Asian view on Mumbia Incident:

 

The Mumbai terrorist attack has once again opened the raw nerves of India and Pakistan provoking war cry among the Indian people against Pakistan. Fortunately the Government of India kept cool and ruled out a military action against its neighbor. Nonetheless, it is probing deeply into the tragedy (killing 170 and wounding more than 300 innocent people) mainly to close in the culprits based in Pakistan for masterminding the terrorist attack. Pakistan, on its part, has pledged to give full cooperation in this investigation and, in this process, has made some moves to apprehend the guilty. Over a period of time, the whole story might be unfolded and the guilty penalized. But does it portend to end of terrorist activities in India? The answer is certainly in negative.

 

What is missing in the process of Mumbai dissection is the attention drawing toward the fundamental reason underlying it. The Indian authorities have admitted lapses in their security network especially in the sea and the Pakistani authorities are no better in their own security management as vindicated by frequent blasts within their own territory. In this context, even if and when both these countries work together to fight terrorism there is no guarantee that terrorism will die out until the fundamental cause underlying it remains unattended. The cause beyond doubt behind all these troubles is Kashmir and, hence, it is the issue of Kashmir that India and Pakistan should address head-on. It is not just the security, welfare and future of these countries that hinge on Kashmir resolution but other countries belonging to the region face equally great difficulty in moving forward with this torrid source of perennial tension in tact and its wider fallout effect on the region.

 

Kashmir may be described as an issue, a problem, and a dispute or by any other term. Nonetheless it is a subject that has stood as an irritant between India and Pakistan since their independence in 1947 and led to three wars between them. Kashmir is divided into two parts, one with India and another with Pakistan. Without being a problem area, India won’t deploy 700,000 military and other security forces amid 5 million populations. Like in any international dispute, both these countries have their grouse against each other on this matter. Until they stick to their long-standing positions and the voice of the Kashmir people heard there won’t be any possibility of resolving it with the result that terrorism, for motivations real or imagined, will find a raison d'être. The scale of its articulation will depend upon the security preparedness of the government and capability of the violent groups to short circuit it. In this process, there will be many more Mumbai episodes in the store.

 

In the broader context, South Asians find it very difficult to digest why they should have suffered from serious consequences of this lingering dispute between India and Pakistan. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), despite being in existence for decades, could not take off, thanks to Indo-Pakistan hostility, in playing a role like the regional bodies in southeast Asia and Europe did with a spectacular growth. The fast pace of economic development in India will face a great setback with the explosive situation continuing. The Mumbai attack raised the question of security for visitors in posh hotels with the consequent disincentive to foreign investors and tourists.  

 

Besides the economic loss at the national and regional scale, the Kashmir question has dragged Nepal into controversy stemming from hijacking, ISI operations, shipment of counterfeit currency notes, and extradition of third country criminals. In the worst scenario of a nuclear war between the two countries, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will also be engulfed in the catastrophe. But they have no power to avert such a situation because they are in no position to help in reducing the tension, not to speak of resolving the problem. So they have to look out to some other countries like the United States having power, clout and willingness to help resolve it for regional peace and end of the major source of terrorism in India. The new Obama administration has raised fresh hopes among South Asians for resolving the problem by taking serious interest in this and other problems relating to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

 

 

 

 

 

Asian view on American crisis:

Asian countries are distressed over the American financial crisis because it has sent out adverse effect on their economy. It has caused export cut, factory closure, unemployment and slower economic growth. But Asians are not surprised to see Americans going down the economic crisis for the simple reason that they (Americans) live beyond their means. The basic principle of the American economy is spending and more spending as against the Asians who believe in and practice saving and more saving. It is a different matter that they have less capacity to save. In Asian perception, when it is difficult for them to survive with utmost savings in their life how could it be possible for the Americans to sustain with unrestrained spending over no consideration to savings.

 

Asians view the financial crisis emerging from over pampering of the American families with more and more credit facilities beyond their capacity to handle. The sub prime housing mortgage is a testimony of the credit pushes the mortgage and securities agencies have practiced with excessive investment from home and abroad. That is why we find French, British, Swiss investment banks incurring heavy losses from the mortgage crisis in the US. The US government rescued the leading mortgage companies like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae preventing them from complete collapse. Among the allied agencies the Lehman Brothers went bankrupt but the AIG was saved by government intervention. The $700 billion-bailout measure aims at restoring the health of the sick banks and financial institutions. It all means to resuscitate the credit flow in the market.

 

Asians view it as restoration of the economic pampering of the American people. It is like creating economic obesity among Americans comparable to the Chinese children developing obese, unlike in their past, as a result of pampering at home with more and more feeding of the only child permissible under the one-child moratorium on every family in China. Similarly, the American families gained economic obesity as a result of credit pampering. As obesity in human body gives rise to multiple ailments like diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure, the financial obesity sapped the capability of many families to pay back their loans causing multiple maladies in the complex Wall Street leading, in turn, to economic recession and loss of millions of jobs. A sick Wall Street cannot but have its sickening effect on the Main Street of America.

 

Asians find the American lifestyle, moreover, unsustainable because it is imbalanced. It is heavily tilted on the side of consumerism, sensory pleasures and materialcoholism. Even at the height of economic crisis nobody is talking about how to moderate this mass habit and put the lifestyle itself under sustainable limits. All the talks and efforts are centered on reviving extravaganza for which the market needs overflow of cash and credit. In other words, Americans have not realized, and will not do so, that they have got something wrong in their habit of consumerism abated by what is known as free market economy. To get an authentic proof of it one needs only to listen to Greenspan, the doyen of US free market who said, in a comment on financial meltdown, that the belief he had held for the last 40 years on the soundness of the free market turned out wrong.

 

Despite the widespread crisis, nobody is reported facing starvation, thanks to the unemployment and social security benefits, like the people of the poor and developing countries would find themselves under similar conditions. What the Americans suffer from is the lack of credit for extravagant shopping, paying the sub prime mortgage and frequently changing the cars. Asians view it as no point of existentialist crisis. In their judgment, Americans can stay happy and secure if they could simply balance their life by imbibing a simple spiritual lesson of self-examination and self-realization. They need to ask themselves if they are living in their own judgment righteously. If they believe they are wrong they should right it. If they still believe they are right they need some more shock treatment than the current economic jolt, which is inevitable.

 

Asians are at loss to understand why being the strongest country in the world the US feels threatened and keeps on expanding its military tentacles around the world. They have hard time understanding why being the richest country in the world and having the biggest economy worth $13 trillion the US has borrowed $10 trillion from the world market. It is still harder for them to comprehend why and how the US was ready to invade Iraq costing them $576 billion in six years of war in that country. Asians can understand these paradoxes only in a broader metaphysical context that being strongest does not mean to feel physically secure and being wealthiest does not mean to feel economically safe. If being American is not to be peaceful and happy what is the worth of the greatest wealth and power in the world?