Explained : Time for India to rise as third force for peace in West Asia conflict, says Shashi Tharoor and Its Impact

New Delhi: Stressing that India should be a ‘loud voice for peace’, Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor on Monday said that India should lead an international coalition demanding peace in the West Asia conflict and call on both sides to stop the war which is hurting innocent countries.

Tharoor spoke to ThePrint on a host of issues, including the United Democratic Front’s (UDF) poll prospects in Kerala, the key issues in the coming assembly polls, the cooking and natural gas crisis gripping the nation and the West Asia conflict.

The former minister further said that he believes there are enough elements to allow both Trump and the Americans and the Iranians to declare victory and call it off. “Trump can easily say that all he wanted to achieve was to degrade Iran’s capacity, its industrial strength, its energy, its missiles and its military infrastructure, that is done and now he can afford to walk away, and the Iranians can say, well, we just want to save our government, prevent regime change, and we’ve succeeded in that, so we can also declare victory and walk away,” Tharoor said.

“If both sides can say that, that could be the end of the war, that could be a basis to go ahead. But maybe both are too proud to say this themselves, and we need a third force to come up and say the world is requesting you to please call it off. And maybe India should be a loud voice for peace,” he added.

Asked about the large number of people from Kerala residing in the Gulf nations and directly affected by the West Asia crisis and what the government should be doing, Tharoor said the government is trying to keep lines of communication open with everybody. “It’s (the government has) shown a strong degree of support for the Gulf countries, and I think we should… that was the right thing to do. But having said that, in the longer term, and not even that long, I think right now we should be calling, we should be leading an international coalition demanding peace. We should actually be asking both sides to stop this conflict because it’s hurting us and hurting a lot of innocent countries that didn’t bring this conflict upon themselves,” he added.

Also Read: What India can learn from the US-Israel war on Iran

‘Decade of LDF misrule’

With the Election Commission announcing the schedule for Kerala Assembly polls, Tharoor who represents Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency said as the co-incharge of the campaign committee of the party he will campaign across the state. Highlighting the key poll issues in the state, Tharoor said there is anti-incumbency in Kerala and the Congress will highlight the 10 years of LDF government’s “misrule”.

The ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF)—led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is eyeing a third term. “So the first thing is 10 years of misrule. Corruption, malfeasance, scandals, including mysteriously disappearing gold from the Sabarimala Temple, all sorts of stuff. So there are issues that the two opposition forces, namely UDF and the BJP, will be attacking the state government on. But beyond that, I think what we in the UDF want to stand for is a positive narrative for the future,” he added.

Tharoor said what the Left has done in the state is simply not working and the famous “Kerala model has now become a debt model”.

“The state is spending more money on debt servicing, paying interest and pensions than it pays on development projects. So you’re really looking at a situation where clearly, a new approach is needed, and that new approach, we can provide,” he added.

The Lok Sabha MP said Kerala cannot survive on lotteries, liquor, and remittances. “You can’t have that as a viable model for a state. We need to let investors come in big time, and they won’t do so because they’re too scared of the red flags of the Left and the ‘hartal’ culture and the militant unionism that the Left has spawned in the state. In order to offset that, we need something pretty radical, and one of the suggestions I have made is that we need an investor protection Act to be actually able to guarantee to investors that their money will be safe in our state,” he added.

Dismissing BJP as a force in Kerala, Tharoor said the party has not got any significant new alliances and they are likely to get one or two seats. “I don’t see them making a significant dent or even becoming, as they, some of them were hoping they’d become a kingmaker, you know. For that, they would need at least 10-15 seats, and I don’t see where that could possibly come from,” he added.

The BJP, he said, has not been able to do well in Kerala due to its communal messaging, and the second thing is a lot of their sensibilities are north Indian. They haven’t quite got the fact that our history is different from theirs.”

“Our whole attitude is different that I think our north Indian friends don’t fully understand. They have to start thinking authentically as Malayalis and not come with a sort of preconceived north Indian agenda of communal bigotry, which they’re trying to then shove down the throats of the people of Kerala. It won’t work,” he added.

Also Read: What Gulf states would say to Iran. War is temporary, geography is permanent

‘No grandstanding required’

On the West Asia crisis, Tharoor said India could have taken a stand on the issue and condemned it as there are moral issues at stake but pointed out that are certain limitations. “I don’t disagree with those who say that we could have taken a stand on principles, we could have condemned them that there are moral issues at stake. But there is a difference between what we can say sitting in the Opposition which has no consequences and what a government which has a lot of issues at stake can say,” he added.

When asked about his recent welcome to PM Modi and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar holding conversations with their Iranian counterparts and calling for a “collective push” to end the West Asia conflict while Congress leaders remain critical of the government, Tharoor said: “When we in the Congress were in power, we didn’t condemn the Soviet invasion of Hungary, of Czechoslovakia, of Afghanistan. Why? Because we judged we had too much at stake in the relations with the Soviet Union to antagonise them. The Modi government did not condemn the invasion of Ukraine. Same logic. So it is one thing when you’re in the Opposition. It’s another thing when you’re in government,” he said.

The Congress leader said one can say anything in an individual capacity “but if I were to advise a government, even a Congress party government, I would not be advising my Prime Minister to start grandstanding and attacking the Americans because I’ve often believed that sort of loud lecturing sits in with low leverage, and we have low leverage. We don’t have the ability to resist. If a country we antagonise turns against us, we are vulnerable. We need them. We have big issues at stake with many of these countries. That’s my point,” he said.

The Congress leader said the government needs to acknowledge that there is a shortage and a crisis and take necessary steps. “There’s no point being in denial.. long queues with empty cylinders show the scale of the LPG crisis,” he added.

(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)

Also Read: The key figures steering Iran amid war & regional tensions: Mapping Pezeshkian’s presidential circle