The US-Iran Agreement

A stretch of sea where international ships, including those carrying oil and gas, may safely sail, plus a sky empty of bombers and missiles. That is what the world has been yearning for in the Middle East. As of writing, and at least for the time being, it looks as if the longing has been fulfilled, though maybe not in every piece of the large region. 

All who have worked for this pause in warfare deserve acknowledgment, including Trump and the leaders of Iran, the mediators (who included the leadership in Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Switzerland) and untiring diplomats from these and other countries. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres congratulated the US and Iran for having reached a peace deal that provided for an immediate ceasefire, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and a framework for further negotiations. 

As a South Asian, I feel good about the success of the persistence in mediation of Pakistan’s political and military leaders. In fact it was Shehbaz Sharif, prime minister of that country, who first informed the world of the agreement, with, to the surprise of many, Trump allowing Sharif to tweet about it a minute or two ahead of himself. 

SAUDI ARABIA & TURKEY 

In his announcement, Sharif took care to give special thanks to the leaders of Turkey and Saudi Arabia. While this may reflect some of Pakistan’s priorities in the region, the remark enables the world to recognize that any enduring settlement in the Middle East would require more than the signatures of Iran, Israel, and the US: Saudi Arabia and Turkey too are indispensable. 

Let me quickly make a connected point. It has always been tempting, and even natural, to present the region’s conflicts in religious or sectarian terms, as a fight between Islamist Iran and Zionist Israel, or between Shiite Iran and Sunni Turkey or Sunni Arabs. A question only rarely asked is this: can’t the region’s countries do more to see their neighbors as just that? Can their people do more to know and befriend those living next to them? These, too, are natural questions, and ones the region’s countries should be asking themselves from time to time.

Comment in India on the US-Iran agreement has highlighted the killing, in the days preceding it, of Indian sailors on cargo ships from American fire. Most of India’s big newspapers and TV channels have refrained from criticizing the Modi government for the lack of energy in its protests to Washington. Or for its hands-off posture in relation to the Hormuz confrontation. 

However, writing a biting op-ed in The Telegraph of Kolkata, Mukul Kesavan underlined the contrast between the roles of Pakistan and India over a conflict that has hurt the economic life of almost every country, India included. While Pakistan, wrote Kesavan, “was at the centre of a web of negotiations with Iran, the US, Egypt, Turkey and China designed to solve the Hormuz crisis, the Indian foreign policy establishment crouches like a ball boy on the sidelines of this conflict unfolding in its near abroad.” 

TRUMP AND NETANYAHU 

CNN quoted Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, as saying that its forces were not withdrawing from southern Lebanon, even though Iran said the agreement included an end to the conflict there. Israeli forces struck Beirut hours before the agreement was announced, CNN added, enraging Trump, who publicly expressed his fury with Netanyahu. Oil prices have fallen to their lowest levels in nearly three months but recovery from the war’s economic impact could take months, the report said. 

As of writing, the text of this agreement to end the blockade of ships in the Hormuz Strait and stop the fighting between the US and Iran has not been shared with the world. We’re informed that the agreement was digitally signed by Trump and the Speaker of the Iranian parliament, and that it will be signed in ink in Switzerland on Friday the 19th. 

It is hard to think of anyone who would benefit from resumption of the war that has stopped. While relief may be greatest among the people of Iran, there will be gladness also in the Gulf nations, across the Middle East, and the world over, including in the US. 

MODI’S NEW “RECORD” 

When word came of a peculiar spate of congratulatory messages to Narendra Modi from international dignitaries (including Trump) as well as from Indian politicians and organizations on having become, or so it was claimed, the longest serving prime minister in independent India’s history, my initial reaction was of irritation that no one had pointed out the palpable error in the claim. 

Anyone familiar with the barest facts knew that Nehru had been PM for 17 continuous years (1947 to 1964) and that Indira Gandhi had held that office for 11 straight years (1966 to 1977) and again for about five more years (from Jan 1980 to Oct 31, 1984). Both were PMs for noticeably longer than Modi’s 12 years so far as PM (from 2014 to now). 

Then I ran into the “explanation” that was circulating. While Indira’s 16 years would not count because they were discontinuous, Nehru’s first five years could not be admitted because they had preceded India’s first general elections, which were held in January 1952. Free India’s first ministry, it was argued, had been answerable only to the Constituent Assembly, not to the people of India. 

This “clarification” holds no water. Formed through elections from elected provincial legislatures, the Constituent Assembly was perfectly representative. No one had ever said -- no one could possibly say -- that the CA (or Nehru’s first cabinet) did not represent popular wishes. 

Anyone saying that would be dismissing India’s constitution, which was prepared between 1947 and November 1949, as illegitimate. They would also be questioning the integration into the Indian Union of its princely states, which was achieved between 1947 and September 1948, largely through the efforts of Deputy Premier Vallabhbhai Patel. If accepted, the “clarification” of the claim of Modi’s new PM-ship record would mutilate independent India’s history by eliminating its foundation. 

This tampering with history may be more than an inadvertent “error.” More, too, than a “mistake” resulting from a pardonable thirst for certificates and medals, this revision may have a serious contemporary purpose. Let us remember that many of those whose political forebears championed a Hindu state of India from the 1920s have never accepted free India’s constitution, which assures free speech, freedom of conscience, and equal rights for Indians irrespective of religion. 

Questioning the legitimacy of the 1947-52 period may therefore only be the start of a process to impose on India a new constitution where non-Hindus would be legally inferior and subservient to Hindus and where the state’s “necessities” would lawfully override citizen rights.

Seen alongside the defections from opposition ranks currently being organized in both houses of parliament, the story about Modi’s “record” should be seen as advance notice of bigger blows against democracy and the constitution. 

RAHUL GANDHI’S PODCAST 

Linked below, this podcast of under ten minutes by Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, is a brave milestone in India’s current story. It should be heard by everyone concerned about India’s future. Starting with June 17 in Rajasthan’s Kota city, India’s “coaching” capital, Rahul is slated to address a series of rallies of India’s youth, where, among other things, the resignation of education minister Dharmendra Pradhan will be demanded.

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Small victories mean much when the slope against democracy’s climb-back is steep. Justice Neena Bansal Krishna of the Delhi High Court merits kudos for denouncing the retention on police files of complaints against the courageous online portal NewsClick, which had been exonerated in 2024 by the Supreme Court. A year earlier, the portal had been killed in all but name by allegations of money laundering and raids on homes and offices of its staff, carried out under the cover of stringent security laws. According to another gallant portal, Article 14, about 500 police personnel made coordinated raids in 2023 at over 100 sites in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram, and Mumbai but found no evidence to incriminate NewsClick. 

The portal’s editor-in-chief, Prabir Purkayastha, was kept behind bars for 225 days before the Supreme Court ordered the 74-year-old journalist’s release in June 2024. Despite the top court’s order, the police kept the charges against NewsClick on its files for virtually two years until Justice Krishna ordered their removal on May 29. 

In her judgment, Justice Krishna said that continuation of the FIR – “first information report” -- registered by the Delhi police’s Economic Offences Wing was "nothing but a gross abuse of the process of law." 

As a young journalist, Purkayastha had faced imprisonment during the Emergency of 1975-77 as well. The crushing of a news portal, and grave damage to the careers of scores of associated journalists and the lives of affected families, is to be added to the record of the Modi government’s achievements. 

Be it remembered that only a small percentage of those hauled up on unprovable charges can reach the ears of India’s courts. The vast majority, adding up to more than 300,000, remain in their prison cells, untried and in many cases uninformed of their alleged offences.

DOINGS OF THE COCKROACH 

Looking at the Indian scene, I see that after its opening June 6 rally in Delhi, India’s new Cockroach Janata Party has held large and successful demonstrations in cities including Pune, Amritsar, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Jaipur. The CJP’s demand for the resignation of education minister Dharmendra Pradhan not having been met, the newly-formed group will continue its peaceful demonstrations against paper leaks, its spokespersons say. 

A persuasive reading of the CJP’s position was offered in a YouTube interview by Neha, a PhD student at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, who had been seen standing next to CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke in videos of the Delhi rally of June 6. Three days later, when YouTube interviewer Jyoti Yadav asked Neha if she would defend someone like Umar Khalid (the former JNU student held in prison without being tried from September 2020) Neha, speaking in Hindi, answered with an unhesitating yes. 

In another YouTube interview, Vijeta Dahiya, a young actor serving as CJP’s spokesperson, told Jyoti Yadav that the outfit’s peaceful demonstrations would continue. Eventually, said Dahiya, voters in Minister Pradhan’s parliamentary constituency could also play a role. 

On June 15, in Jaipur city, capital of Rajasthan state, while supporters were carrying him on their shoulders toward a dais, the CJP’s 30-year-old founder, Abhijeet Dipke, was slapped and assaulted by a handful of opponents who were later arrested by the police. 

Dipke told the large Jaipur rally: “I was assaulted while I was entering. No matter how many times we’re attacked, we don’t have to raise our hand... I can get beaten up ten times more, but no one should raise their hand.” Soon thereafter, Dipke posted on X: 

“We will continue to raise our voices peacefully. I am a follower of Gandhi and Ambedkar, and I will keep fighting this battle with peace and love.” 

Also of interest, and perhaps relevant for struggles anywhere for democratic rights, is this comment in the Indian Express by political thinker Yogendra Yadav: 

“The grammar of oppositional politics needs a radical shift. Factual refutation, logical critique and rational arguments are the bedrock of opposition to the empire of lies spawned by the ruling establishment. Yet memes, pranks, cartoons and satire are among the most effective tools of communication in abnormal times. History tells us that the bubble of authoritarian regimes bursts just when they think their domination is total. Provided there is someone ready to puncture it.”