Indo-Italy
ties seem to have reached a boiling point. Now that the Indian govt. has been
publicly snubbed and the issues hogging the headlines, the country has lost face
in the International community. There are various opinions and theories
floating around ranging from questioning the Hon’ble Supreme Court’s wisdom in
allowing the two Italian marines to go to Italy to an allegedly bartered deal
for Augusta Westland details.
Keeping
aside these theories what it has brought to the fore is the shoddy homework
done by the govt. and the prosecution when the issue came up for hearing in
Supreme Court. The govt. first of all didn’t oppose the marines request to go
to Italy to cast vote in the general elections. The bigger blunder was that the
information about the option of “Postal Ballot” as per the Italian law came to
govt’s knowledge only after all the hara-kiri
had happened. Why this public piece of information was not in the prosecution’s
knowledge is perhaps known to them for reasons best known to them only.
It
can be recalled that Rome was never convinced that its two marines were under
the purview of Indian jurisdiction and it was only after submitting a “heavy”
surety that the two accused marines were allowed to go home on Christmas. Now,
whether such a treatment would have been meted out to Indian marines in a
foreign country in entirely debatable.
It
was the largesse of the Supreme Court to allow the marines to go and vote. The
fact that the Italian ambassador to India himself gave a personal surety and
the marines had returned after Christmas allowed the Supreme Court to be more
liberal having certain degree of trust over the marines.
Now
to save face the govt. needs to take tough action – quite uncharacteristic of
it. Although, the popular opinion being to expel the Italian envoy the Supreme
Court has directed him not to leave the country which is all the more right as
he is culpable for contempt of the court. Infact, no such incident comes to one’s
knowledge where a sovereign nation reneged on its promise in a court of law. The
Indian govt. seems to be in a very tight spot and it will take nothing less
than delicate but shrewd political maneuvering to resolve this diplomatic
standoff.
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