MOLOTOV COCKTAIL: Riots in Gujarat have soured India's diplomatic ties with Europe

When America sneezes, it is said, Britain catches a cold and the rest of Europe shivers. America has so far only sniffed over the Gujarat violence but India's former colonial master has broken into high fever and even gone into paroxysms of anger. While the US has only "regretted" the violence in Gujarat and urged a peaceful resolution of the issue, Britain and a few European countries have been unusually strident in their criticism.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw led the charge by expressing deep concern over the Gujarat situation and hoping that the perpetrators would be brought to justice. Straw was echoing a report from the UK High Commission in Delhi describing the Godhra incident as a "pretext" for pre-planned violence in Gujarat. However, Straw's statement in the House of Commons did not stop at Gujarat but even offered a prescription for the forthcoming Jammu and Kashmir polls. In a significant deviation from Britain's earlier position on the Kashmir issue, he advocated that external observers monitor the elections in the state.

CRIME

EUROPE REACTS   FINLAND: Finds the pictures of the Gujarat carnage very disturbing and expresses great concern over the ongoing violence. GERMANY: Says the attacks on Muslims were surgical strikes, with rioters targeting minority-run establishments. HOLLAND: Feels the state police were instructed to look the other way or were partisan. Relief was late and inadequate. SWITZERLAND: Takes up the riots issue with Vajpayee, Advani and Jaswant. Voices concern and calls the flare-up tragic.

The diplomatic fallout over Gujarat also reverberated in Germany, Holland, Finland and the normally neutral Switzerland. The European Union (EU) said that it was closely monitoring the situation in Gujarat. Reports from the German and Dutch missions in Delhi, while accusing the Gujarat Police of playing a partisan role in the communal flare-up, apparently indicated that Muslims were being made specific targets. They even charged the Gujarat Government with not providing adequate relief to the riot victims. During his recent visit to India, Finnish Foreign Minister Erriki Tuomioja found the "pictures of Gujarat carnage disturbing" and expressed concern over the violence. European nations virtually ended up projecting India as an intolerant society with little or no regard for human rights.

Understandably, this has raised the hackles of Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee. "India is being advised on pluralism and secularism," he says. "We need not learn about secularism from anybody." The External Affairs Ministry too lashed out at what it called "interference in our internal affairs". External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh called up Straw to express displeasure over his and the British mission's statements. His ministry criticised the European countries and missions for "injecting themselves into the highly politically charged debate" and virtually accused them of "playing a partisan role" by leaking their internal reports to the media. While making it clear that such moves "could be injurious to the friendly relations between India and the EU as well as individual European countries", the ministry indicated that these reports were finding their way to the media in order to "pander to their domestic lobbies".

"Gujarat is an internal matter and the situation is under control." Jaswant Singh, Indian External Affairs Minister

"We are deeply concerned about deaths on both sides and want the guilty to be brought to book." Jack Straw, UK Foreign Secretary

The Indian perception is that Straw's comments are a reflection of the pressure exerted by human-rights organisations and influential Gujarati Muslims living in Britain. Straw's constituency, Blackburn, apparently has a large Muslim population hailing from Gujarat and Mirpur in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. While India has consciously kept a low profile on the problems of racism and communal riots in Britain, London has in a sense breached diplomatic protocol by hauling India over the coals for the Gujarat incidents.

And while Chief Minister Narendra Modi is no Henry Kissinger, the unlikely duo were accused of genocide in Britain last week. Families of the British victims of Gujarat violence are seeking the UK Government's help to prosecute Modi on charges of "genocide and complicity in murder". Similarly, Kissinger was virtually dragged to the UK courts when a human-rights activist sought a warrant for his arrest for committing "war crimes in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia" during his tenure as the US secretary of state in the 1970s. However, the fatuous comparison of Kissinger with the likes of General Augusto Pinochet and Pol Pot did not find favour with the UK magistrate. The lawsuit was thrown out. The case clearly shows the nuisance value of human-rights organisations and the kind of pressure they can bring on the Tony Blair Administration.

With India taking serious note of the comments emanating from London, the British Government, particularly the Foreign Office, now wants to distance itself from the Gujarat situation. "One British-Asian was killed, one attacked and two have gone missing in Gujarat. It is for the affected families to take legal action and they have not approached us," the Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokeswoman told India Today on the issue of legal action against Modi. "It will also be very unusual for us to get involved in this matter. We are only confirming facts to give the British families support in their search." All the same, Modi's legal team has assembled in London and is preparing to fight any case against him or the state Government.

Another disturbing diplomatic fallout of the Gujarat issue has been Britain's stance on the Jammu and Kashmir elections. With Pakistan still to rein in cross-border terrorism in Kashmir, India clearly cannot accept the British recipe. Inviting external monitors for the forthcoming elections will mean internationalising the Kashmir issue and will amount to third-party intervention-something that Pakistan has always clamoured for. Delhi does not want the Kashmir headache to come up at the time of communal violence.

For India, the international fallout of Gujarat has resulted in a worrying trend where human-rights violations can be used to intrude into the sovereign affairs of other countries. It is a precedent that India would not want to be set.