Mixed Signals

While Parliament’s winter session opened on a stormy note today with the entire Opposition in the Lok Sabha disrupting its proceedings by protesting against the Union Government’s new sugarcane price regime that strikes at the root of offering remunerative price for sugarcane especially to farmers in UP and discourages the States from fixing a higher cane price, the most positive development of the day was the Bangladesh Supreme Court upholding the High Court verdict handing over death sentence to the killers of the Father of the Nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and his family members in Dhaka on August 15, 1975.

The vociferous opposition to the government’s new sugarcane pricing policy found reverberation within the ruling coalition at the Centre as well with the DMK members voicing their strong reservation to the move. There was also a massive protest by farmers outside Parliament on the subject. It was thus natural for the government, already harassed by the continually rising prices of essential commodities, to eventually decide to call an all-party meeting to sort out the matter.

In the meantime the news from Beijing has justifiably irked the Government of India. A day after the Sino-US Joint Statement on President Barack Obama’s visit to China—that clearly hints at an enhanced role for Beijing to broker good relations between New Delhi and Islamabad—the Ministry of External Affairs firmly rebuffed the move by asserting that there can be no room for a third country in its bilateral relations with Pakistan. In view of India’s sharp reaction Washington has promptly taken steps to assuage New Delhi’s hurt sensibilities fully conscious of the need to ensure that the pitch is not queered on the eve of the PM’s first state visit to the US capital after the change of guard in that country.

As for the PM’s “gravest” internal security threat, the Union Home Minister’s readiness to attend a civil society-sponsored public hearing on the problems of tribals in Dantewada (Chhattisgarh) and his reiteration of talks with the Maoists if they publicly abjure violence have come close on the heels of the Maoists’ continued violence in Jharkhand and parts of West Bengal in particular. But the latter too have expressed their interest in talks provided the state’s armed offensives are stopped. These developments, despite all the complexities, have opened a window of opportunity for unconditional dialogue, as has been advocated by the Citizens Initiative for Peace, now that the government is also able to gradually comprehend the consequences of embarking on military brinkmanship in the name of rooting out Maoism from the tribal heartland.

Overall therefore the latest developments within the country and the region offer mixed signals. Things would hopefully become clearer in the near future.

November 18 S.C.