AN ITALIAN JOKE

As we express indignation at the Italian insolence, we ignore that the common Italian in the streets thinks of India as being ruled from 2004 by an Italian, more or less after the imperial fashion. The Italian press saluted the Congress victory in May 2004. “Italian Sonia Gandhi triumphs,” trumpeted Italy’s leading daily Corriere della Sera in a front-page headline. “Sonia Gandhi: an Italian triumphs in India,” echoed the headline in the leftist La Repubblica. “Against all expectations, there is now little doubt that the Italian from Orbassano will become India’s next Prime Minister,” said La Repubblica on the day the results came out in India. As per Italian constitution, an Italy-born retains the citizenship even when he takes one more.

No sooner had Manmohan Singh’s cabinet taken charge than the Italian Aritozo Chamber of Commerce and Toscani Promotion Authority rushed to India to grab the Indian market. And in this game-plan, the communist government of West Bengal came forward with all its help. During the first few months, five teams of delegates visited West Bengal on different grounds to finalise things. The Italian Consul General for Kolkota, Augustino Pinna was present in all the meetings with the government and with different Chambers of Commerce. It was known that this as well as the Left’s support to the UPA was only an extension of the Surjeet family’s international business relations with an Italian family.

One of the first heads of government that visited India after the UPA government assumed office was naturally from Italy. 15 significant agreements were signed then. These included contracting the very costly Chandrayaan to Italian companies, and ‘preservation and restoration’ of our antiques and heritage artefacts after taking them to Italy. Subsequently, minor Italian ministers like Sen Gianni Vernetti, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Antonio Marzano, Minister for Productive Activities etc have been visiting India many times yearly to smoothen matters for Italian business.

The Joint Commission for economic cooperation with Italy had been there from 1976 soon after the commencement of the Emergency. The Commission used to meet once every 2-3 years. However, regular annual meetings since 2005 signalled a sea change. From 2004, trade with Italy increased by 50% annually. The Commerce ministry has pursued importing from Italy with missionary zeal. An unstable economy like Italy is now India’s most important trading partner in the EU. The Italian economy owes to India for survival.

Under these circumstances, one cannot fault Italy on its anxiety to ensure that things go properly on in India. Fascist imperialism now works in ways more sophisticated than the times of Il Duce.
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Daily Pioneer Editorial of 31st August 2008:
The Pioneer Edit Desk
We don't need the Holy Roman Umpire

In summoning the Indian Ambassador and urging New Delhi to take "decisive action" to curb 'anti-Christian violence' in Orissa, the Government of Italy has breached diplomatic propriety and caused a public relations disaster of enormous magnitude. The violence, while entirely undesirable, is scarcely a one-sided slaughter of the innocents, though a country with a history of throwing religious minorities to the lions would probably be hard put to tell the difference. The killing of a Hindu monk and his associates, and the retaliatory murder of Christian and non-Christian workers in church institutions in Orissa, are crimes that Indian authorities must act against and punish expeditiously. It is an internal matter of India, in no way suggestive of state-sponsored attacks on any community or religious groups and requires no interference or comment from the self-appointed high priests in Rome. In reality, the gratuitous actions of the Italian Government represent a once-proud society's increasing irrelevance and political downfall. The Italian Government is heavily dependent on neo-fascists who are promoting a xenophobic, anti-immigrant agenda. Indeed, the new Mayor of Rome is publicly greeted with straight-arm salutes and enthusiastic cries of "Duce! Duce!" -- a noun last used to describe Italy's comic-book wartime dictator, Benito Mussolini. Italy's economic collapse has been sharpened by its establishment's congenital suspicion of globalisation and foreign investment. Acquisition -- and thereby rescue -- of the country's bigger but increasingly beleaguered business corporations is actively discouraged. Gripped by paranoia, the Italian political class is battling phantoms -- the newest being the so-called Christian persecution in India. Not only is it doing no favour to Indian Christians -- who surely would not welcome a client-guarantor relationship with an alien Government -- it has also seriously jeopardised Italy's goodwill among the Indian middle class.


The Italian Government's poor diplomacy follows the Pope's condemnation of bloodletting in Orissa. As the head of a denominational enterprise, which is what the Vatican is, Pope Benedict XVI is perhaps justified in raising questions about the security of Christians everywhere. However, in the immediate context of India, he is choosing to look at the issue only selectively. In Orissa, like elsewhere in India, Christian evangelists -- largely from Pentecostal and Baptist groups in the United States but sometimes from Catholic orders as well -- look upon local populations as a market, and converts as market share. Some of them are engaged not in any attempt to genuinely win adherents to Jesus's faith, but to denigrate nativist cultures and religious traditions and convert by inducement. In Orissa, the recent trouble began when a Hindu monk who opposed such practices was murdered. He was targeted by a consortium of Christian fundamentalists and Maoists, united in taking on a common enemy. It may seem an unlikely alliance but is no different, in its theological inspirations, from the bogus gospel of Liberation Theology preached by renegade Catholic priests and Communist guerrillas in South America in the 1970s. Pope Benedict, like his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, opposed Liberation Theology in the New World, but appears to see it as a fair strategy for 'harvesting souls' in India. Both the Vatican's theological hypocrisy and double standards and the Italian Government's diplomatic outrage need to be countered. The philosophy underlying the Pope's arguments can be answered by Hindu religious leaders. As for the jejune Italian Government, a snub from the Ministry of External Affairs should be enough.
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Italy govt to summon Indian envoy over Orissa attacks
Published on Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 20:07