The spotlight is on the battle in Gujarat and Narendra Modi certainly looks his part. He was visibly the ‘saffron icon’ in TIME’s full-page portrait of him—saffron tilak smeared below overwhelmingly saffron turban, beringed fingers et al. It may not be a perfect fit though—TIME pointed out that the man who accuses the Congress party of seeing the world through ‘Italian glasses’ himself looks out from behind a pair of frameless Bulgaris from Milan. The magazine trailed Modi on his gaurav yatra and came away with the verdict: ‘‘For India, Narendra Modi’s election bid is a referendum on the politics of hate’’. It said that since the Gujarat riots, Modi has been catapulted into the international limelight as the ‘‘figurehead of Indian intolerance’’. Who, in headlines and debate, has ‘‘instantly eclipsed all other leaders, even the Prime Minister.’’ The choice in Gujarat, it said, is between two visions of India: ‘‘imperfect but inclusive harmony or strident, angry segregation’’. TIME couldn’t resist the temptation to psychologise. Is Modi really the fanatic or is he just trapped by the role? The magazine played with the possibility that Modi is ‘‘just acting the part of a Hindu fanatic’’. That, for the man who bagged all the lead roles in school plays, ‘‘it could be just another act’’. Edit Writers Find The K-Word Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s proclaimed policy of the ‘healing touch’ in Kashmir has evidently stirred the imagination of editorial writers in the west. The ECONOMIST approvingly noted the promise of change. It fretted that the renewed violence in the state has added a new target to the list of usual suspects in Kashmir: some Indian spokesmen, it said, blamed the ‘healing touchers’ this time along with the militants. It was concerned that the violence may increase the pressure on Sayeed ‘‘to drop the healing touch for the heavy hand’’. In ‘Healing Kashmir’ the WASHINGTON POST also sighted ‘new hope’ for Kashmir. Sayeed has begun well, it wrote. But, it warned, no progress is possible if his government does not get cooperation from both the governments of India and Pakistan. Especially Pakistan, where Musharraf has ‘‘blatantly broken his promise to the Bush administration to control the infiltration of terrorists from Pakistan to Kashmir.’’ More Dirt On Musharraf YET more rebuke for Pakistan in the US media this week. The NEW YORK TIMES followed up its revelations of the Pakistan-North Korea nuclear barter with a sharp editorial. It recapped the ‘reckless traffic’ between the two countries: Pakistan allegedly provided Pyongyang with design plans of the uranium enrichment technology it had stolen from the west; in exchange, it got North Korean missile components to help it make the longer-range missiles ‘‘required to threaten India’s main cities and military bases with nuclear attack’’. And then, much like a strict principal faced with an especially errant schoolboy, the paper urged Washington must ‘‘make it plain to its leader, Gen Pervez Musharraf, that continued behaviour of this sort will not be tolerated’’. Analyse This Triangle AS President Putin toured China and India, papers back home in Russia commented on the concept of an ‘Asian axis’. The MOSCOW TIMES reported that the idea of a strategic triad of Moscow, Beijing and New Delhi was first floated by the Russians in the early 1990s. But, it wrote, it would be hampered by the ‘historic rivalry’ between India and China and the ‘deep desire of all three countries to expand relations with the US’. There was analysis as well of the phrase ‘multipolar world’ in the declaration Putin signed with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Pavel Felgenhauer, a defense analyst, pointed out that that this was the first time that Putin had revived the multipolar world concept in a public statement since September 11, 2001, ‘‘when Russian foreign policy supposedly became pro-western’’. It’s obvious, he said, that Putin wants to have it both ways: ‘‘to have close relations with the West, receive capital and technologies to modernise, while selling Iran and China weapons . that may some day be used against the United States and its allies’’. Write to vanditamishra@expressindia.com
