COMMENT

Outpourings Of A US Lackey

THE pro-American media is furious with the CPI(M) and the Left for opposing the UPA government’s stand on the Iran nuclear issue. Chief among them is The Indian Express. It has been editorially ranting against the CPI(M) for opposing the pro-US orientation in the foreign policy.

The latest instance is the editorial of November 15, 2005. The editorial charges Prakash Karat, general secretary of the CPI(M), of “communalising foreign policy”.  The  reason given is utterly ridiculous: that Karat talked of “Lucknow being close to Tehran” at the mass rally in Lucknow.  Actually, what Karat said was that Iran has a civilisation which is 5000 years old.  India has an equally old civilisation.  There has been historical interaction between these two civilisations and Lucknow exemplifies this tehzeeb (culture). Only the editor of The Indian Express, whose mentor and a permanent columnist in the paper is Arun Shourie, can draw such a perverted conclusion.

Jaswant Singh, the BJP foreign minister, had stated that India did not develop its relations with Israel in the past due to the concern for the Muslim vote bank. Any talk of the historical ties with the Arab countries is also branded as Muslim appeasement. For the CPI(M), solidarity with the Iraqi people against the US occupation, opposition to the US targeting of Iran and supporting the Palestinian people in their struggle against Israeli occupation are part of its foreign policy outlook. 

We don’t expect the editor-in-chief of The Indian Express, Shekhar Gupta, to appreciate this standpoint.  After all, he virtually acted as the spokesman for Bush when he wrote a two-part article justifying the  invasion of Iraq as a step towards implanting democracy in the Middle East.  Recently, it was revealed that Bush had said that God told him to “fight the terrorists in Afghanistan” and “end the tyranny in Iraq” and he did so.   The editor of The Indian Express must be aware that Bush is referring to the Christian God.  It would be appropriate if he writes an editorial decrying the communal basis of US foreign policy!