Too many Red faces

Some have sought to deflect the blame, to Rashtrapati Bhavan. This is unjust. At best, the president can ask the cabinet to reconsider. But this is where Dr Manmohan Singh and Shivraj Patil come squarely into the picture. Both have earned a reputation as honest men, people whose word you can take without fear. Where a president might have hesitated with other ministers, he would have believed that these two intelligent and trustworthy men would never do anything shabby. The prime minister and the home minister haven’t just let the president down, they took a hammer to their own reputation when they signed that fax to Moscow. Will their word carry the same moral authority now that you know how they bent to blackmail from their allies?

They cannot even claim the fig leaf of giving Bihar a decent administration. Constitutionally, the Union government assumes all responsibility for a state after imposing president’s rule. This puts the burden of explaining the Naxalites’ audacious “Operation Jailbreak” on the Union home minister. How on earth did they stage a raid on Jehanabad’s jail when the whole state was reportedly flooded with security personnel?

The embarrassment caused by the Maoists in Bihar goes hand in hand with the disruption planned by Marxists elsewhere. The Left Front and the Samajwadi Party have joined hands to turn Indian diplomacy on its head. Speaking at a conclave in Lucknow, they demanded that the Manmohan Singh government tilt towards Iran should it be censured for nuclear proliferation. “Together, we have over 110 MPs in the Lok Sabha,” was the message of the day. The words, “change your vote, or face the consequences,” may not have been spoken, but they were heard loud and clear.

This is gamesmanship taken to new depths. It ignored the fact that Iran has been condemned by the United Nations agencies (something that was absent in the case of Iraq), and that India’s security environment would be notably degraded in the event of Iran manufacturing nuclear weapons. It is a clear ploy for Muslim votes, given that the threat was made in front of the assembled Islamic clergy. (The Khilafat agitation was the last attempt to make domestic politics hostage to events in a foreign country; it led to a heightened sense of Muslim separatism.) And, of course, it tears the prime minister’s authority to shreds.