The fine art of treading on toes

Statements on foreign affairs need to be honed not to give a handle to our critics to discover a chink in our armour

Given the recent developments in domestic politics, one can hardly resist the temptation to hark back to the age-old coarse art of “treading on toes”. As things develop on the canvas of recent history, this art appears to be staging a comeback with a vengeance! Who is treading on whose toes and with what results only time will tell. For the moment it would be expedient to devote one’s undivided attention to the “coarse art” in question.

There was a time when the high and mighty of this blessed land took delight in this pastime. This was particularly true of those dabbling in the art of diplomacy or whatever it was known as in those days. Of course, those good times are no more. One lives and learns. There are several little lessons that come one’s way, if only one pays attention.

The perspicacious reader must have noticed that any sane individual spends half of his/her life in either avoiding treading on other people’s toes or, in saving his/her own toes from being trod on. A good part of the remaining half is spent on living down the after-effects of having trod on some toes, or the other way around. What to talk of individuals, the same can be said of nations.

The matter of treading on toes is as old as history itself. Persons of all stations have over the ages lost their heads over it — and not just figuratively. In the individual sense, treading on toes is the bane of all societies. Most disputes, machinations and vendettas have their origins in an incident of somebody treading on somebody else’s toes.

Oriental societies such as ours are particularly sensitive in this matter. Treading on toes becomes a matter of family (even national) honour. Our feudal lords have peculiar sensitivities about their toes being trod on by the small fry. But why confine one’s treatise to societies? In this age of globalisation, deliberate treading on toes appears to have caught on like an epidemic in the international sphere.

History would be quite different if only known personalities and nations had paid more attention to whose toes they were treading on. A diligent research into this subject can single this out as a cause of the outbreak of armed conflicts. Why go far; a cursory glance at the recent military adventures of the powers-that-be, and the disastrous chain of events they are threatening to unleash, should be enough food for thought.

International diplomacy has a lot to do with how deft one is at avoiding treading on toes of the wrong kind. Successful diplomacy can aptly be defined as the ability to cross a minefield of sensitive toes and safely emerge on the other side. About the meandering course of the diplomacy of our own land, the less said the better. If anything, our policy makers appear to specialise in the art of treading on toes; and the wrong sort at that! Add to that our well-known failures in protecting our own toes from being trod on and you have the whole wretched picture!

Much can be accomplished, though, in international relations if one were more circumspect. Our statements on foreign affairs need to be honed as not to give a handle to our critics to discover a chink in our armour. The tendency to shoot from the hip (that we have apparently borrowed from the Americans) needs to be shed in favour of a more prudent approach towards sensitive issues. For now, the moot point is how to side step the superpower juggernaut aimed at our sensitive toes. Our diplomatic toes are in for a painful experience in the not too distant future! As they say: fore-warned is fore-armed. Or, maybe not!

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2020.

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