India Needs to Stand Tall During Modi 3.0

PM Modi has been stoic about the present situation, which has given him a much-needed window to make changes in the GST and income tax structure.

- M.D. NALAPAT

In September 3 in Beijing, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping presided from the ramparts of Tiananmen Square over what was admittedly a spectacular 80th-anniversary Victory Day parade. The victory celebrated was against Japan, achieved during the first half of the previous century. No mention was made of the fact that it was the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that forced Japan to sue for peace in 1945. Or that it was the KMT under Chiang Kai-shek that was in power during that time. It is true that the PLA under Mao Zedong notched up a few victories over the Japanese, including the defeat of the Itagaki division close to the Great Wall. However, dressing up facts to fit a triumphalist narrative is not confined to China. Given the barrage of information designed to convey that it was the Anglo-American crossing of the English Channel that was the driver behind the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, it is unsurprising that so many in the UK and the US forget the overwhelming role played by Soviet armies that gutted the German armies. Of course, plentiful supplies of weapons from the US proved decisive in the Soviets overcoming the Nazi Wehrmacht. None of this fazed Xi as he in effect declared that China had arrived at the peak of the mountain, implying that the days of US pre-eminence were over.