The gruesome massacre of twenty of our soldiers by a bunch of Chinese army men, nay butchers, in a pre-planned, diabolical attack has rightly caused immense outrage, not just within the country but among all right thinking citizens of the world. What is so sinister about this onslaught is that, it was carried out just as the negotiated de-escalating process was in progress! And, as if to make a mockery of all established conventions, the bodies of the martyred soldiers were mutilated and flung into the raging Galwan river causing revulsion at the audacity of the act. While the nation mourns at the loss of its valiant sons along with the bereaved families, it also steels the resolve of a race, long acclaimed for its forbearance, to avenge the inflicted wrong and decisively tame and rein-in the dragon that, of late, has gone amok.

When the entire humanity is fighting the corona pandemic that originated from the Chinese soil and struggling to come to terms with the incalculable misery it has unleashed, the Red Army, as a diversionary tactic, is in an expansionist mood. When serious doubts are raised world-wide on the theory that the virus originated naturally and as evidence mount on the possibility of it being artificially manufactured, a rattled establishment is on an all out spree to change the narrative through a maze of geopolitical misadventures.  And to aid it in this agenda is a well crafted web of media blitzkrieg aimed to misguide, misinform and misdirect the public opinion and thus push the subcontinent towards a dangerous confrontation. The game becomes all the more cataclysmic when friendly neighbours are wooed to turn hostile and are induced to act against India. And the nation is well within its rights to bring in an immediate correction and secure its borders.

To neutralise the Chinese forces and push them back from the LAC is of immediate import but a long term strategy to counter the Chinese aggression, both military and economic, calls for a deeper and unbiased understanding of the enemy’s strength. When the stated policy is to “hide the strength and bid for the right time” it becomes all the more imperative to unravel those strengths and how they were acquired in a short span of two to three decades.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Inc. recently made a telling commentary as to why they manufacture their iPhones in China and it is not the cost factor. “ The number one reason why we like to be in China is the people. China has extraordinary skills. And the part that’s the most unknown is there’s almost two million application developers in China that write apps for the iOS App Store. These are some of the most innovative mobile apps in the world…” says Tim. And this extraordinarily high level of technical skills spans across all the manufacturing sectors making it not just the preferred location, but almost an inevitable one. And that is not all… what the Chinese have achieved is that they have seamlessly integrated high level of craftsmanship with the latest robotics technology that makes the products rolled out of their factories technically world class and aesthetically superior, a lethal combine for any nation to beat. This level of competency among its working class is built by assiduously strengthening their school and technical education systems that has one-point focus on quality. It is no surprise that many of the top class universities in the world today are in China!

And the only hope for India to catch up with the Chinese and acquire a matching technical expertise across sectors is to totally revamp our school education system which today, is largely in shambles. There has to be a re-focus towards skills development right from the middle school as against the present day rote learning and there is an urgent need to jettison the outdated syllabus and align the technical education to the demands of the modern industry. Our engineers passing out of colleges should not be doing coding jobs in IT companies or attending calls at BPO centres but rather be designing a variety of innovative products at innumerable R&D centres. Only with such a shift in priorities would we ever be able to make India a manufacturing hub of comparable quality and effectively neutralise the challenges thrown to us as a nation. 

The taming of the dragon is now no more a choice but a compelling need. 

Yours

Narayanan