Love thy neighbor

I had been visiting my best friend from the past few days, as she has not been keeping well and I wanted to cheer her up, she was earlier active on this forum. Here is what I discussed with her:

Love Thy Neighbor

India is surrounded by countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka etc., All these countries are smaller than India in terms of size and economy. One famous Japanese Prime Minister said this, "India is always looked up to because it is a great nation that has existed from so many centuries, and faced a lot of problems. Everyone expects India to take a larger role and look up to India. While India has always failed to do so."

Instead of being the big brother for its neighbors, it has always tried to shirk its regional super power status. Nepal is burning, Sri Lanka is caught in the Tamil problem, Bangladesh and Pakistan are facing similar problems. India is not doing anything to lessen their problem except by saying that Pakistan is trying to destroy the peace of India with terrorism. In fact, terrorism was supported by the Indian politicians for a lot of years, take for example, the case of Bhindarnwale.

Don't you think that by loving its neighbors and understanding their internal problems and helping them, India can have better regional relations. A little bit more compassion can help. For example, even our fellow IFers would need some compassion instead of constant complaints right! So, by the same logic, "love thy neighbor" is perhaps something that will help India in 2008 to better its relationships with its regional neighbors

Velu Natarajan

(saluting a friend's courage and integrity)