Op Sindoor Truth Has Dawned On Bogota, Then Why Dili-Dally?

Now that we have been told that Colombia has finally swung around to our side on Operation Sindoor after our delegation’s visit to Bogota, we can all sleep better. Millions of Indians were very worried which way the Operation Sindoor wind was blowing in Colombia and, say, in Latvia. It kept us awake at nights. Every morning we woke up to that worry. We need not worry any more. Our delegations have gone and fixed that as well in all the capitals they have variously visited, from Bogota to Riga, from Georgetown, Guyana, to Freetown, Sierra Leone. The problem with our diplomacy is that it often exclusively preaches to the converted. Critics will be heartened to note that it is no longer so. Both the composition of the delegations that have been formed after Operation Sindoor to canvass support for New Delhi and their destinations point unerringly to a broadening and deepening of outreach like never before, both within the country and outside. This is mainly about the outside part.

Much of India had written off, for instance, such stalwarts like MJ Akbar, Salman Khursheed, and Ghulam Nabi Azad as being in a political ventilator. They have been sadly mistaken, thankfully. Just like those who had written Colombia off as a country of no consequence as far as our foreign policy is concerned. We didn’t know that our mandarins in the South Block were hanging on to every little word uttered in Bogota and other similar capitals that had bilateral, even multilateral, ramifications that our aam admi and aurat had no idea about. Now we know. Bogota is somewhat more central to our foreign policy objectives than we had realised. More strategic as well. While our Prime Minister has taken the trouble to visit Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea and Vientiane in Laos, and even Ramallah (yes, in Palestine), underscoring that no country is too unimportant for the Vishwaguru to visit, the Ministry of External Affairs has sadly not pointed him in the direction of Bogota. We hope that amends in this regard are made soon and the globe in the MEA master conference room is updated suitably, marking out the countries that remain similarly languishing for want of prime ministerial attention.

Critics will point out that the MEA is sometimes deliberately opaque. For example, it is not easy to ferret out a statement of commiseration for the Foreign Secretary, Vikram Misri, a mainstream Establishment figure, from his heavyweight political boss, Dr S. Jaishankar, after Misri was mercilessly trolled following his confirmation of the ceasefire between India and Pakistan announced by Donald Trump, who has been unnecessarily and repeatedly, and even incorrigibly, been taking credit for something that is solely the doings of our two DGMOs. While the disappointment in some quarters in the trolling constituency over the presumed premature withdrawal from Phase One of Operation Sindoor is understandable, we have been repeatedly reassured that it is a work in progress, not operation interruptus, and that in time, which means sooner rather than later, sometime very soon, pretty much anytime now, Pakistan Occupied Kashmir will come running back to us. It is a given after Operation Sindoor, which is another big relief, and we thank our Defence Minister for that assurance.

With that prospect firmly in mind, it is time to rally the other countries firmly behind us while Operation Sindoor is still afoot. Going through the list of countries that we have sent delegations to, it is immediately apparent that there are large strategic gaps that need to be covered, and quickly. Our discerning readers have noticed that while Guyana has been ably covered by the Shashi Tharoor-led delegation, the neighbouring strategically important country, Suriname, hasn’t. We simply cannot let Paramaribo gravitate into Pakistan’s unhealthy sphere of influence and thereafter into its obscene embrace. It would be a blunder that could possibly turn out to be a foreign policy calamity and a first-rate intelligence failure on our policy front in much the same way that Kargil was a result of an intelligence failure. We simply cannot afford to have too many Turkey-like countries floating around the UN Security Council as rotating non-permanent members, can we? Slovenia, Algeria, Somalia, and Panama need serious working over in the days to come. In much the same manner as we need to pay closer attention to other important prime ministerially unvisited shadow areas. Let us not forget North Macedonia. Or Eswatini? Are there no other politicians with the gift of the Shashi Tharoor gab that we can send to Mbabane? It is a crying shame that the Ministry of External Affairs did not send anybody to Moldova; it was moronic not to send someone to Moroni in Comoros. Apparently, we have an embassy in Antananarivo (yes, the same one in Madagascar) that covers Comoros. But this kind of coverage seems half-hearted and desultory in this day and age where China seems to be strategically gobbling up large portions of that area of the globe at a faster rate than coups occur in those parts.

Post Pahalgam in the new normal that has been articulated and amplified, tactical mistakes of the kind that the Chief of Defence Staff has alluded to, which left our aircraft paralysed on the ground for two of the four seriously active days of Operation Sindoor, can be grudgingly overlooked. But strategic mistakes of ignoring very important parts of the globe that are only now coming to the fore would be completely unforgivable. We know that the government is leaving no stone unturned. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and his legion of hard-working mandarins have painstakingly briefed all the mission heads in Nai Dilli of the reasons and aims and achievements of Operation Sindoor. In spite of those extensive and very detailed briefings, our delegations have been sent forth to multiply the message as a kind of force aggregator. Repeating the message has its advantages. Colombia has come around. It is time for mop-up operations. Timor-Leste. Let us not forget Timor-Leste. Let us not tarry in complacency. Dili awaits Dilli’s attention.

Author V. Sudarshan is the Editor of The Free Press Journal.