Wiping the blood off India’s face

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is extremely disturbed by the continuing targetting of Muslims in Gujarat, with officials admitting privately that they have never been on the backfoot — not even after the nuclear tests in 1998 — with the rest of the world as they are today. Unlike the cold-blooded murder of Christian missionary Graham Staines and his sons and the attacks on Christian tribals in Gujarat’s Dangs district, which were explained to the international community as regrettable but isolated incidents in a largely secular India, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s administration has been a blot on India’s name in the last couple of months, and New Delhi has been hard put to defend the indefensible.

The biggest test in the immediate future will be the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, which has already begun its deliberations. There are no resolutions on Gujarat as of now to debate and vote upon, neither by the US nor the European Union. But the MEA is already mounting a huge exercise to privately ‘‘explain’’ Gujarat to friendly nations and hope for the best. It must watch out for NGOs who have a lot of cross-religious support on this issue at home. Ironically, one of the reasons New Delhi is likely to be let off easily at Geneva will be the political goodwill it has built up with the George W. Bush administration in Washington.

Knock, knock, is President there?

President K R Narayanan is refusing to give dates to receive visiting foreign heads of states for the latter part of the year, because, he says, he doesn’t know whether he will be President or not at the time. A number of smaller nations, especially those in Central Europe, the Baltics and Latin America, have been waiting with bated breath to come to India, but have been unable to swing by. The first reason is due to Narayanan’s insistence that his job description be clarified, the second that there is no tradition of a ‘‘working visit’’ in India (unlike the US, where a ‘‘working visit’’ is shorn of the ceremonial that accompanies a ‘‘state’’ visit).

Save for the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is likely to visit India in December, Narayanan has refused to give dates for any other visit, upsetting many dignitaries across the world. Apart from the fact that may be Narayanan’s way of subtly hinting to the government that he would like to remain in his current job, the MEA seems to be also getting fed up with the pomp and splendour that accompanies every state visit. Many would like that ‘‘working visits’’be introduced so tat a number of guests can be more easily accommodated and files don’t have to wait forever for the President’s final assent.

New Delhi to UN to Dili

Remember the effort by India’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Kamalesh Sharma, in bringing out a collection of poetry from ambassadors around the world? Called Mille Fleurs or a Thousand Flowers, the first poems in that book were by UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan. Well, it seems that Sharma’s efforts at the UN were generally so appreciated that he has now been appointed as the UN’s special envoy to East Timor, the breakaway province of Indonesia which will vote for its independence on April 14.

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