‘Indira, Yahya ek hai’

Where have the Left parties been? Barring a four-year hiatus after Pokhran II, the Indian and US navies have been conducting exercises named after the scenic Malabar Coast for the past 15 years. Since 2003, the Indian navy has war-gamed with six American nuclear powered ships, including aircraft carriers Ronald Reagan and Nimitz, and this excludes the on-going Bay of Bengal effort. But never before have the Left parties vented their anti-American outrage so vocally. To go by their current protest, the UPA stands accused of mortgaging its independent foreign policy by mere participation in multi-national naval exercises involving two US nuclear powered aircraft carriers and warships from Japan, Australia and Singapore.

The answer is obvious and lies in the politics of the day, with little or no linkage to issues of national security or foreign policy. The Manmohan Singh Government has made it abundantly clear it will not back down on the Indo-US nuclear deal and will go on to operationalise the 123 agreement. All indications are that a mid-term election is certain. Therefore, Left parties, using the naval exercises as an excuse, are employing anti-US rhetoric to stir up their political constituency, especially the minorities, in West Bengal and Kerala. Otherwise, the Left should have similarly protested over the participation of USS amphibious ship Boxer in Malabar ‘06 as the 41,000-tonne ship (twice the size of INS Viraat) actively participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, just as USS Kitty Hawk and Nimitz were part of the American war effort.

What, however, comes as a surprise is the UPA government’s effort to play down the naval exercises and, thereby, undermine the post-Independence vision of our political leaders, starting with Jawaharlal Nehru, of a robust blue water Indian navy. Even the specious argument that the present exercises are a signal to China belittles the Indian naval effort as apart from the US and France, it is the only force that operates an aircraft carrier, INS Viraat, from the Gulf of Aden to Malacca Straits. Thailand has a small aircraft carrier, Chakri Naruebet, that only flies helicopters with Sea Harriers never flown from the deck. Russian Admiral Kuznetsov rarely ventures out and China has still to learn the art of carrier aviation despite strident efforts for the past 20 years. Beijing’s efforts to refurbish Variag, purchased as junk during the break-up of the Soviet Union, have still not fructified even though the PLA navy has three Xia class nuclear submarines.

... contd.

Ads By Google

Message*	Maximum characters allowed

Name*		Email ID*
Subject*		Country*

TERMS OF USE:
The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s).

I agree to the terms of use.