Split India : Chinese think tank

India may have survived doomsday predictions—once a favourite pastime of the west—of its balkanisation, but that doesn’t seem to have deterred the Chinese from wishing it would splinter. On Tuesday, the government here took exception to an article on a quasi-official Chinese website, which boasted that the “great Indian federation’’ was ripe for dismemberment if Beijing tried just a little. Posted on April 8 on the website, iiss.cn (International Institute for Strategic Studies), the article detailed a roadmap for breaking up India. “To split India, China can bring into its fold countries like Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan, support ULFA in attaining its goal for Assam’s independence, back aspirations of Indian nationalities like Tamils and Nagas, encourage Bangladesh to give a push to the independence of West Bengal and lastly recover the 90,000 sq km territory in southern Tibet,’’ the write-up said. The article, echoing a school of thought that was popular in the west for a couple of decades after Indian independence, went on to state that the country never really existed as a nation in history. It was held together by the Hindu religion which was “decadent’’ since it encouraged the caste system and exploitation. “In view of the above, China in its own interest and the progress of whole Asia, should join forces with different nationalities like the Assamese, Tamils, and Kashmiris, and support the latter in establishing independent nation-states of their own, out of India,’’ the article said. The ardent hope has been sought to be justified by using the rhetoric of change. “Only after India has been broken up into 20-30 pieces will there be any real reform or social change in the country,’’ the article, meant for Chinese audience, emphasised.