Choice before South Block

While the UP election scene has hotted up with AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi publicly tearing a piece of paper purported to be a list of promises made by the BSP and SP before the State’s electorate, and SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav candidly declaring his party’s readiness for an alliance with the Congress to “keep the communal forces out” of power only to categorically deny it shortly and clarify that all he meant was the Congress-SP understanding at the Centre and not in the State, the trend of high polling in the province continues. On February 15 the polling percentage in the third phase of elections was 57.25, that is, 15 per cent more than the percentage of polling in the same segment in 2007—and the constituencies recording high polling fell in several Naxal-infested districts like Chandauli, Mirzapur and Sonebhadra. The significance of such high polling cannot be overemphasised.

Meanwhile in Gujarat some new developments have taken place: a metropolitan court in Ahmedabad rejected the pleas (by Zakia Jafri, the wife of slain Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, activists Mukul Sinha and Teesta Setalvad as well as a victim of the Gulbarg Society riots that happened in the post-Godhra period) seeking copies of the final report of the Special Investigating Team (SIT) on the Gulbarg Society massacre. The court said it would take up the applications only after the SIT submitted all related documents; and it asked the probe agency to do so by March 15, adding : “At this stage, the pleas seeking access (to the SIT report) cannot be entertained.”

On the same day the Gujarat High Court issued a contempt notice to the Narendra Modi Government for not obeying its order of February 8 to compensate the persons whose shops were burnt in the post-Godhra carnage. It may be recalled that the HC had, in the same order, passed severe strictures against the State Government accusing it of “inaction” in preventing the “anarchy” that went on “unabated” for days at a stretch.

In fact the issue of the State Government’s complicity in the post-Godhra violence against the Muslims has once again come into sharp focus. A former Director General of Police (DGP), who visited the State as a member of a fact-finding team headed by former Supreme Court judge V.R. Krishna Iyer, has come out in full support of suspended IPS officer in the State Sanjeev Bhatt’s allegation that CM Narendra Modi had directed senior State officials to allow Hindus vent their anger and indignation after the Godhra train-burning incident on February 27, 2002 that resulted in the death of scores of kar sevaks. This, according to the erstwhile DGP, was based on the depositions before the fact-finding team by Gujarat’s top police officials.

These are noteworthy as we approach the tenth anniversary of the Gujarat pogrom, the first of its kind in post-independence India. But then the terror attack on an Israeli diplomat in Lutyen’s Delhi and Iran’s announcement of new strides in its nuclear programme have taken precedence over everything else.

The terror attack in New Delhi’s Aurangzeb Road near the PM’s Race Course Road residence in the high security zone of the Capital in the afternoon of February 13, that left a member of the Israeli diplomatic mission and the driver of her car badly injured, has come into prominence because of the use of a magnetic explosive to carry out the car blast—something never employed by terrorists in the past in this country. The Union Home Minister has aptly pointed out that a “very well-trained person” executed the daring operation but he refrained from pointing the accusing finger on any outfit or organisation or country. Subsequently the official spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs made it abundantly clear that “as of today, we have no evidence to find any individual, entity, organisation and country being involved in this incident” thus steering clear of the knee-jerk anti-Iran sentiments officially expressed in Israel, attributing the New Delhi incident and the one in Thailand a day later as well as the aborted terror strike in Georgia to Tehran. That India has refused, at least for now, to join the anti-Iran chorus orchestrated by the West over these incidents is a positive sign. It means that New Delhi does not intend to impair its growing ties with Iran under US direction at this juncture.

The anti-Iran outbursts from Tel Aviv reached a new high after Tehran showed on February 15 how its scientists had unveiled its first domestically produced 20 per cent enriched nuclear fuel for its research reactor. President Ahmadenijad is quoted as having said that 3000 more centrifuges had been added to his country’s uranium enrichment effort. This move has challenged the Western sanctions against Iran which is steadily going ahead with its nuclear activity under the slogan: “nuclear energy for all, nuclear weapons for none”.

This step by Tehran is bound to meet with tougher sanctions from the West and the Russian media has reported that the West may strike Iran by June thereby causing genuine instability in the region. What is doubtless significant is that in the wake of increasing tensions in the Gulf and the EU nations placing embargo on the purchase of Iranian oil leading to the soaring of oil prices in the international market, senior nuclear scientists in our country have urged the Government of India not to bend to Western pressures on New Delhi to “isolate” Iran. Despite our close ties with the US and Israel it is necessary to comprehend in full measure Moscow’s assertion that any military action against Iran would not help to solve the problem since the UN and EU sanctions had had “zero” effect on Tehran; instead it is worthwhile for the world powers to work harder to win over Iran rather than aggravating the situation through military strikes thereby steeling the Iranian resolve to resist and fight back.

It is for South Block to make the choice: whether to explore a political solution through diplomatic means in coordination with Moscow and Beijing or throw its weight behind the US-led proposed military action being enthusiastically advocated by Tel Aviv thus endangering regional and world peace. Need-less to add, time is fast running out.

February 16 S.C.