[Analysts said that with national elections coming up in
May, state leaders were taking up local causes to show their constituents that
they could stand up to New Delhi. Satish Mishra, a senior fellow specializing
in politics and governance at the Observer Research Foundation in Mumbai, said
the Tamil Nadu chief minister’s three-day deadline was her way of asserting her
independence.]
By Neha Thirani Bagri
 |
Stefan Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Rajiv Gandhi, former prime minister of India, after casting his vote at a polling station in New Delhi on May 20, 1991 |
MUMBAI — The decision by J. Jayalalithaa, the chief minister of
Tamil Nadu, to release seven men who plotted the assassination of Rajiv
Gandhi, the former prime minister, has set up a showdown between the southern
state and New Delhi.
On Thursday,
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condemned the Tamil Nadu government’s move, which
he called “not legally tenable,” and the Supreme Court blocked the release of
the men, who are ethnic Tamils, until a March 6 hearing, according to the Press
Trust of India.
“The
assassination of Shri Rajiv Gandhi was an attack on the soul of India,” he said in
a statement. “The release of the killers of a former prime minister of India
and our great leader, as well as several other innocent Indians, would be
contrary to all principles of justice. No government or party should be soft in
our fight against terrorism.”
Back at home,
Ms. Jayalalithaa, who is also head of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam party, received support from her political rivals. Muthuvel
Karunanidhi, the head of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, tried to claim credit
for the chief minister’s decision. He told NDTV, “It’s not a
prompt decision by the state government. They ridiculed me when I proposed
their release.”
However,
Neelam Deo, director of Gateway House, a research institution in Mumbai,
said that if there were any support for the plotters of the Gandhi
assassination, it was being manufactured by the Tamil Nadu parties and not
coming from the public, which is mostly ethnic Tamil.
She noted
that Ms. Jayalalithaa was previously highly critical of the terrorist attacks
by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which prosecutors said helped kill Mr.
Gandhi in 1991 because as prime minister he sent Indian troops to put down the
Tamil rebellion during the Sri Lankan civil war.
“In fact,
most of the Dravidian support that there had been for this issue actually all
evaporated after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi,” she said.
Analysts said
that with national elections coming up in May, state leaders were taking up
local causes to show their constituents that they could stand up to New Delhi.
Satish Mishra, a senior fellow specializing in politics and governance at the
Observer Research Foundation in Mumbai, said the Tamil Nadu chief minister’s
three-day deadline was her way of asserting her independence.
“She is using
her leverage because the Congress party, currently ruling at the center, does
not have an ally in the state,” Mr. Mishra said.
“There may or
may not be popular sentiment, but they are arousing the popular sentiment, and
they are converting it into a Tamil sentiment issue to essentially create a
vote bank,” Mr. Mishra said.
In other
states, the death penalty has been used to rouse local passions. Ms. Deo cited
the example of Kashmir, where residents objected to the secret hanging of Muhammad Afzal, who was executed
for his role in the December 2001 attack on Parliament. In 2012, Farooq
Abdullah, the current minister of renewable energy and former chief minister of
Jammu and Kashmir, said that
whoever attacks India should pay the price.
But earlier
this week, Mr. Abdullah, who will be running for re-election in his home state, said the
hanging of Mr. Afzal was “absolutely unjustified,” according to the Press Trust
of India.
“It seems
political parties feel that ‘they are from my state so I have to take it up,’
whether they are Tamil, Kashmiri or Punjabi,” Ms. Deo said. “In some cases,
unfortunately, even though the judiciary takes an independent view, it can be
made to seem as if it is a political move.”
[Beijing prefers to resolve those claims on a bilateral basis, where it holds greater sway by virtue of its size, rather than subject them to international arbitration. Its coast guard and naval vessels have been increasingly assertive in patrolling those disputed waters in recent years, while the threat that it could one day declare another air defense identification zone — this one over the South China Sea — has also unsettled officials in Washington and the region.]
By Simon
Denyer
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Asia’s territorial disputes could provoke
military conflict unless countries in the region adopt new maritime codes of
conduct and an increasingly assertive China agrees to base its claims on
international law and resolve them peacefully, Secretary of State John F. Kerry
warned Monday.
Kerry was in Indonesia, the third stop on a tour of Asia and the
Middle East that is aimed in part at reassuring allies in the region that
Washington will not allow China to bully its smaller neighbors in territorial
disputes.
“I was in Beijing just two days ago, where I discussed the United
States’ growing concerns over a pattern of behavior in which maritime claims
are being asserted in the East China and South China seas,” Kerry said. He
added that it is “imperative for all claimants” to maritime territory to base
their claims on international law and handle them in a peaceful way.
In
Beijing, Kerry heard angry denunciations from the Chinese government about
the behavior of other Asian nations involved in the territorial spats, and he
made a point of calling on all sides to show restraint.
But in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, he singled out China for
assertive steps that have raised concerns in Washington.
Kerry criticized China’s unilateral declaration in November of an
“air defense identification zone” over much of the East China Sea,
including over disputed islands administered by Japan. He complained about new
rules China issued in January restricting fishing in disputed waters of the
South China Sea, and about the Chinese navy’s moves to seize control of the
Scarborough Shoal and restrict access to rival claimant the
Philippines.
Kerry also backed Indonesia’s attempts to negotiate a multilateral
maritime code of conduct for the region in talks between China and the
10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
“It is not an exaggeration to say the region’s future stability
may depend in part on the success and timeliness of the effort to produce a
code of conduct,” Kerry said. “The longer the process takes, the longer
tensions will simmer, the greater the chance of a miscalculation by somebody
that could result in a conflict. That is in nobody’s interest.”
China claims around 90 percent of the South China Sea, marking its
stake on maps with a “nine-dash line” that loops far offshore into waters also
claimed by Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan —
and above what are believed to be very significant oil and gas reserves.
Beijing prefers to resolve those claims on a bilateral basis,
where it holds greater sway by virtue of its size, rather than subject them to
international arbitration. Its coast guard and naval vessels have been
increasingly assertive in patrolling those disputed waters in recent years,
while the threat that it could one day declare another air defense
identification zone — this one over the South China Sea — has also unsettled
officials in Washington and the region.
Kerry’s fifth visit to Asia in his first year in office is meant
to reinforce the Obama administration’s foreign policy “pivot,” a
strategic rebalancing of priorities toward the fast-growing economic region.
While many in China see this U.S. strategy as a thinly veiled
attempt at containment, the Obama administration insists that it is as much
about economics as security, citing negotiations to establish a 12-nation
regional trade pact called the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as an important foundation stone for
the new policy.
That argument seems to have come slightly unstuck in recent weeks,
as it became increasingly apparent that congressional Democrats were reluctant
to grant President Obama the negotiating authority he needs to conclude such a
pact, wary of labor interests and ahead of Senate elections.
The TPP could encompass 40 percent of the world’s economic
output and cement U.S. economic engagement with the region and its leadership.
Asian allies, as well as regional experts in Washington, have
expressed frustration that Obama has not been able to overcome that
congressional reluctance and sell the idea of trade with Asia directly to the
American people. The rebalance, they say, is in danger of being reduced to a
marginal rearrangement of military deployments, rather than a grand vision of
Asian opportunity.
“Trade is politically harder but absolutely necessary,” said
Ernest Bower, a Southeast Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies. He added that Asian countries will not make the tough
compromises needed to conclude TPP talks “unless they see political capital has
been spent — and they don’t see it yet.”
If U.S. officials “want to signal this is a sustained engagement
and a constructive engagement with Asia, the best thing they can do is to have
the president of the United States talk to the American people about how
important Asia is economically and in security terms to our future,” Bower
said. “He continues to fail to do that.”
Kerry said trade deals have always been tough to get through
Congress, but he promised that he and Obama will continue to stress to
lawmakers the importance of such a deal.
“In the end, I believe people will come to the appropriate
judgment,” Kerry said.
