Letters | Quad’s illusory enemies not an issue for India

Readers discuss India’s place in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, and the US position on the war in Gaza

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(Left to right) Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wave to the media before the Quad meeting at the Kishida’s office in Tokyo on May 24, 2022. Photo: AFP

Published: 2:30pm, 16 Mar 2024

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I refer to the op-ed, “Raisina Dialogue: India’s lofty ideals make clear it’s a Quad misfit” (March 3).

Reading the Indian author Chetan Bhagat’s novel One Night @ the Call Center, I came across the acronym “NRI”, which stands for “non-resident Indian”, a term I was unfamiliar with but one that 1.4 billion Indians probably know well.

The fact that there are about 13.6 million NRIs – 32 million Indians overseas if you count “persons of Indian origin”– means they have settled all over the globe. I myself saw in Moscow a young Indian woman ecstatically streaming via her smartphone her very first encounter with snow to someone back home.

That’s why Indians know much better than anyone else that the world is neither a paradise on Earth in the West nor a vale of tears elsewhere. They always knew that because according to their Vedic texts what we see is maya or “a magic show”.

So what if the Quad, or a strategic security dialogue, is one about an illusory adversary that Australia, Japan and the United States believe in while India doesn’t?