It directly or indirectly encouraged separatist movements in the Northeast; it used Nepal as a front State against India; it armed, and worst of all, gave the nuclear bomb to Pakistan, a crime against humanity.

Today it is still sitting on a million square metres in Aksai Chin (supposedly given to Pakistan), which rightfully belongs to India; it claims Arunachal Pradesh, and sometimes Sikkim, does regular incursions into Indian territory and is still busy encircling India in Burma.

The Chinese despise Indians, witness how they summoned the Indian ambassador at 2 am in the morning as if she was some lower hireling.

Indian leaders are also perfectly aware that the Chinese, in a span of fifty years, have killed 1.2 million Tibetans, razed to the ground 6,254 monasteries, destroyed 60 per cent of religious, historical and cultural archives and that one Tibetan out of ten is still in jail.

As we have entered the Third Millennium, a quarter million Chinese troops are occupying Tibet and there are 7.5 million Chinese settlers for six million Tibetans -- in fact, in many places such as the capital, Lhasa, Tibetans are outnumbered two to one...

India has also to wake up to the plain fact that China needs space and has hegemonic aspirations: It got Tibet, it got Hong Kong, it got part of Ladakh; now it wants Taiwan, Arunachal Pradesh, the Spratly islands and what not!

Fifty years ago, during the Korean war, Sri Aurobindo, had seen clearly in the Chinese game: 'the first move in the Chinese Communist plan of campaign is to dominate and take possession first of these northern parts and then of South East Asia as a preliminary to their manoeuvres with regard to the rest of the continent in passing Tibet as a gate opening to India.'

And magically, for once, India had a chance to get back at China without appearing to do so. It would have been easy to have a little less security for the Olympic torch and let the Tibetans express their anger and resentment in a way that would have once more been flashed all over the world.

Yet, India did exactly the opposite: It went overboard to please the Chinese, giving more security to this sham that was the Olympic relay in New Delhi than it does for Republic Day.

Did anybody see the utter farcical absurdity of this flame, which slept in a five star hotel, had to be guarded by 17,000 security men and ran without spectators, creating unheard off problems for the poor citizen caught in traffic jams?

Is there any peace, is there any sporting and Olympic spirit in such a flame which has become the symbol of Chinese repression, arrogance and thirst for domination in Asia?

Tibet is so important for India: It has always acted as a peaceful, non-violent buffer zone between the two giants of Asia: China and India. And the Dalai Lama wants it even more peaceful: A demilitarised, denuclearised harmony region.

But it's exactly the opposite which has happened: According to the CIA, China has transferred one third of its nuclear arsenal to Nagchuka, 250 kms away from Lhasa, a region full of huge caves, which the Chinese have linked together by an intricate underground network and installed nearly 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles, many of them pointed at Indian cities.

The reason for this is that the Chinese, who are probably among the most intelligent people in the world, have always understood that India is their number one potential enemy in Asia -- in military, nuclear and economic terms.

Today India is encircled by hostile neighbours, from Pakistan to Bangladesh, from Chinese-occupied Tibet, to a Maoist Nepal.

Never has India faced a darker hour whatever gurus say. Never has she faced so many enemies at the same time -- and truly China is one of the most dangerous ones. Yet India always bends backwards to please the Chinese.

Why is that so? Because the Indian intelligentsia, the secular politicians, the journalists, top bureaucrats, are the descendants of these Brown Sahibs, created by Macaulay more than 250 years ago.

The man who thought that all the historical information which can be collected from all the books which have been written in the Sanskrit language, is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgement used at preparatory schools in England, wished to make of Indians a darker version of the British. He has been immensely successful and has created a nation with a colonised mind.

Many of India's politicians, bureaucrats and journalists are always aping the West, or are always worrying about what the West thinks of them. They never think Indian, they have no idea about India's great culture, philosophy and spirituality. Very few have read the Bhagavad Gita, or understood that it encourages yoga in action and that sometimes it is important to defend one's country, culture and borders, by force if necessary.

They are no match for the Chinese, who are proud of themselves and their nation and will use any means, open and covert, legal and foul, to foster their dream of a Greater China. The Olympics are just such a tool for them.