The myopia of 20/20 hindsight

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 The myopia of 20/20 hindsight

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• Bias of present to judge past: If the policymakers of today begin judging the policymakers of yesterday, by assuming that every action of theirs ought to have been perfect in the consequences it brought, it would not a proper thing to do. If external situations change, we assume that our leaders should have had the perfect powers to predict everything back then.
• The Pakistan relation: Since today the India-Pakistan relationship is at its lowest, anything positive of the past is seen with suspicion. Anyone who tried to be hopeful in the past is now being criticised for any action they took back then! This author is being attacked claiming he wanted to hand over Siachen glacier to the Pakistanis.
• Disengagement at Siachen: For many years, both the governments tried to disengage troops in the region, but since Pakistan refused to agree to an Actual Ground Position Line for long, the matter was postponed. Then it agreed for a phase-wise disengagement. 
• Not surrender: Disengagement is not surrender, as we see in the Galwan disengagement effort. The Siachen disengagement didn't materialise as the CCS (Cabinet Committee on Security) couldn't approve it. The matter had ended then. It was considered a worthwhile idea, but couldn't be executed.
• Criticise others too, then: The bus trip undertaken by PM Vajpayee to Lahore in 1999, while Pakistan was moving into Kargil region, can also be criticised. PM Modi went to Lahore in 2015 and walked hand-in-hand with ex-PM Sharif, and then came the Pathankot and Uri incidents. Should we criticise him? What about the multiple meetings with Xi Jinping that were heavily publicised? Of course not, as they were done when hopes were alive.
• A damaging tendency: To become wise after the event can damage foreign policy formulation badly. To learn from history is one thing, but to blame the actors of those incidents if things go sour is dangerous. The fear of being proven wrong in future will paralyse all policymaking of today.
• India's relations with USSR and USA: India developed a deep relation with the Soviets through the 1960 to 1990 period. Given our promixity to the Americans today, was that a bad choice back then? Not at all.
• Strength of Indian foreign policy: Till date in 70 years, despite all political upheavals, Indian foreign policymaking has been hailed as always mindful of Indian interests. 
• The domestic angle: If foreign policymakers are held hostage by how every and any foreign policy will be taken domestically, then the larger interests of India will lose out. Since Pakistan is now a permanent enemy in all aspects, any kind of a sober response to it (foreign policywise) is impossible.
• Stop blaming the past: It is in extremely bad taste to damage the foreign policymaking establishment by using the prism of today's domestic political needs.

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