Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Italians’ shocking behaviour' that was published in Newsband

Italians’ shocking behaviour

The Italian government did the right thing by sending back to India the marines accused of killing two fishermen off the Kerala coast. These marines will now have to face trial here. The Italian government was wise enough and prevented the political and diplomatic tensions between the two countries.

The two marines were sent by Indian court to Italy so that they could vote in their country’s elections. Initially, Rome was refusing to send back these marines. But a strong protest by our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi led Italy to change its decision. Italy agreed to send the two marines to India only after it was assured that the two would not be arrested and that they would not be given death sentence if found guilty. This way, Italian government managed to please the families of the marines and its countrymen. But what about the families of dead fishermen? Who will do justice to them?  

The Centre has yet to act on the Supreme Court’s January order that a special court be set up for the trial of the marines. Why this delay? Italian government behaved diplomatically and sent their marines for trial in India. Now it is India’s turn to ensure speedy and fair trial so that not only the two marines but also the relatives of victims get quick justice.

When the two marines were sent to Italy they were received like heroes by Italians. Now what is so heroic about killing poor fishermen? Maybe the marines shot the fishermen since they mistook them for pirates. The whole of Italy should have felt sorry for this mistake done by their two countrymen. Instead they celebrate, rejoice and treat the killers as if they are some kind of heroes. If the marines had killed some terrorists then they definitely deserved the heroes’ welcome. But here they had killed some innocent persons. Where was the need for Italians to rejoice over this incident? This is an insult to India and it is the moral duty of Italian government to apologize to the Indian government as well as Indian people for the shameful behaviour of Italians.  

It is true that the two countries are very good trading partners and our international trade amounts to about 10 billion annually. Thousands of Indians are working in Italy and many Italian firms in India is doing good. Italy had been our good trading partner ever since the India attained freedom from the colonial power. But all these facts don’t give Italians license to insult India by treating the two killers as if they are some kind of war heroes. The question is would Italian government excuse an Indian if he had to kill some innocent Italians in the same fashion? Another question is whether Italians would have liked it if Indians had to hero-worship that killer?