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Journalism of Courage
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.
