India botched up the marines issue

The refusal of the Italian government to return the two marines charged with the killing of two Indian fishermen off the coast of Kerala in February 2012 was only to be expected.
The Kerala high court order that granted the marines a two-week sojourn in Italy during last Christmas was in itself highly unusual and bizarre. The Kerala government had strongly opposed allowing the marines to leave Kochi as there was no guarantee that once they reached Italy, they would return to India.

That the Kerala high court laid down stringent conditions (execution of a Rs 6 crore bank guarantee, and undertakings by the Italian envoy) to ensure that the marines returned, is a different issue. The crucial issue we should worry about is whether the law of the land is the same for Indians and for white men; for, the Indian legal system is still mired in colonial thralldom and the Macaulay baggage. 

We have thousands of Indians languishing in jails as convicts and under-trials. Does the judiciary allow them to go home for a sojourn on special occasions such as Christmas and other festivities, or even in cases of deaths of their dear kith and kin? 

The return of the marines after their Christmas sojourn in Italy might have been for strategic reasons.  For, they and the Italian government had their eyes on the elections. The marines’s remaining in an Indian jail might have had its fallout on the elections. The marines knew that their return after their Christmas sojourn will work in their favour.  But if they had not returned there was very little that the judiciary and the Centre could do.

That explains why they have not returned after the judiciary allowed them to go for the second time.  That they were allowed to go to exercise their franchise in the elections sounds naive and discriminatory.  As there may be any number of Italians not exercising their franchise in elections the request of the marines could have very well been ignored.

Alternatively, the Centre could have asked the Italian government to arrange for getting their votes electronically or by post.  The court decision allowing the marines to go also raises the question whether the hundreds of thousands of Indians languishing in jails as convicts and under-trials are given this special privilege.

A confidential memo which Lawrence Summers, the World Bank’s chief economist sent to his colleagues on December 12, 1991 was alarming. The Economist, the British publication to which this memo was later leaked, published part of it on February 8, 1992 under the title “Let Them Eat Pollution.” It began thus:

“Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]? ... A given amount of health-impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country of the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest-wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.”

The import of the letter is countries with the lowest wages which are used as dumping grounds for destructive material and for destructive work are also countries where human life has much less value than in the US and European countries. If these countries consider so it is because of their imperialist arrogance and reckless pursuit of profit and greed. But when the Indian authorities extend special treatment in jails and outside to the “white men” even more than 60 years after India supposedly got freedom from its colonial thraldom it is appallingly racial and an abhorrent reflection of the continuing colonial mindset of Indians in authority.

By allowing the marines leave India for the second time without even pressing the issues to ensure their return as the Kerala high court had done, the Supreme Court has turned an egregious botcher adding to the audacity of the Centre which has already earned the sobriquet of a reckless butcher for illegally executing Afzal Guru. India is not the US to get back the marines by any means; and Italy may not care a hoot if India severs diplomatic ties with it. So all that we can say now in dismay is see you marines again when you turn up to shoot our fishermen!

The author is a sociologist and commentator on public affairs
Email: prk1949@gmail.com