The marine goes home

Sandeep Dikshit

SALVATORE GIRONE, an Italian marine under trial for killing two Kerala fishermen, has gone back home. This entire episode reflects poorly on the UPA government and holds important lessons in governance and diplomacy for the Modi dispensation. 

The Italian marines case demonstrates how India’s cause and interests have been hurt by the Hindutva family’s reflexive hostility to any imagery associated with the UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi’s Italian origins. When the two Italian marines shot and killed the local fishermen four years ago, the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA was in power at the Centre and Oommen Chandy of the Congress was the Chief Minister of Kerala. For the BJP, trying to dislodge the UPA from the Centre and attempting a political breakthrough in Kerala, this was an opportunity gift-wrapped twice over. The Congress avoided a principled stand because it feared being outshouted by the BJP. The Chandy government dismissed the Italian claims to first ascertain if the crime took place in international waters, and, then, the marines were inveigled into stepping onshore for talks, and declared arrested.

The marines were no glorified guards posted on a merchant ship to deter piracy. They belonged to the highly decorated San Marino Regiment.  Their arrest and the slow pace of determining which court should prosecute them became a Sarabjit-type cause célèbre in Italy. An Italian Prime Minister was shown the door because, among other promises, he could not bring home the two marines. And then the chickens began coming home to roost. A miffed Italy retaliated by opposing India’s carefully prepared case for membership of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

By this time, the UPA had been voted out: the same BJP which had kept itself in vigorous opposition to any UPA move to accommodate Italy’s views has quietly allowed the Italian to return in order not to affect Narendra Modi’s upcoming visit to the US. South Block can now inform the Americans that with Italy expected to drop its opposition, India’s membership of the MTCR is a matter of time. 

While it is well known that Italy sank India’s quest for MTCR membership, what is not so well known is that the marine saga has virtually halted military aviation cooperation with the US. Because India is not an MTCR member, US aviation giant Lockheed Martin has tarried on its obligation of transferring sophisticated technologies along with its legendary Hercules heavy lift planes. There is a chicken-and-egg ring to the entire rigmarole. And, till the US company fulfils its obligation of providing wind tunnel testing facilities, India will be unable to place repeat orders for fear of being upbraided by Indian auditors. 

A bad penny has a way of turning up. The single act of trying to embarrass Sonia Gandhi by taking a hard-line position on the Italian marine case during its days in opposition has now come back to haunt the BJP in power. India is beginning to feel the pinch in its coveted technology transfer plan for high flying, long endurance drones under DTTI, a programme designed to address the Indian grievance about unwillingness of US companies to transfer high technology. 

Now that the Italian marine has gone home, Italy should be willing to reconsider its opposition to India’s membership to the MTCR. But the second major takeaway from the Italian marines episode is not about good old common sense trumping symbolic antagonism. It is about how helpful a friendly judiciary can be. It was the apex court that quietly assisted the government in finding a way out of a blind alley that the Italian marines case had become. The Supreme Court’s move to take the case under its wings solved a number of procedural issues. Then its quick assent to a special court facilitated the developments that allowed the marine to go home, and, everybody could heave a sigh of relief.

Still we remained enamoured of our partisan ways. Despite wasting two years in its quest for accessing high technology and quicker defence cooperation with the US, the lessons are being ignored. In the AgustaWestland scandal, a broad-sweep witch-hunt may begin to hinder tender-based buying of defence equipment. Inquisitors on social media, in tandem with nightly interrogators on TV channels, have widened their reach to tar everyone associated with the selection process. 

We are becoming the victims of our own self-devised kangaroo court attitudes. Commonsensical alterations in the Agusta helicopter design have been dissected to detect ulterior motives. The vehement passion to find a Sonia-Italy link has spawned microscopic examination of the decision to substitute a cheaper ramp for step ladders, include medical evacuation and anti-collision systems in the choppers and lowering the ceiling of four trailing choppers is now forcing the Defence Ministry bureaucrats to adopt a safety-first approach. Officials examining ongoing defence equipment purchases are taking Modi’s assurance to back all their good faith judgments with a pinch of salt. Rather than spread the net too wide, the spotlight needs to be squarely on the money trail. 

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s knee-jerk reaction of banning deals with all Finmeccanica companies carries echoes of AK Antony’s ban order on all group companies of an Israeli company that had also faced corruption charges. As the BJP at that time rightly noted, Antony’s blanket ban hurt India’s naval modernisation more than the middlemen. Parrikar’s order banning all dealings with the Italian company’s associated companies have sunk an order for heavy performance torpedoes. India’s newest lot of submarines may now have to sail for some years without this potent weapon. This is a strange way to cleanse the Augean stables, and even stranger way of strengthening national defence.

Statesmanship in governance fares badly when decision-makers bank on old prejudices and populist calls for retribution. The hard-line on Italian marines made it hard for Modi to explain to Washington the drying up of orders to US companies during his tenure. The Prime Minister now needs to address the blanket banning of deals with all Finmeccanica companies and the hunt in the Agusta haystack for imagined deviations from tender norms. Such super-righteousness takes the focus away on the money trail, and becomes an impediment to good faith decisions.