's decision to detonate its own nuclear weapons.)

Once the pious proponent of a nuclear-free world, New Delhi today maintains an attitude of "not now, not ever" when it comes to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. As defense analyst Matthew Hoey recently wrote in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "India's behavior has been comparable to other defiant nuclear states [and] will undoubtedly contribute to a deteriorating security environment in Asia."]

Counter view:
Wow... could the author have been more obvious? India has been against NPT since the very beginning, and so are Pakistan, and Israel. But still the author tags India as the most troublesome nation in Asia.

Hmm... maybe India should follow the footsteps of Iran and refuse to cooperate with IAEA. Maybe the leaders of USA, Russia, France, UK and Canada are absolute fools to commence nuclear trade with evil India even though the latter has no regard for the NPT.

All hail the wisdom of Barbara Crossette.

Quote:
[Not only does India reject existing treaties, but it also deep-sixes international efforts to develop new ones. In 2008, India single-handedly foiled the last Doha round of global trade talks, an effort to nail together a global deal that almost nobody loved, but one that would have benefited developing countries most. "I reject everything," declared Kamal Nath, then the Indian commerce and industry minister, after grueling days and sleepless nights of negotiations in Geneva in the summer of 2008.
Oh really? India "single-handedly" foiled the Doha round? And what happened Barbara? No quotes to back your claim this time? Why?]

Counter view:
Perhaps the author doesn't have any. Maybe she should read what the European Trade Commissioner said -

http://www.ndtvprofit.com/2008/07/30102814/India-China-not-to-blame-for.html

And it is well known fact that Doha round was opposed by several nations including China -

http://www.caltradereport.com/eWebPages/opinion-1221001125.html

Just because India was the most vocal among the nations which opposed the deal doesn't mean India "single-handedly" collapsed the deal. Seriously, that was just dumb.

Quote:
[On climate change, India has been no less intransigent. In July, India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, pre-emptively told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton five months before the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen that India, a fast-growing producer of greenhouse gases, would flat-out not accept binding carbon emissions targets.]

Counter view:
Wait... so now India was also the only nation responsible for the collapse of the Copenhagen summit? I seriously can't stop laughing.

Quote:
India happily attacks individuals, as well as institutions and treaty talks. As ex-World Bank staffers have revealed in interviews with Indian media, India worked behind the scenes to help push Paul Wolfowitz out of the World Bank presidency, not because his relationship with a female official caused a public furor, but because he had turned his attention to Indian corruption and fraud in the diversion of bank funds.

Counter view:
Oh really? So now India is responsible for Wolfowitz's expulsion?

Maybe the author should read this before opening her mouth -

http://web.archive.org/web/20070518235908/http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/15/news/newsmakers/wolfowitz.reut/?postversion=2007051507

Wolfowitz has been targeted by many WB board members for years. India there or not, he was going back home anyways.

Quote:
[By the time a broad investigation had ended -- and Robert Zoellick had become the new World Bank president -- a whopping $600 million had been diverted, as the Wall Street Journal reported, from projects that would have served the Indian poor through malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and drug-quality improvement programs. Calling the level of fraud "unacceptable," Zoellick later sent a flock of officials to New Delhi to work with the Indian government in investigating the accounts. In a 2009 interview with the weekly India Abroad, former bank employee Steve Berkman said the level of corruption among Indian officials was "no different than what I've seen in Africa and other places."]

Counter view:
Right... so India has a corruption problem. But according to Transparency International, it is still much better off compared to other Asian nations such as Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, Russia and Iran.

http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009

Yet India is the "biggest headache" in Asia.

Quote:
[India certainly affords its citizens more freedoms than China, but it is hardly a liberal democratic paradise. India limits outside assistance to nongovernmental organizations and most educational institutions. It restricts the work of foreign scholars (and sometimes journalists) and bans books. Last fall, India refused to allow Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan journalists to attend a workshop on environmental journalism.

India also regularly refuses visas for international rights advocates. In 2003, India denied a visa to the head of Amnesty International, Irene Khan. Although no official reason was given, it was likely a punishment for Amnesty's critical stance on the government's handling of Hindu attacks that killed as many as 2,000 Muslims in Gujarat the previous year. Most recently, a delegation from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a congressionally mandated body, was denied Indian visas. In the past, the commission had called attention to attacks on both Muslims and Christians in India.]

Counter view:
What the? So India denied visas to couple of these self-proclaimed "human rights activists" and we are evil now. What logic!

Tell these Amnesty and U.S. Congress delegation members to try visit Xinjiang or Tibet.

Quote:
[Nor does New Delhi stand up for freedom abroad. In the U.N. General Assembly and the U.N. Human Rights Council, India votes regularly with human rights offenders, international scofflaws, and enemies of democracy. Just last year, after Sri Lanka had pounded civilians held hostage by the Tamil Tigers and then rounded up survivors of the carnage and put them in holding camps that have drawn universal opprobrium, India joined China and Russia in subverting a human rights resolution suggesting a war crimes investigation and instead backed a move that seemed to congratulate the Sri Lankans.]

Counter view:
The author herself acknowledged the fact that India "joined China and Russia" in pulling down the resolution against Sri Lanka. Maybe she is not aware of the fact that China and a good part of Russia are in Asia.

But still India is the biggest "headache" of Asia.

I understand the fact that Barbara, who has written 4 books in her 50 year career (two of which were solely dedicated to India, which not surprisingly few people have heard of), will go to any lengths to attract attention. Unfortunately, she succeeded this time at the expense of her credibility.

Counter-views

1. NUCLEAR TREATIES:
Wow... could the author have been more obvious? India has been against NPT since the very beginning, and so are Pakistan, and Israel. But still the author tags India as the most troublesome nation in Asia.

Hmm... maybe India should follow the footsteps of Iran and refuse to cooperate with IAEA. Maybe the leaders of USA, Russia, France, UK and Canada are absolute fools to commence nuclear trade with evil India even though the latter has no regard for the NPT.

2. DOHA ROUND:
Oh really? India "single-handedly" foiled the Doha round? And what happened Barbara? No quotes to back your claim this time? Why?

Perhaps the author doesn't have any. Maybe she should read what the European Trade Commissioner said -
http://www.ndtvprofit.com/2008/07/30102814/India-China-not-to-blame-for.html

And it is well known fact that Doha round was opposed by several nations including China -
http://www.caltradereport.com/eWebPages/opinion-1221001125.html

Just because India was the most vocal among the nations which opposed the deal doesn't mean India "single-handedly" collapsed the deal. Seriously, that was just dumb.

3. CLIMATE TALKS:

Wait... so now India was also the only nation responsible for the collapse of the Copenhagen summit?

4. WORLD BANK AND WOLFOWITZ:

Oh really? So now India is responsible for Wolfowitz's expulsion?

Maybe the author should read this before opening her mouth -
http://web.archive.org/web/20070518235908/http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/15/news/newsmakers/wolfowitz.reut/?postversion=2007051507

Wolfowitz has been targeted by many WB board members for years. India there or not, he was going back home anyways.

5. CORRUPTION

Right... so India has a corruption problem. But according to Transparency International, it is still much better off compared to other Asian nations such as Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, Russia and Iran.
[url=http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009]2009/cpi/surveys_indices/policy_research[/url]

Yet India is the "biggest headache" in Asia.

6. DENIAL OF VISAS

So India denied visas to couple of these self-proclaimed "human rights activists" and we are evil now. What logic!

Tell these Amnesty and U.S. Congress delegation members to try visit Xinjiang or Tibet.

7. SUPPORT FOR SRI LANKA

The author herself acknowledged the fact that India "joined China and Russia" in pulling down the resolution against Sri Lanka. Maybe she is not aware of the fact that China and a good part of Russia are in Asia.

But still India is the biggest "headache" of Asia.

I understand the fact that Barbara, who has written 4 books in her 50 year career (two of which were solely dedicated to India, which not surprisingly few people have heard of), will go to any lengths to attract attention. Unfortunately, she succeeded this time at the expense of her credibility.

Your article seems not more than a bunch of one sided statements piled together. Firstly, India has made it loud and clear that it will not let the US or any other state, popwerful or not, decided its foreign policy agenda. India has the capability as well as the willingness to acquire and maintain its nuclear arsenal, and it does not need the permission of the global hegemon to go ahead with this. Also, India's track record has proved something very different from what you suggest -- India has always been and continues to be a very peaceful state. I say this because India has always been attacked, either by China or Pakistan. it has neevr initiated a conflict against any other state in its history, inspite of having belligerent neighbors like Pakistan and China and facing tons of terrorism for the past few decades.
When US faced one strong terrorist attack in the form of 9-11, it responded by initiating two large scale (quagmires as FP calls it) conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. While India has resolutely battled terrorism in Kashmir as well as the Eastern states, it continues to diplomatically negotiate with the country it knows is sponsoring many of those attacks - Pakistan. India should be commended for this. Infact, it should not be seen as a surprise if they would be willing to come down tougher on their neighbor that refuses to learn from past mistakes. 26-11 was nothing short of 9-11 for India. Yet, India has not initiated any conflicts around the world, and hence its nuclear status should threaten nobody, but serves as a deterrence against those who intend to harm the country.
About climate control talks -- this is a very complicated issue as everyone who has been following politics for the past few years knows. You seem to have given India the single handed credit for stalling the climate talks in Doha. If India is such a powerful state as you seem to suggest, then surely it deserves a permanent seat on the UN security council. it seems to have exactly what the US is missing-- the ability to convince other states towards joint actions on various matters of international conern, and bring multilateralism back into the game.
During the Cold War -- India and several other states in Asia maintained a policy of non-alignment with either the US or the Soviet Union. This was a sure shot route to peace, rather than siding with any one side. Strategically speaking, India did not believe in soviet-style containment, it was much more of a capitalist state. However, the Russians were a lot closer geographically than the US, and India had to perform a delicate balancing act against the two superpowers. Moreover, India had freshly attained independence and had enough domestic issues to worry about rather than play games and satisfy superpower egos. In that respect, non-alignment was an intelligent and effective strategy that bode well for India. Why this does feature in an article that is trying to make it a villain?
You are quite right about the corruption issues in India, and since some others have addressed it here, I will refrain from doing so. Yet, you seem to have exaggerated India's influence in the international institutions to suggest that it played a large role in challenging their leaderships. Neither is India afraid to participate in international institutions. You have provided no evidence that it takes a unilateral stance --- especially compared to the United States which has become a symbol of unilateral interventionism in the last decade.
Lastly, Indian democracy may have a long way to go, but it is a democracy. You seem to suggest that it is not much better than the strong Communist regime next door, or only slightly so (I hope you dont mean slightly worse). The recent Indian elections gave a mandate to the largest and the oldest Congress Party of the country. This is because the Indian youth believes in the ideals of democracy-- we have fought hard for our freedom, and we intend to keep it.

About the climate talks-- although I do believe that the effort will be successful only when every state agrees to do something about, both developing and developed, India's position just indicates that it refuses to serve a sentence for a crime it did not commit!! The developed Western states need to shoulder a greater responsibility as they have caused the majority of the climate harm facing us today. Yet instead of doing so, the Bush Presidency and Republicans like Palin are still debating if global warming actually exists! Can you show them the evidence please instead of writing pointless/incorrect articles about India?

I sense an undercurrent of malice in Crossette's writing. The piece seems to have a one point agenda; Denigrate India. There are indeed genuine problems in India and in the areas that Crossette touches upon. However, she could have brought them up in a different - more mature - manner. Many others have done so many times and have received equally mature responses and reception from Indian readers. This article however falls in the category of fishwives squabbling - except, there is only one here.

Somewhere in the article she mentions about visas denied to journalists. I suspect she has been at the receiving end of one (or more) such denial(s). Perhaps that's the main - and sole - reason for Crossette's viciousness.

The building is beautiful, but I wonder about the man's relationship with all his wives and his children. Research what happened to this family. One of the sons wound up imprisoning his father and killing or imprisoning other siblings. It's pretty shocking, but this sort of thing happened in royal families, especially when there was polygamy. Love should be able to create a safe environment for all.
http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=2448543

Judging by the large number of comments here defending anything and everything India does, I'd say India's public relations is quiet successful.

But most people do not grasp India's true nature. There r perhaps millions of slaves in India. There are 100s of 1000 of prostitutes, including child prostitutes.

There is almost a trillion dollars in Indian wealth stored in Swiss bank accounts.

There is 61% literacy. 47% literacy in women.

25% of the population is below the poverty level, and the per capita income is $2900. Yet almost a trillion is in Swiss accounts from Indians? How is this possible except a class of them are making most of the wealth and transferring it overseas into their personal accounts for their own fortunes, while withholding reinvesting it and giving back to the people.

Those of you defending India are fooled into ignoring the reality.

may be someone needs to show the author a mirror.
Has US given up its nukes?..... NO
why ? >> because it is in its national interest not to do so.
So should India? ....certainly NO.
Has the US signed Kyoto, Geneva,....? .....NO
why? >> again national interest
So should India sign Doha and Copenhagen?......again NO.
Well, If India opposes something then it is simply because it goes against its own interest..even if it does a world of good to others, India cannot be expected to sacrifice. If the author is so worried about about developing countries in Africa then she should write to her state senator and give Africans more money. India can barely take care of itself. It cannot be expected to do things that simply go against its interests...
And Ms. Author, guess where the Indians learnt this policy of protecting self interest at all costs from???? From your dear United States of America....It's you who showed the entire world what exactly being selfish is like..

as an Indian, I welcome all the criticism that anybody cares to throw at India. There is much about India that deserves criticism and patriotic fervor shouldn't get in the way of fair critique.

That said, I must observe that while all of Ms Crosette's criticisms may be true, they don't add up to make India a global villain and Asia's biggest pain.

For sure, India doesn't match the west on human rights, clean government and justice. it certainly does not share the western liberal's righteousness about global warming and nuclear weapons.

but from there to global villain and asia's biggest pain? really? India's human rights record is worse than China's? India's economic policies more chaotic for the world's economy than China's? India's a greater threat to global security than af-pak?

Ms Crossette must know how outrageous a stance she has taken. so why did she?

I can only imagine that the editors of FP were motivated to sex up the article and blow it up all out of proportion. I thought FP was mature enough to not need to do that, but this would seem to indicate that it isn't.

Most of the international consternation about India always seems to revolve around the fact that India places it's well being and it's nations needs first. Most nations are so obsessed with using their foreign policy to leverage enemies or build support for allies they forget that foreign policy should be a tool to better a nations populace. I think India does just fine, it's foreign policy reflects it's overriding concern with things that affect India and Indians directly. Is that so bad?

Who is paying M/S crossette to write a very one sided article on India.What is her background? where was she born, what school or university she atteneded.What mosque or church she belongs to.The whole article smells of hatred and ignorance.To understand India is to understand the birth of creative thinking.Watch,, if she can, and is not blind in her hatred towards India on going achivements, "A DOCUMENTARY PRODUCED BY B.B.C, NARRATED BY MICHEL WOOD,"IF THAT WONT WAKE HER TO FACTS, NOTHING WILL..Does she know India has 27 major languages with over 900 dialects and to reach all those regions of India and explain the centre decision require herculean task.Dear M/S Crossette if you can understand that, it may shock you that how India is holding country togather and gaining economic development.

"Of course, India gets marvelous press. Feature stories from there typically bring to life Internet entrepreneurs, hospitality industry pioneers, and gurus keeping spiritual traditions alive while lovingly bridging Eastern and Western cultures."

Don't worry. There's a whole archive of your stories about India at the NYT to counterbalance the "marvelous" press India gets. Frankly, if one was to take all the stories ever written about India by the Western press, we'd need 50 more years of "marvelous" press to balance the drain inspector reports. Even in this story of yours you can't provide the whole story and present both sides of the story. You leave out important details. When the U.S. allows another country to send a fact-finding mission -- one that has religious zealots who belong to a church that says Hindus worship demons -- to investigate injustices in the U.S. then get back to us.

I have some advice for the author of this article. Most articles in most newspapers are not unbiased. Most reflect the personal tastes and distastes of the author quite clearly. It is because most reporters / columnists of most newspapers are not 'true to profession'. It is human nature and nothing can be done to improve it. In fact we should not blame journalism only, no profession is free of biases.

Given that, journalists would find it very hard to survive if they expresses their views very frankly. So the need of the hour is to be hypocrite. Everybody is and those who say very loudly that they aren't are fools. The smarter ones say that they are not hypocrites but do have some human foilbles.

Now let me come to the author of the above article. This author clearly has no love for India. But it is a grave mistake to let it come out of your words. You must sound impartial. By denouncing India in such words you will simply create a hilarious piece. In fact for some time I thought that this is actually a parody. So for the sake of criticizing India you should do your homework well --

1. find out what excuses Indians fake for their behavior. Then find those same excuses in some more admirable nation (obviously more admirable in your eyes) and then claim that the more admirable nations have a genuine reason for those excuses. You do not need to give a completely convincing reason. Just state some reason which can be easily exaggerated. Then claim that India is a global criminal for indulging in that behavior for no reason at all. Again offer a impartial sounding reason which can be easily exaggerated.

2. large nations like India (and democratic ones at that) have a self destructive streak to its nationality. this streak is provided by their own intelligentsia who take great relish in maligning their home countries to earn brownie points at international seminars/conferences. look for such individuals, record their statements or better conduct a small interview and include it after deliberately choosing their most vitriolic statements. In this way you would sound impartial and can legitimately claim to being just a reporter.

3. in the case of India which is currently the toast of the world (however much you detest it) you should avoid at all costs any signals that you are anti India. you just put your own credibility at stake. so pepper the report by highlighting some tourists attraction and claiming that it was the most beautiful place you visited. praise fulsomely the people whom you may or may not have interacted ... who knows which street hawker there is in which street. just make it up liberally. this way you can come out with full marks for actually 'loving the people' but being 'dismayed by the govt'. quote anti govt words of some common people (like train travelers) in your article while stating that you are changing their names to protect privacy. these statements could be completely imaginary or cut & pasted from the internet.

Now I am sure you can figure out what to do next. In the current article you are wrong on all three counts described above. So much so that Indians will probably take a printout to read aloud in stand-up comedy shows.

Best of luck in India bashing next time. I am an Indian and love my nation too much. I am advising you just because you seem so desperate to put India down.

Get well soon !

The good is largely in the seemingly limitless supply of smart, ambitious and well educated people that India produces. I wonder if the US medical system could function without Indian physicians? The most positive developement is that many of these talented people are finding and creating opportunities within India itself which has lagged far behind the capabilities of its people in terms of development.

The bad is the seemingly limitless supply of very poor people. Giving these people a chance at a decent life may be the biggest challenge facing any nation today.

While risking being labeled a nationalist/sentimentalist as an American citizen born in Bombay (yes, it's always Bombay to some of us)...

Ms. Crossette's analysis strikes me as odd coming from a seemingly credible author. Her criticisms (unaddressed poverty, inequity of wealth, corruption, human rights violations, self-interest, etc.) levied at India are hardly unique to any one country. Could not any number of countries be accused of the same shortcomings ? Even if we overlook the part where she casts dubious shadows over India's nuclear intent and environmental opportunism despite sound evidence, does the label of "biggest pain in Asia" really apply ? Really ?

I suppose it's fair to assume that Ms. Crossette prefers that the largest continent be led by... Pakistan ? Afghanistan ? Iran ? North Korea ? Burma ? Yes, that would certainly make cooperation between Asia and the rest of the world more cordial and congruent.

Whatever beef, legitimate or imagined, Ms. Crossette may have against the largest democracy and second-most populous country in the world is simply not buttressed by childish name calling and highly questionable analysis.

(there was an opposing view article a short while back on Slate.com by Christopher Hitchens that risks being viewed as too far towards the other side but might be worth a Google search in this case)

Happy New Year, everyone

International politics is a tough business, and there's hardly anyone you can trust. This holds especially true for India historically.

Regardless of its shortcomings, and there are many, it is perfectly reasonable for Indian lawmakers to look out for their own country's interests first, and not so much about what the international community thinks.

The only thing we can reason with them about is making stupid short-term decisions without any regard for their own long-term safety and interests. This holds true for their often-times brutal repression of regional minorities, as well as ill-thought-out decisions on undermining their neighbors' stability.

Everything else is fair game and India must, and of right, ought to be respected.

I really need to wonder what exactly the barrier-to-entry is for articles in FP, because this one is atrocious.

This author starts her article off by implying that press coverage of India is almost always positive to a fault. I don't know what media reality she lives in, but most of what is portrayed about India is the abject poverty. Slumdog Millionaire wasn't exactly a portrayal of an Indian utopia, and I have never seen a singe article describing India as a "liberal democratic paradise". While India's democracy is not perfect, it is certainly better than the elections in Pakistan or Afghanistan which must be hand-held and guided by the United States, lest another dictator gets in. And India is the bigger headache?

She mentions that India hasn't signed the NPT and tries to compare it to other irresponsible state actors without mentioning that India's proliferation record has been deemed "impeccable" (meaning they didn't share their secrets with ANYONE) by the IAEA and this was the only reason they were able to get a nuclear deal with the U.S.. She mentions nuclear weapons testing and then acts as if this forced Pakistan's hand, without mentioning India adopted a "no-nuke-first" policy meaning they would only ever use them in retaliation, while MANY other nuclear nations have never adopted a similar policy. And she does not even mention that other nuclear states (China, Pakistan) have indeed shared their nuclear know-how, unlike India.

And yet India is supposed to be the bigger global headache when it comes to nuclear proliferation. Give me a break.

She mentions the climate change talks, without AT ALL mentioning that China is in agreement with India, and that they have a legitimate concern about limiting their growth due to the carbon emissions of the West in times past. Instead, she portrays it like India is saying no just for the sake of saying no, and that they are the lone spoiler. What nonsense.

She also talks about the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government in such a distorted way that its obvious she has some inherit biases or knows nothing about the subject. She portrays it as if the Sri Lankan government deliberately pounded civilians for sheer fun. They were locked in the final stages of a civil war raging for 25 YEAR WAR against the same group that invented suicide bombings, the Tamil Tigers.

Yes, civilians were killed and thats deplorable. But to open up a war crimes investigation against the Sri Lankan government would be idiotic. There was no intentional mass slaughter of civilians. The author also neglects to mention that the Tamil Tigers were responsible for assassinating Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and this probably was the reason for the Indian government not coming down hard on the Sri Lankan government. It would have been political suicide for India to condemn the Sri Lankan government while they were busy wiping out the terrorist group that killed an Indian PM.

Of course, none of this has any bearing on people like Ms. Crossette, who have no problem making smug, self-righteous proclamations to other nations without EVER accepting those same standards for their own country. The United States doesn't even bother counting the civilians killed in their operations in Iraq, and yet others want to bring charges against the Sri Lankan government for killing civilians in their operations against the Tamil Tigers and call countries that refuse to do so "spoilers".

I wonder how Ms. Crossette would act if an American President were assassinated by a terrorist group, and then another country launched offensives against that group in which civilians died. Something tells me she would not be charging that other country with war crimes.

I'll end with this: In Afghanistan, you have two South-Asian partners. One was fighting the Taliban before the United States and has pledged $1.2 billion to help rebuild Afghanistan's infrastructure. The other group created the terrorist Taliban outfit, refuses to fight them entirely, has pledged no money to help Afghanistan and won't even go after the deadly Haqqani network. And this author would have you believe the former country is the biggest spoiler.

This article was written with little to no context, where facts and realities were simply ignored to paint the picture of India she wanted to paint.

Everything is relative including any criticism. "Afghanistan. Iran. Venezuela. North Korea. Pakistan." Wow! This is August company.

Thanks to the British for creating Pakistan - or more accurately Incrediblestan - and to the US for providing it with nucelar capability, arms and fighter aircraft. Bangladesh war (waged on their own people because they spoke a different language) in 1970 was Pakistan's crowning moment; which India was left to solve alone.

End note: It was always easy for firingees to shoot an elephant - it provides a large target - but there is no valour in it.

There are too many glaring factual errors and oversights in this article for it to be printed in Foreign Policy.

1. The Indian Prime Minister announced during his US visit that India would sign the NPT as a Nuclear Weapons State. During the recent visit of Japanese PM Hatoyama to India, the Indian Prime Minister said that India would sign the CTBT as well soon as the US and China ratify it.
Did Ms Crossette miss the news ?

2. If India which has never proliferated nuclear technology refuses to sign a treaty that makes it give up its weapons while allowing its biggest strategic rival, China, to retain its own weapons, does that make India a "global villain"?

3. The WTO rounds of negotiations have been pitted developed and developing nations against each other, because free trade is rarely free and often unbalanced as acknowledged by the world's leading economists (from Easterly to Collier)...so if India refuses to sign onto a trade treaty that it deems to be against its national interests (just as the Europeans and US refused to give up agriculture subsidies at Doha in view of their own national interests), does that make India a "global villain"??
Since when does defense of vital national interests make you a global villain?

4. If India were powerful enough to get the World Bank President replaced, why has it not been able to get its share of SDRs in the IMF or on the board of governors of the WB increased? Crossette makes India out to be an all-powerful machiavellian villain. Is it?

5. Global governance and International security are two different issues. Is Crossette unaware of the difference? The long list of names cited by Crossette - Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Venezuela etc are considered problems for international security. Should India be on the same list???

Not a single Indian voice is cited in this article. How can it be called balanced journalism? Or even a thoughtful essay? It's more of a vitriolic attack against one country. Call it yellow journalism.

Let's start by getting a couple of things out of the way. I am an Indian. Moreover, I disagree with the author's conclusions regarding India's motivations for its stances on the nuclear and climate-change issues

Okay, now that that's out of the way...

I think the author is correct in some of her other arguments. Although India is located in an extremely hostile neighborhood, its foreign policy vis-a-vis the other South Asian countries leaves a lot to be desired. For example, Bhutan and (until very recently, at least) Nepal are effectively client-states that India for some reason expects to vote in lock-step with it at the U.N. Magnanimous gestures to our smaller neighbors (e.g., the so-called "Gujral Doctrine") as well as basic respect and non-interference in internal affairs should be the norm, not the exception, in our policy toward neighbors (including Pakistan, albeit with some exceptions there).

In addition, as the author notes, India has a pretty bad internal human-rights record, and is extremely defensive about it internationally. For example, we have a hissy fit whenever the U.N. tries to include caste discrimination as a human-rights violation, even though caste discrimination is illegal under the Indian constitution. If we are truly serious about combating this problem, why should we be so defensive in acknowledging the problem in the first place?

Even on the nuclear and climate-change issues, I would argue that it's in India's interest to be less reflexively oppositional and to instead think much more carefully about its own self-interest. This has already begun to happen. Witness: (1) The recent nuclear deal with the U.S., which will bring India closer to the nuclear mainstream but also (and more importantly to India) will benefit India, and (2) Environment minister Jairam Ramesh--his amusing (but effective) comments in the presence of Hillary Clinton notwithstanding--has made several recent statements to the effect that India needs to be more pragmatic about its self-interest (given climate change's likely severe effects on India) and that India should do what it can to combat climate change even as it continues to oppose binding targets and to place the onus of combating climate change primarily on the West.

Finally, I have to say that, on a personal level, I find that we Indians are often too sensitive to criticism. When confronted with criticism, we should do our best to acknowledge what is true even as we disagree with what is not true. If we want to be a world power, we do need to be able to handle criticism in a more mature manner.

"Finally, I have to say that, on a personal level, I find that we Indians are often too sensitive to criticism. "

On a personal level, everyone is sensitive to criticism. Americans started thinking of silly stuff like "freedom fries" the moment some French criticized them, for God's sake, and threatened to boycott French products. Go to the blogs or comment forums of foreign papers like The Guardian, The Times of London and see how well Americans/Europeans take criticism of their countries, cultures etc. Not so well, it seems. Not so different from those over emotional Indians, it seems.

... write an article impugning Indian Foreign Policy and not even mention the [supposed] undermining of stability vis-a-vis Pakistan?

Surely THAT is the largest headache right now.

I know there are a lot of Indians or Americans of Indian descent commenting here. Let's be honest folks, it makes complete sense what the Indian Government is doing by pumping money in to Afghanistan, but we all have to acknowledge that it scares the crap out of the Pakistanis.

If only governments were individuals... so both of you could sit down and agree to knock it off.

I know full well what the Pakis have done to you all and what they continue to do, but you also know that you've responded ten-fold in Afghanistan and Balochistan in the past decade alone.

At some point someone needs to grow up and end this cycle of lunacy.

The article is biased and appears to be written with a lot of malice towards the largest democracy in the world. The article appears hurriedly written with a lot of errors. I do not know the authors motive for writing this piece but was surprised that a reputed journal like yours would publish it.

Poor Ms. Crossette. For years, she made a living writing articles critical of India. She didn't notice the end of the Cold War and subsequent changes in geopolitics. So, when she got an opportunity to make a quick buck by writing for FP, she jumped at it. She really didn't spend much time on research - her eyesight is not as good as it used to be, the joints are a lot creakier. But there was enough vitriol left in her and scattered fragments of truths, half-truths, and lies still in her fuzzy, fading mind to concoct a story. And, certainly, she had the cleverest little title, with elephants and all!

Lady, you are speaking condescendingly and disparagingly about one-sixth of humanity, who don't glut themselves on much of the world's resources and cause mischief in every corner of the world. This is a civilization that has survived a lot worse than your 'anemic,' senile rants and is none the worse for them. You really need to sit back on your rocker and get back to your knitting.

I believe that India's independent foreign policy is what bothers US the most. Like France it goes is own way and since we Americans are the "City on the Hill" we can't figure out why they don't want to be just like us and agree with everything we come up with. In truth, we would rather deal with absolutist governments like Saudi Arabia because its easier. Once you've cut some deals with the Royal Family you're done in Saudi while dealing with a very large and complicated democracy is messy and difficult. However, I don't think we've ever had to worry much about French or Indian terrorists attacking the US or French or Indian money financing schools and organizations hostile to US intrests.

I noticed none of the India supporters here bothered to comment on the other story on this site:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/04/hungry_for_justice

World's Largest Democracy?

Apparently millions of your own citizens disagree.

This isn't how genuine democracies behave. Just ask the British.

As a first generation Indian-American, I do think that Indians (much like Americans) have become far too sensitive to criticism and far too prone to nationalism. Anyone who even thinks of discussing the problems that India faces, with regards to corruption or poverty is labeled as an "imperialist" and Indians immediately assume any criticism as some kind of personal insult. I am about 98% that I will get an outraged chain email about this article from some Indian relatives.

Having said all of that, this article is relying on pure sensationalism. While India should not blindly treated as a benevolent power on every issue by the US, this article instead tries to convince us that India is a rogue state. In every issue cited by the author, many other Asian countries take the same steps as India. For example, the article talks about the support of Sri Lanka by India, China and Russia, and singles out India for criticism. WTF? I understand that the author is trying to demonstrate that India should not be blindly supported by Western countries simply because of its democratic political structure but instead of making fair criticisms of India, it is clear that the author instead wants to paint India as a rogue state. I am glad to finally see an article, especially one written by a white author discussing the problems of India but this article is merely a hit piece, not an informed critique.

Ms. Crossette is a closet communist and a has-been who is more interested in generating sensational headlines than fostering intelligent debate on issues of significance. She belongs to the same category of hacks like Robin Raphael; she has no intellectual depth, lacks intellectual honesty and longs for the iron hands of the communist thugs in Beijing and the military despots in Islamabad.

Her appeal is so limited that it could only be sustained in closed societies. In an open country like India she was unmasked for the fraud that she is. Her tainted views on India still show the scars. She is a liar, makes up stories and quotes out of context to seek solace for the personal hurt and inadequacies that she feels.

Let it go Ms. Crossette! India is too complex for your narrow mind to comprehend, let alone articulate any view that is remotely intelligent. Perhaps you could become the Washington bureau chief for one of the Chinese newspapers.

Let's see, 9 years of an Act of Congress aimed at creating a means for surveillance in response to a brutal act of terror that claimed 3000+ lives in a single day. An act perpetrated by 19 men who infiltrated the country, and prior to pulling out their box cutters, had yet to commit a crime.

Versus 60 years of brutal repression at the hands of an occupying Army that rapes, pillages, murders, and has been doing so for three generations now... without any recourse to judicial redress.

That's the same.

It's not uncommon for brutal dictators to point to America's mistakes to deflect attention from their own tyranny... I just never expected such pathetic tactics from 'the world's largest democracy.'

Since I read the article, I kept wondering how FP editors could allow to publish such a silly piece of analysis. There is absolutely no doubt that this is the worst article that I have ever read on FP.

Let me be clear, I have no particular sympathy for Indian foreign policy.

But it's difficult to resist the temptation of devastating the silly attacks against it made in this article.

The most fundamental flaw in the article is that it rests on a contradiction: on the one side, it argues that India is "a country of outsize ambition but anemic influence". On the other side, however, it purports that "it's India that often gives global governance the biggest headache". How is it possible that a country that has "anemic influence" can at the same time cause deep troubles to global governance? If India is viewed as irrelevant on the international scene, why should global governance institutions then bother about Indian actions?

Influence can be both positive as well as negative. Although the author claims that India has "anemic influence", the whole article points to instances of "negative" influence of Indian foreign policy decisions.

On nuclear policy, the article points out that India "refused to sign nuclear testing and nonproliferation agreements". True, India is not part of the nonproliferation regime. But the crucial question is "Why". In New Delhi's view, the NPT was and remains a fundamentally discriminatory agreement. In addition, India has always regarded itself as a great power, and joining the NPT as a non-nuclear weapons state would mean abandoning the quest for great power status. In addition, frankly, what's more troubling? Having a country that doesn't join the NPT regime (India) or countries that cheat from within it (Iran) or abandon it (North Korea)? Moreover, India has never rejected the CTBT, and has promised that it would sign it, if Washington and Beijing ratify it. And it has a good record on nonproliferation efforts. Perhaps not surprisingly, the US acknowledged these facts by signing the "nuclear deal" with New Delhi.

On trade, the article claims that "India single-handedly foiled the last Doha round of global trade talks". Goodness me, your imagination seems to be boundless. Anyone with a casual interest in multilateral trade negotiations knows that the core problem lies in the refusal of powerful Western countries to dismantle their massive agricultural subsidies. France is the worst example, but the US is no role model either. If the USTR Susan Schwab brings unacceptable conditions for China and India during the last stages of negotiations, then it is not surprising that both countries reject it.

On climate change, people who have followed the Copenhagen Summit know that the biggest culprit of its failure is China. India really has "anemic influence*, and to argue that New Delhi somehow contributed to make a mess of Copenhagen talks would give it undeserved credit. India, as most of other emerging countries, is rightly skeptical about the issue of global warming, and worries that it is largely a Western plot to choke off their growth and to preserve the economic and political primacy of Western countries.

In the author's view, "Nor does New Delhi stand up for freedom abroad". Well, this is an extraordinary statement. What does "standing up for freedom" mean? Every country faces the trade-off between values and interests. There is no country that is a beacon of democracy and liberal values. The U.S. can afford to promote democracy abroad, because it has the economic clout to back it. But even the U.S. faces the trade-off between liberal ideals and cold-blooded strategic interests, and often the latter tend to prevail. In sum, countries "stand up for freedom abroad" when it's in their interest, not because it's an innate propensity.

There is a whole bunch of countries that might deservedly get the prize of "global villain". To give it to India is like to give the Nobel prize to Obama or Kissinger: it is completely out of place!

Think for a moment about which countries cause the most global consternation. Afghanistan. Iran. Venezuela. North Korea. Pakistan. Perhaps rising China. But India? Surely not. In the popular imagination, the world's largest democracy evokes Gandhi, Bollywood, and chicken tikka. In reality, however, it's India that often gives global governance the biggest headache.
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Of course, India gets marvelous press. Feature stories from there typically bring to life Internet entrepreneurs, hospitality industry pioneers, and gurus keeping spiritual traditions alive while lovingly bridging Eastern and Western cultures.
But something is left out of the cheery picture. For all its business acumen and the extraordinary creativity unleashed in the service of growth, today's India is an international adolescent, a country of outsize ambition but anemic influence. India's colorful, stubborn loquaciousness, so enchanting on a personal level, turns out to be anything but when it comes to the country's international relations. On crucial matters of global concern, from climate change to multilateral trade, India all too often just says no.
India, first and foremost, believes that the world's rules don't apply to it. Bucking an international trend since the Cold War, successive Indian governments have refused to sign nuclear testing and nonproliferation agreements -- accelerating a nuclear arms race in South Asia. (India's second nuclear tests in 1998 led to Pakistan's decision to detonate its own nuclear weapons.)
Once the pious proponent of a nuclear-free world, New Delhi today maintains an attitude of "not now, not ever" when it comes to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. As defense analyst Matthew Hoey recently wrote in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "India's behavior has been comparable to other defiant nuclear states [and] will undoubtedly contribute to a deteriorating security environment in Asia."
Not only does India reject existing treaties, but it also deep-sixes international efforts to develop new ones. In 2008, India single-handedly foiled the last Doha round of global trade talks, an effort to nail together a global deal that almost nobody loved, but one that would have benefited developing countries most. "I reject everything," declared Kamal Nath, then the Indian commerce and industry minister, after grueling days and sleepless nights of negotiations in Geneva in the summer of 2008.
On climate change, India has been no less intransigent. In July, India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, pre-emptively told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton five months before the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen that India, a fast-growing producer of greenhouse gases, would flat-out not accept binding carbon emissions targets.

My dear Babs:
Having read your virulant anti-India attacks for the last two decades at least, (I know some was inspited and paid for by the State Deprtment), I am not surprised.
It is BAD if India does not sign treaties that US has refused to ratify. You conviniently forget that Indian constitution has no ratification process signing means fully adheraing to not like the US trick of signing and NOT ratifying.
Babs thinks it is bad India does not know tow to Western demands for limiting green gas emission (that now stands at 1 Tonne per capita as against 300 Tonnes of a western world inhabitant). And no mention of refusal of green technologies? Sorry then you will get nothing from India.
Yes we do limit NGOs and individuals who come with set agendas by you know who. Sorry we have interests to protect just as US has.
My dear Babs!! Where did you get the figure of 2000 for Gujarat Riots? Is it not really 200? And you are silent about the cause of the riots!! And mind you Honey!! Do you remember the Native Americans killed with infected blankets and how you have turned the survivors into drug addicts and alcoholics? Or is it that US of A can do anything!!
Religious freedom? Who is US of A to supervise India’s records? We are free enof and the minorities have progressed in India. Who is criticizing? The country that said that Saudi Arabia has religious freedom because non-Muslims can practice their religion behind closed and locked doors? C’mon. Stop being vitriolic so that you can get some relevance!!
This also applies to your comments on democracy. Who are your allies? Pakistan!! – Democracy indeed!! Saudi Arabia – The greatest Demo crazy yada yada!!
Do not point fingers too much!! When one points to us remember THREE are pointing towards you.
Oh I forgot to convey Hi from you know who from Delhi days!! Bitterness against individuals should not be turned towards a NATION
Bad Bad india indeed!!
What happened Babs? You were made irrelevant and sidelined!! Now you are clawing back in (Is it because your pension fund dwindled?).
I am sorry Babs!! We are not the poodle that Britain or pakistan is. I am sorry we will progress - albeit slowly.

Finally someone wrote about the true face of the so called largest democracy!
how long can a country fool everyone?

and why did all the Indians end up in such a frenzy??? what about the human rights abuses in the northeast and kashmir?

what about the raping and killing of the nuns? what about the burning of muslims in Gujrat? what about the teenage rapes and children's deaths in school? what about the AFSPA? what about the farmer's suicides??

why are you indians comparing yourself with other countries, atleast they do not allege to be something they are not !!!

thank you Ms Crossette for not being too gullible and writing the truth. keep up the good work. and please do not be discouraged by the personal attacks made above.

truth is always a bitter pill to swallow.

have a nice day all of you.

India's government is largely run by genocidal maniacs. The minister Kamal Nath mentioned in this report was reported by several witnesses to be at the site where several Sikhs were murdered by the Congress party government. The prime minister Manmohan Singh not only sees nothing wrong in keeping this man in the government, but has gone to the extent of trying to shift blame for the 1984 riots on to his political opponents. India will remain caught in this destructive behavior as long as the country remains caught in a political time warp.

There are some interesting details to be found that contributed to this article.
http://cryptome.org/in-dual-tech.pdf

This article is one of the many that have been written during the smear campaign against India in the name of journalism. Due to the inherent biases and superficial analysis, Barbara’s article is laughable at the best! If India is labeled adolescent in the article, then the award for childish flip-flop must definitely go to Uncle Sam. A few pint where the author’s “educated" analysis is not quite right:

1. On nuclear proliferation, what moral and legal authority do the "developed" nations have to dictate India's stand on its nuclear program? Questions about the safety of our program are quite invalid considering we haven't yet bombed anyone or did not have even one nuclear accident (Barbara may not be aware of the Hiroshima and Three Mile Island incidents or does she conveniently ignore them before preaching India a lesson on nuclear restraint/safety)

2. On the matter of trade also our "expert" author maintains her consistent ignorance on the facts underlying the denial of Indian Government to succumb to the big corporations that are called "farmers" in the US. These "farmers" get huge subsidies in the order of GDP of some of the developing nations. Indian and developing countries' farmers can never compete against such companies. Entry of these subsidized commodities into India will lead to end of livelihood of over 60% Indians. Therefore, Indian Government prefers life of its people over capitalist efficiency. This should explain the defensive trade policy of India and other nations. Before Barbara preaches India on the trade policy, she should consider taking a course on Macroeconomics 101 and should educate herself on the century old predatory economic policy of her nation (and other EU members).

3. It doesn't sound right for Barbara to propose a Carbon Cutting program to India when she and her compatriots are and have been the #1 polluter of the world for at least three generations. Barbara again maintains her anti-India rhetoric with abject ignorance and denial!

4. Complaining about corruption in Indian context doesn't make much sense when lobbyists in US have corrupted their whole democratic process. Misappropriations of the order of trillions of dollars during the war on Iraq are conveniently swept under the rug. Barbara needs to look at the other three fingers' direction when she points one at India's direction.

5. I need not touch upon America's stand on human rights as its antics at Abu Ghraib paint quite a colorful picture. Talk about Visa denial is a complete non-sense as American approach to allocate Visas to developing countries’ citizens works more like a lottery. Also, someone needs to give Barbara a count of life lost and/or irreparably affected by the actions of her compatriots all over the world.

I have to give her credit where it is due. Her article is highly accurate in an unintended way. One has to make a small adjustment to the article to make it factually correct and logically sound. REPLACE INDIA WITH AMERICA.

1. The NPT basically says that the Permenant members of the UN can keep nuclear bombs, but others who sign it cannot, which is just complete bullshit, and as long as 1.2 billion Indians are still standing, NO Indian government is signing that.
2. So, India should stop giving subsidies to its farmers (most of whom account for half the world's poor) and the developed world can continue to shower subsidies to its farmers. That aint happening, and we WILL make sure that no bull WTO shit gets through which hurts the Indian farmer.
3. India has one of the lowest per capita carbon emissions in the world. 1.3 tonnes per capita. Every developed country has multiples of India's per capita carbon emissions. India's growth is important to help lift half the world's poor from poverty.
4. Like the Western world is so free from corruption. Hey, if we're corrupt we accept it, and tell you how to go around it or get stuff done.
5. The government has to respect the sentiments of all Indians, doe to which certain liberties of NON-Indians are curtailed, to keep peace and harmony.
6."U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom": Our constitution guarantees religious freedom. Of course there are vested interests who play around with it from time to time. But those, like BJP and Shiv Sena, will either learn to be liberal, or will perish.
7. India has always and continues to stand by Tamilians. The Indian government has sent aid, and will continue to send it to rehabilitate the Tamilians of Sri Lanka.
8. It is just unthinkable how 1.2 billion people are not given their due in the UN. Afterall, 1/6th of the world populace does give India a reason to demand a permanent seat.

I'm glad India is helping to thwart liberal nonsense like nuclear test bans and that cap n' trade scam. It is about time that the USA restarted nuclear weapons testing, and we will eventually have to. The USA needs to develop pure thermonuclear bombs that do not use any fission components, and this requires testing. Such devices will actually be usable in routine wars, unlike present day dirty nukes.

1. No where in the article does the author assert that India single-handedly foiled the Copenhagen climate talks. She noted India's obstinate stance alongside China, but she does not base her designation of "Asian Villain" off this criteria.

2. The Indian government (and to some extent its citizens) need to drop this belligerent attitude towards China. China and India have NOT engaged in armed conflict for more than 45 years. Yet the Indian media and government voices constantly portray China as a dangerous military threat over what is essentially small time border disagreements. For many Indians, small pieces of mountainous, resourceless, and unarable terrain (read Aksai Chin and Arunachel Pradesh) are worth going to war over......ridiculous. Is that the calling card of a responsible nation? India initiated the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and China responded accordingly. Now, the Indian government uses a war long forgotten by the Chinese people, as a rallying cry for bloodshed against a nation which has peacefully coexisted with India for thousands of years......

3. The Indian government is solely responsible for nuclear proliferation in South Asia. If India was not actively developing a nuclear asenal (despite its impoverished population), then Pakistan would not have developed one as well. Pakistan quickly acquired nuclear weapons technology as a result of a rational fear of Indian war-mongering. Now India seeks to undermine Pakistan's stability, knowing full well Pakistan's nuclear arsenal would fall into extremist hands should the country collapse. Does this make the Indian government a responsible one?? Luckily China and the US work to stabilize Pakistan.

4. Indians shower their form of governance with undeserved adulation, lauding it with hackneyed phrases like "tolerant democracy" and "defenders of freedom". You sound like the American propaganda machine. Truthfully, democracy at its best is simply a choice between the worst of two parties. Democracy at its worst is the tyranny of the majority over the minority. The democratic system represents the majority, but does not necessarily deliver justice. And in a country with one of the highest Muslim populations in the world, and an even larger Hindu population, the Hindu majority inevitably imposes terrifying and fascist policies on the Muslims. This equates to the oppression of hundreds of millions of Muslims. This is nothing to be proud of.

If your democracy is so great, then please hold a referendum in Kashmir, letting the natives of Kashmir decide if they want to join India!! If your democracy is so great, then hold referendums in the so called "Naxalite Corridor", and let the Maoist freedom fighters decide their own lives!! Stop sending in the military to murder innocent civilians as a response to these situations.

Finally, I just want to point out that human rights concern's a government's ability to provide for its citizens. That is the definition and ultimately the yardstick by which to measure freedom. In that end, the Republic of India's failure to bring hundreds of millions out of poverty (while China has lifted almost a billion out of it), its failure to pacify and properly redress Naxalite concerns, its continued tolerance of the case system, and its complicit actions in human trafficking, sex trafficking, child prostitution, corruption, discrimination of Muslims, and other ills, testifies to the failure of the Indian government in the realm of human rights. The Indian government is so irresponsible, it would rather deprive the majority of its population of basic water access just so it can send a rocket into space for propaganda fodder.

....some minor semantics clarifications in my comment. I wrote this fairly early in the morning.

I meant to say that democracy at its best is the lesser of two evils. Additionally, the PRC and the Republic of India have not co-existed for thousands of years. Rather, the two civilizations have co-existed for thousands of years.

Every body deserve friends they cultivate. Best friends of U.S are S.Arabia, Pakistan, Israel, Turkey and any country which has oil & gas! They supply oil and as a gift - terror or huge headaches! Author has some cheeks, I must admit! U.S also always cultivated all the dictators on this planet and even in moon! Why is U.S a pariah and talking of Human rights - country, which had to fight civil war to end slavery, carried out hundreds of CIA inspired que deta to dismiss democratically elected government from S.America to Asia & beyond.
Used atomic weapons against Japan - stark racism, invaded Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq etc for NO logical reasons! Good on you few more articles like these U.S will have NO friends left on the planet!

Regarding nuclear non-proliferation, one must admit that any country that has Pakistan for a neighbor (whos military establishment it is now revealed co-ordinated the heinous attacks on civilians on 26/11), and China as another neighbor quite openly supplying nuclear technology to Pakistan, agreeing to dismantle their nuclear arsenal would be quite suicidal.

Other than that, you bring up rather trivial data points to back your argument. "Fear India - its corrupt?". Oh Please. I would much more fear an trigger happy Pakistan that ranks a few notches below India in Transparency Internationals corruption index.

SMCI60652 and USAMA2 are Pakistani apologists. I can't wait for them to blame India after Pakistan launches another terrorist attack.

JUSTHERE = Babs. Way to make a fake post Babs. That'll go nicely with your fraudulent books and reporting.

Many people have written that Babs work aspires to be propaganda and I concur. I'm guessing she was jilted by some Hindu in New Delhi and that's why she writes the garbage that she does.

BTW Babs, the reason there is so much Indian money in Swiss banks is not because the corrupt government is putting it there, rather, it is the businesspeople of India who are shipping it there so that the corrupt government doesn't get its hands on it.

ALLENGREEN is right that India has to reject the idea of being with the Third World and consider a strategic partnership with the remaining participant in the Second World, China so long as the US continues supporting Pakistan explicitly and China implicitly.

CHIPPROCESSOR is wrong about the Sino-Indian War being the cause of present conflicts. It has more to do with India's support of the Dalai Lama, China's support of Pakistan, and China attempting to take away Himalayan water that the Indian population needs. He is also wrong about nuclear proliferation. India's nuke came after China's and the West helped Pakistan get nuclear technology during the Cold War. AQ Khan is also responsible for non-proliferation in lesser countries like N. Korea.

In fact, CHIPPROCESSOR is wrong about a lot (perhaps he aspires to be Babs' understudy) but the "best" is:

"Finally, I just want to point out that human rights concern's a government's ability to provide for its citizens. That is the definition and ultimately the yardstick by which to measure freedom."

That is not a measure of human rights. There are rich and poor in every country on Earth, even in his beloved China. This may be the Communist way to measure human rights but the human rights' record of Communists is not great, wouldn't you say?

You hate India. You have ever since the NYT sent you there and you wrote intellectually dishonest books about it.

Does India deserve criticism for some things, of course, who doesn't?

But to make the ludicrous leap that India's "flaws" make it the worst nation in the region tells me that it's time to send Babs to the old folks home.

My next book on Barbara Crossette will be titled "So Far From Heaven - How a worthless old hag continues to hate on India even as India is positively evolving" Catchy?

"India has argued, with justification, that the NPT has turned into a treaty under which the five nuclear-weapons nations--the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia--allow themselves to keep their bombs and missiles while calling on others to forego development. Moreover, the United States has not pressed Israel on the issue before, and accepts Pakistan's contention that it cannot sign the NPT until India does. North Korea, which did sign, has recently opted out. "

That's right!

a statement like "DAMONENOLA is a categoric Indian apologist." has no value.

SMCI60652 can look up the definition of "apologist" but she can't adequately apply it to me. I never claimed right or wrong in the Sino-Indian war and I was actually pointing to current issues that have more relevance than a war that occurred 47 years ago. As for the nukes, I was correct. China's nuke came first, then India's, then Pakistan's.

On the other hand, she as an apologist is as disingenuous as Ann Coulter. Much like Ann hides her apologist views by going after the other side unfairly, ShMuCkI60652 hides her Pakistan apologist stances by attacking India unfairly.

I guess I did touch a nerve by pointing out her true Pakistan apologist intentions.

Sad indeed!

I strongly believe whatever is said in this artical is 100% correct and the author must be appreciated by the efforts and time spent to find out and show the world the real face and character of India.
But one thing is missing in this artical and that is its so called role in the war against terrorism in the wolrd. India cries that it is victom of terrorism but in fact it is the bigger cause of terrorism and unrest in southasia. It is india and its notorious spy agency RAW which has been exporting terrorism in Srilanka and Pakistan for years and it was RAW which actually fabricated the Bombay Ballasts to get the sympathies of the world and that has been proved by the recent statement given in court by the only survived person of that drama. Now indian agency Raw is supporting Pakistani Talaban and giving them money and training throug indian counsolates in Jalalabad and Khandhar in Afganistan and also supporting rebels and terrorists in Pakistani province of Balochistan and offcource killing dozens of innocent people, women and children on the streets of pakistan nearly everyday and
under these circumstances no dought pakistan is not fully onboard against war on terrorism because of this fact that india is using Afgaistan to export terrorism in Pakistan and destabalizing it.
But it is the misfortune of the world that no one in the world can stop india from its negative behaviour and double standards becaues they are very big mouths and no dought also very good on propaganda to fool the world.

1. What is Ms. Crosette smoking?
2. Who's paying her? (My best guess is - the Chinese)

DAMONENOLA,

You have repeatedly spammed 6 comments in 7 hours, which leads me to suspect you are nothing but an automated comment generator. India has the technical know-how to program that kind of software, right?

We can gauge the weakness of your comments and your lack of credibility because in every comment, you strive to label people rather than address their contentions. You say that everything I say is untrue and false. Yet you do not offer any rebuttals. Yes, Western powers or Chinese powers may have assisted Pakistan in obtaining a nuclear arsenal. But that does not refute my assertion that Pakistan wished to acquire an arsenal out of a rational fear of Indian militarism. The Western and Chinese powers were most likely trying to bring stability to the region by balancing out powers.

Here is your problem: Everybody who presents opinions contrary to you or even slightly critical of India is either a Chinese, a communist, a Pakistani, anti-Indian, or "Babs" (you know the author that well huh? haha). Yes, we know....it's much easier to simply discredit somebody by giving them a label rather than addressing their points.

My "beloved China"? What makes you think I am a supporter of the Chinese regime? If I opine that Turkey has throughout history been militarily aggressive against the Greeks, does that mean I am a Greek patriot and I hate Turks?? What if I make a comment about Mars? Then am I an Indian hating, Turk hating, Greek patriot, Chinese Martian? LOL

You say that China and India have conflicts not because of unresolved territorial disputes but because of India's support of the Dalai Lama. Clearly you are grossly mis-informed. The Republic of India government DOES NOT formally support the Dalai Lama, because if they did, they would first and foremost NOT recognize Tibet as a part of China. However, the government OFFICIALLY recognizes Tibet as being an integral part of the PRC. Additionally, does the Indian government show its support to the Dalai Lama by BRUTALLY beating and imprisoning Tibetan protestors in northern India months before the 2008 Olympics? Yes, we all saw videos of Indian armed forces carrying innocent Tibetan protestors away in military trucks. Face it, the Indian government is more concerned with tangible territory like Kashmir, Aksai Chin, and Arunachel Pradesh, than it is with benevolently preserving Tibetan culture.

How does China support Pakistan really? If it's measured through monetary means, then you should be FUMING at America! The United States has in the last couple of years alone, furnished Pakistan with 22 BILLION in aid and military supplies! That dwarfs China's civilian investments in ports and roads. Bottom line: The US has been explicitly supplying Pakistan with military money and military know-how, while China invests for commercial purposes. Yet you and others somehow feel that China is the enemy.....I would like a sane Indian person to address this issue please.

You reject my notion of human rights, and the government's obligation to protect human rights. You reject my criteria......yet you offer nothing of your own! Instead you label me (no surprise there...) a communist and a Chinese (I'm Scots-Irish). Even if you were to offer your own criteria by which to judge a government's ability to protect human rights, you would have to at least justify how your criteria is paramount over mine.

Look, if you want to factor in "free speech" as a qualifier (I'm giving you ideas here, because a software comment generator probably has none of its own...) I'll play: I would contend that the Indian government denies free speech for its citizens because it cannot furnish a venue upon which to exercise this right. Consider this. 27% of the Chinese population have broadband internet access, compared to a dismal 7% of the Indian population. (360+ million users vs. 80 million) As a result, the Indian government has failed in providing a proper medium for the general populace to express their views. It would rather send an obsolete rocket into orbit than provide a 21st century communication tool for its people. Its simple as that.

In the end, India is like a drug addled women who has been abandoned by her abusive British husband. She becomes delusional and paranoid that all of her neighbors are colluding against her. Strong nations can take criticism. Only weak and pariah nations are extremely sensitive to every little word and comment.

It is stunningly amazing how the pro-Indian circuit can't handle a shred of criticism against their nation. India blew a nuclear bomb in the face of the international community - do you rabid pro-Indian supporters really think that India is beyond criticism? No nation is exempt from critique. Give me a freaking break. The heat will continue to be focused on India and unless you all think the world has been living in a cave you should expect that heat to get hotter.

No one has a problem with any one criticizing things about India, but this article is obviously just trash. This lady would have the extremely gullible believe that India is "The biggest pain in Asia"? Really? I mean, really? Not Pakistan? Not North Korea? Not China? Not Afghanistan? Not Russia? Not Indonesia? I can understand Barbara making up for retirement money she lost in the tanked us economy by selling the only thing she knows how to sell: the hate-India line, but come on: who buys this kind of horse manure in this day and age when anyone quickly quick get facts from the Internet? What a shame that the standard for articles in Foreign Policy is so abysmal.

Guess what. See what FAIR says about Crossette:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1025

and others:
http://www.swans.com/library/art6/ga088.html

You can fool some people some of the time but not all the people all the time!

http://polityinindia.wordpress.com/

I do not claim to be very knowledgeable about foreign policy, but even at the outset, the article seems to be ranting against all things Indian. Is India’s democratic credential the real issue here, or is it India’s posturing in International affairs? Does corruption in implementation of World Bank Projects have anything to do with India playing spoiler in WTO negotiations? Does India’s faulty human rights record have anything to do with the claim for a permanent seat in the Security Council when countries which were at war and kept invading each other at various points of time in the last century are on the Council too?

For a person who writes for a prestigious magazine, the author seems to have forgotten that national posturing at international negotiations is based on (1) safeguarding national interest, and (2) promoting national interest by developing greater clout at the international level!!

1. Non-proliferation: If signing the NPT is the litmus test for proof of non-proliferation, why hasn’t the US (which has recently been yelling about ending nuclear weapons and so on) signed the NPT? India’s stance is perfectly that: abide by the standards you seek to impose, and if there is consistency in state practice, India will follow suit.

2. Trade and climate: Again, I am not an expert on trade negotiations and climate change, but why should one particular country be pin-pointed for the lack of development of an international consensus? The two largest emitters of Greenhouse gases are unwilling to accept binding targets for reducing emissions, transfer of funds under technology transfer agreements under the Kyoto Protocol has been abysmally low, Kyoto Protocol targets have not been met by almost any developed country, and yet India is expected to be the sole paragon of virtue by accepting emission targets?

3. Corruption: India is corrupt. There is in fact large-scale diversion of funds. India must do better. But to argue that the Wolfowitz was thrown out by conspiring Indians smacks of naivete. Had Wolfowitz not acted in a thoroughly unprofessional manner himself, what would the Indians have conspired about? The author seems to suggest if not that, the conspirators might even have created grounds for him to be removed based on his choice of pyjamas.

4. Human rights: India’s human rights record is far from perfect and there have been way too many incidents of communal, sectarian and ethnic violence for a successful democracy to live with. However, Indian democracy is all of six decades old. Its development as a democracy since independence has been largely peaceful considering most successful democracies have been established after revolutions, war, repression, and genocide against native populations. And in all these cases (please note also, all these countries had a remarkably homogeneous population), it has taken generations, in every case, to heal divisive wounds. I do not recall having heard of any of these countries displaying humility and regret at the international stage. That is not say India should not be doing more. I merely make the point that protecting human rights come at an economic cost, and for the state to have the capacity to create more efficient systems, it needs to have more money and more muscle.

I don't know what I find more bizarre, in a completely bizarre article written for what can only be an even more bizarre reason: Crossette's claim that India "India happily attacks individuals, as well as institutions and treaty talks"
or
"India votes regularly with human rights offenders, international scofflaws, and enemies of democracy".

To the first: When did 'toeing the American line' become synonymous with national positions in international diplomacy and negotiations?

And to the second: Has the columnist bothered to check the voting history of the United States at all? Why, most voting in the UNSC, sadly, has nothing to do with what might over-simplistically be termed as 'doing the right thing'.

In fact, as far as the UNSC is concerned, I don't know what makes the other five permanent members any more qualified than the fact that they wrote a victors' charter six decades ago. Or, in the case of China, got lucky later on!

From what I read in the wiki about Babara "She was a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. During her assignment, she was Southeast Asia bureau chief of the newspaper from 1988 to 1991, and later United Nations bureau chief from 1994 to 2001." India changed mostly after this period. So I dont see anything worng in Barabara writing such an article simply because she still lives in the past.

Barbara please come to India NOW and you might change your perception.

Your job with Newsweek is now in the bag. You are a model journalist that dares to write one-sided biased articles.

India -- a bigger migraine than Pakistan, Iran and North Korea? Really?

If you don't land that Newsweek job, perhaps it is time to retire?

This senior journalist has pointed out that for all political ills India is responsible. When she was posted in South East Asia she filed a notorious news story about the mass rape in Kunan Poshpora in Kashmir by Army. Few incidents have aroused as much controversy, indignation, and publicity both within Kashmir and globally as the alleged mass rape of women in a cordon-and-search operation by army men in a story filed by Barbara Crossette in the New York Times (April 07, 1991). The Indian army took a bold and rare gesture to refer the news item to the Press Council of India for investigation. This autonomous Ombudsman sent a three journalists team which said, "The Indian Army has broken new ground in taking the bold decision to throw open its human rights record to public scrutiny through the Press Council of India. Few armies in the world would invite such an inquiry. The Indian Army has cooperated in this task. And it has, all things considered, emerged with honour."
The Press Council of India added, "Most of the charges levelled against the Army are anecdotal and have not been properly investigated. Human rights organisations and the media play a valuable watchdog role but have an obligation to be far more rigorous in piecing together information and publishing what might pass for hard findings."
But Ms. Barabara and her newspapers did not have any space for this report which indicted her for her dirty and biased role as a reporter.

There are many aspects of it as already been explained in the article and it is hard to negate them.
But I would like to add the double game playing by India in Afganistan. She says that they are in Afganistan to help build infrastructure their, no dought they might be doing that as well but actually they are using Afganistan to destabalise Pakistan by supporting and funding Talabans, Alqaida's militants and mullahs directly or indirectly.
India must understand any help to any kind or type of millitants in Afganistan to destabalise Paksitan actually destabalising the world and making the war against terrorism more difficult.

A very unintelligent article. The only country to have used nuclear weapons in the history of mankind is the United States. With one-third the population of India, its green-house emissions are comparable to india. Why do such people bother to write articles and why does foreignpolicy.com publish such nonsense?

Indian Border Security Force (BSF) killed 815 Bangladeshi Citizens.

One more Bangladeshi citizen was killed along Daulatpur border in Benapole early Tuesday as the killing spree of Indian Border Security Force (BSF) on the Bangladesh border continues unabated despite India's repeated pledges to stop such killings. With this, four Bangladeshis were killed by BSF in the first 11 days of 2010 taking the total number of deaths from January 1, 2009 to January 11, 2010 to 90. The number of Bangladeshis killed by BSF during the ten years period from January 1, 2000 to January 11, 2010 stands at 815. BSF also injured 857 and abducted 897 Bangladeshis in the same period.

In regard to the border killings, the agreement (MOU) that is signed by the Indian government with the Bangladesh prime minister during her diplomatic tour to India. With this latest killing of Ala, 30, son of Akbor Ali of Goira village, the Indian Government has already violated their agreement of bringing the border killings to a halt. This sort of brutality by the giant neighbor against poor Ala and many others has been continuing for decades; it has made thousands of young children fatherless, hundreds of young women widows and brought untold amounts of suffering for hundreds of families for the past decade.

While there are organizations like the UN, Amnesty International, and all other Human rights organizations created to protect the weak from this sort of injustices. Every single one of those organizations seems to be remaining silent or perhaps oblivious of the situation. The reality is, the Bangladesh government its self has cowardly failed to protect its citizens. But the question is how many more Ala’s can we offer to the Indian bullet? How many more crying mothers, children, widows and fathers are we prepared to see? How long can we allow these barbaric killings to continue on the innocent human beings?

shame on FP

Through this article Barbara Crossette have again proved her skewed understanding of India. This shows the democractic values that any tom, dick and harry can become a country specialist in the US. It is rather a sad fact that despite studying and living in India, Barbara Crossette stil sounds so amateurish.