An interesting piece in The Hindu newspaper this week about the perils of tying your policy toward a country (in this case India toward Iran) too closely to a close ally (the United States).

The writer argues that India should have seen what it describes as a thaw coming (though it’s perhaps a little early to call it that), and that events have left it diplomatically flat-footed:

‘India needs to prepare a frank estimation of its own insipid regional policies with regard to Iran. Clearly, it has been a policy disaster of stupendous proportions that the UPA government allowed the US (and Israel) to dictate the tempo of India-Iran relationship. Whereas most countries foresaw a US-Iran thaw and readied for it, the Indian establishment buried its head in the sand. Belying all logic, India stopped supplying petroleum products to Iran a few months ago, anticipating a “tightening” of US sanctions on Tehran. (China, of course, stepped in to meet Iran’s needs.)’

Relations between India and the Middle East are generally under-reported in Western media, so with our India correspondent Madhav Nalapat travelling to Qatar for a few days this week, I asked him, basically, how things stand.

Interestingly, he says that warming ties with the US have had what he describes as a ‘spinoff of closer ties with the Gulf sheikhdoms,’ and he added that ties between India and the region were multiplying, with India having joined the US and the EU in being a strategic partner of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

He says this shift has come after years of drift in relations, and I’ll quote at length here from his email as I think it’s good to put some of these issues in context:

‘Throughout the five decades that spanned the period since the nationalisation of the Suez Canal and the normalisation of ties between Egypt and Israel, India was an outlier in the Gulf, so far as official contacts were concerned. The indifference of the ruling families there to a country that once had been their closest partner was matched by a similar attitude on the Indian side, which saw the sheikhdoms as anachronisms.

‘Indeed, India was the only major non-Communist country to assist the PLO since the 1950s in the setting up of a Palestinian state, even allowing a full-fledged diplomatic mission to be set up in Delhi. Interestingly, as soon as he got western (and Mideast) partners after the 1992 handshake with Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat dumped India within months and thereafter adopted the western position on Kashmir, which in effect was that the state ought to go to Pakistan. Such fickle behaviour helped nudge then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao into allowing Israel to open an embassy in Delhi in 1992, and for setting up an Indian mission in Tel Aviv--forty-two years after the Jewish state had been officially recognized by India in 1950.’

Eight women-only trains have hit the tracks in four of India’s urban centres—Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta and Madras—in response to the growing concerns of female commuters who are being harassed by men. (See a photo slideshow) Although for some years now trains in India have reserved certain cars for women, men would often use them anyway, to avoid overcrowding in the regular compartments. The numbers of working women in the country, meanwhile, has doubled in the past 15 years.

Elsewhere in Asia, there have been similar efforts made to give women on public transportation choices that may increase their sense of safety and comfort. In the Philippines, the oldest and most crowded light rail system, the LRT, also has a special women-only carriage. Reportedly, Taiwan too now offers the service on selected cars of its public railway, while Nepal has some women-only bus services and South Korea has promised to introduce the service by next year.

But nowhere compares to Japan for its history and scale of women’s only train services. There are currently such cars operating on every train line in the capital city during peak commuting hours. And according to the Journal of Transportation History, the women-only car phenomenon has been around since 1912, when its purpose was to keep young schoolgirls out of the sight of male riders. The compartments disappeared in the late 1970s but again re-emerged in the early 2000s with increased crowding on trains and complaints of sexual harassment.

This week saw voting take place for three of India’s state assemblies-- Haryana, Maharashtra and Arunachal. The votes are the first major test for the two main parties since the ruling Congress Party trounced the BJP in a general election earlier this year.

I spoke with our India correspondent, Madhav Nalapat, about the polls, which he believes will end up returning the Congress Party to power in all three states when the results are announced next week. He said that despite the fact that Congress runs what he describes as ‘corrupt and dysfunctional’ governments in all three states, local circumstances, in addition to the BJP’s continued weaknesses, is going to keep it out of power.

“The Congress Party is being seen in Arunachal as best able to stand up to China (which claims the territory, to the horror of its religion-minded inhabitants), while there is a split in the opposition Shiv Sena in Maharashtra (where the nephew and the son of the founder of the party are slugging it out in most constituencies). Add in the uneasy relationship between the BJP and its presumed partner, the Indian National Lok Dal, in Haryana, and the stage seems set for a Congress romp.”

And he thinks inherent weaknesses with the Bhartiya Janta Party are going to hold it back further.

“Since the collapse of the party in the 2009 parliamentary polls, the BJP has in effect been rendered leaderless, with the top crust unable to inspire or activate the base. This thin layer comprises of those society ladies and gentlemen who have been the courtiers of choice by the BJP's ruling duo, A B Vajpayee and L K Advani, who with the help of their family and friends have run the party in all its avatars for half a century.”

He says Congress too is run by a small, dynastic group--the widow and two children of the slain former Prime Minister Rajiv Ratna Birjees Gandhi--but adds the difference is that dynastic politics has become second nature to the Congress rank and file.

And he doesn’t see things changing, at least for now.

“As the hangers-on of both these BJP leaders have gained substantially in financial terms during their stints in politics, there are limits to how much they can challenge Sonia Gandhi, who is known to be a keen student of the tactics of her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi. The senior Mrs Gandhi used to toss dossiers at those who earned her ire, implicitly threatening exposure or worse. Given the almost total propensity of India's political class towards helping their friends and family, in practice this has meant a very muted opposition response to the numerous failures of the Sonia-led government, primarily its murderous and punitive taxation system and its corruption.”

One of India’s leading commentators on its regional relations has an interesting piece out on Rediff.com, looking at recent tensions between India and China over the disputed border area that I mentioned last month.

I felt, and still do, that in these kinds of situation it’s easy for media speculation to take on a life of its own, and the Indian government should get credit for not risking an escalation through careless talk.

But Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at New Delhi’s Centre for Policy Research, believes the Indian government has crossed from judicious restraint to obstructionism in its dealings with the media, writing:

“If the threat from an increasingly assertive and ambitious China is to be contained, India must have an honest and open debate on its diplomatic and military options, including how gaps in its defences can be plugged and what it will take to build a credible deterrent.

“The media has a crucial role to play in such a debate, both by bringing out the facts and providing a platform for discussion. Still, New Delhi has sought to make its home media the scapegoat. Even more odd is that it has taken its cue from Beijing.”

In the meantime, though, India has had to turn its attention west, with the attack on its embassy in Kabul claiming at least 17 lives and injuring scores more. The attack has inevitably provoked speculation that the attack was part of a broader struggle on the subcontinent, with some pointing the finger at what they say is Pakistan’s indirect hand in the attack.

According to this report by Indo-Asian News Service:

“Ajai Sahni, an expert on terrorism, said the attack was planned well in advance to keep pressure on India to stay away from Afghanistan.

“The attack, he said, bore the hallmark of last year’s attack on the Indian embassy that was executed by the Haqqani group of the Taliban in close coordination with Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

“‘It’s been well-documented not only by Indian intelligence agencies but also by American intelligence agencies which found proof in the form of wireless intercepts between Taliban militants and their ISI handlers,’ Sahni told IANS.”

So, is this reasonable reporting or carelessly inflammatory? Sometimes it’s difficult to tell the difference. And sometimes there isn’t much.

Following on from my post yesterday on the apparently gloomy prospects for the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan following their recent thumping at the polls, I asked our India correspondent Madhav Nalapat about how things are shaping up for the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party in India.

The party was in power from 1998 until 2004, but suffered a shock defeat in mid-2004 to a coalition led by The Congress Party. The party then lost further ground in the general election earlier this year.

And judging by what Madhav says, the party is still struggling to pull itself together.

“Despite their poor showing in two successive general elections, the team of [BJP lower house leader Lal Krishna] Advani comprises the same individuals that have been active within the BJP for the six years that the party was in power. With Vajpayee too ill to any more participate in political activity, it’s become the responsibility of Advani to try and engineer a comeback for the BJP. But thus far, his preferred strategy has been to walk out (with other BJP MPs) from Parliament, giving the government an opportunity for opposition-free passage of legislation.”

He goes on to talk speculate about some possible personnel changes at the top of the party:

“Although there’s been talk that Advani will soon be asked to leave by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh -- the Hindu organisation that supplies the BJP with more than 80% of its cadres -- the chances are he’ll remain as “Chairperson" of the BJP in Parliament, and hand over his office as Leader of the Opposition to a trusted confidant, the female MP Sushma Swaraj. Other Advani supporters, such as former BJP President V Naidu and former Minister A Kumar, are likely to play key roles in the "post-Advani" dispensation.”

But he added the party is still its own worst enemy:

“While Vajpayee's belief that Sonia Gandhi was an asset to the BJP proved to be untrue in 2004 and again in 2009, it seems clear the present BJP leadership is the most potent asset in the armoury of the ruling Congress Party. Small wonder that the Manmohan Singh government seemed to go off for a well-deserved siesta soon after winning the elections.