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Copybook blotted

Nobody can deny that if the management of foreign affairs has notched up a single success under the stewardship of…

Copybook blotted

Sushma Swaraj (Photo: PIB)

Nobody can deny that if the management of foreign affairs has notched up a single success under the stewardship of Mrs Sushma Swaraj it has been when repatriating/assisting Indians caught in the troubles in West Asia.

And it would be churlish not to recognise its efforts ~ alas, now proven unsuccessful ~ to trace the 39 workers who were slaughtered by ISIS after it captured Mosul.

Nobody, however, can deny that Mrs Swaraj got it terribly wrong when handling the announcement of those deaths, and the subsequent bid to deflect the criticism of its bungling.

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For what has been affirmed is the NDA’s arrogance in thinking it can do no wrong, and the political counter-attack the BJP launched revived memories of how those who had objected to demonetisation were dubbed anti-national etc.

The party’s spokespersons on television on Tuesday opted for the undemocratic ploy of trying to deny presentation of another point of view. The inability to admit to error is a troubling but durable hallmark of the dispensation.

There is little need to take note of what Opposition leaders said, Mrs Swaraj has been condemned by the victims’ families. If that does not stir the government’s conscience, nothing ever will.

The argument that Parliament had to be informed before the victims’ families is specious. Surely the minister is aware that details of deaths are never publicly announced before the families are alerted: worse, even hours after Mrs Swaraj’s televised essay in the Rajya Sabha the families said they had been ignored by the government.

The minister was “strategically short” of dates/timings. When was deep-penetration radar used to detect bodies, or DNA samples collected to provide a “match”? Surely the families could have then been alerted to the worst fears, their long period of darkness not extended to a few hours before an NGO in Iraq was scheduled to hold a press conference.

This seemingly extended “cover-up” is what hurts the families who actually lost their loved ones years ago. True that a responsible government requires authentication in such matters and cannot “snuff out” hopes ~ neither can it perpetuate hopes for which no valid reason is available.

That even when announcing the deaths in the Rajya Sabha the minister chose to describe as a “cock and bull story” the account of the man who claimed to be an eye-witness to the massacre is disturbing.

Was he still being denigrated because he masqueraded as a Bangladeshi Muslim to “escape” the ISIS killers? Is that not communalism at its vicious worst? Or were there other reasons for doubting his story, and if so what were they? Full disclosure is vital now, there are no lives left to save.

No, what the government may do now, the image of insensitiveness will project itself more powerfully than ISIS’ savagery. A more humane manner of announcing the deaths could have provided a little solace. The minister has blotted her copybook.

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