Air farce

The Left Front is a strange, paradox of a creature. It sees no threat to national security when India8217;s foreign minister is named as a ...

The Left Front is a strange, paradox of a creature. It sees no threat to national security when India8217;s foreign minister is named as a foreign-power lobbyist in an UN report. Yet it takes umbrage to routine Indian Air Force-United States Air Force IAF-USAF exercises at the Kalaikunda air station, in West Bengal8217;s West Midnapore district. The joint exercises, due to begin on November 7, have been likened to a 8220;conspiracy8221; by a CPI spokesman. On its part, the CPIM has promised to gather 100,000 activists 8212; give or take some exaggeration 8212; right outside the Kalaikunda station on the morning the exercises begin. The Left has demanded cancellation of Indo-US military engagement in protest against American foreign policy, and what it terms the Indian government8217;s capitulation. Drawing room polemic 8212; a Marxist staple 8212; has found yet another world to invade.

It is nobody8217;s argument that India8217;s external policy should not be the subject of domestic debate. A healthy argument is preferable to a bogus consensus, such as the one that left India 8212; at the end of the Cold War 8212; with the hollow nostrums of non-alignment. Yet the Left has gone a bit too far in seeking to politicise military exercises, especially when India and the US increasingly share concerns in south Asia 8212; not the least the emergent Islamism in Bangladesh, a short flight from Kalaikunda. In the past few years, the US has had serious military interaction with a host of former Soviet satellite states. There have been frequent air exercises with the Russians and joint naval exercises with the Vietnamese. What India is doing is scarcely unique.

Perhaps the Left8217;s target is not Kalaikunda at all. In the run-up to the second vote on Iran8217;s nuclear programme 8212; due at the International Atomic Energy Agency on November 24 8212; the communists are planning a series of public meetings to denounce the Centre8217;s 8216;surrender8217; to Washington. The contrived outrage at the air exercises 8212; earlier exercises, such as the one in Gwalior, caused no anger, but then maybe the Left considers West Bengal holy land, not to be contamined by the infidels 8212; will only provide further ammunition. Where will this end? In a demand for joint air exercises with the Venezuelan Air Force?