Ali.009
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A “Veer Chakkar” for Commodore Sureesh Mehta? He sank the pirate “mother ship”! If you read the Indian press, India and world is indebted to the heroism of Mr. Mehta. After all he sank the “mother ship”, surely he deserves India’s highest honor. According to the triumphalist Indian media the Mehta accomplishments is nothing less than the conquest of the Americas by the Conquistadors or the visit to Japan by Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry who forcibly compelled the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. Soon they will be building statues for Mehta. Perhaps even a status of Deity is in the works? Whats one more to 33 million?
The news story about the sinking of the “mother ships” reminds me of the wedding night when the husband kicks the dogs and shoots at the cat to scare the wife. She isn’t scared! This anecdote is called “Billee Maar”.
Heard the one about Mehta. He swatted 30 flies and wrote “I killed 30″ to scare the world. In the South Asian Subcontinent this parable is known as “Tees Maar Khan”
It is one of the most humorous kerfuffle that has ever happened in the annals of naval history. Foreign capitals from Beijing to Washington, from Mogadishu to Paris are laughing. The A tin-pot sailer Sureesh Mehta shoots at a bunch of starving scoundrels and tries to make a name for himself. A non-event is escalated to the level of an international incident. A dilapidated fisherman’s boat was sunk by Indian sailor Mehta which was promptly designated as “pirate mother ship“.
So what is a “mother ship“. It sounds very impressive bringing memories of alien discs and James Bond Stealth ships. This is how the Economic Times/India Times describes the “mother ship”.
So in actuality the “mother ship” was a simple trawler off the Somali Coast. According to the description by the Indian Navy it looks like a small dilapidated boat
A scourge that was believed to have taken shelter in comic books and movies has come back to haunt. But unlike bygone buccaneers, Somali pirates are well-armed and organized into two or three syndicates. They may halt maritime activity from the Indian Ocean into the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Insurance premiums for ships plying between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula have skyrocketed as much as 10-fold and additional costs could total US$400 million annually. A Times. Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
There is no independent confirmation that the “mother ship” had any real or imaginary “pirates” on it. Most of the ships in the area carry small arms to ward of stowaways and thiefs. After all Somalia is not the epitome of law and order. There is more sophisticated and real piracy in the Strait fo Malacca without one fourth of the international coverage this incident on the high seas has garnished. India is trying to use the piracy to establish itself as a Naval Power in the Asia Ocean known in India as the “India Ocean”.
The “frigate” of the Indian Navy was not more sophisticated than the mother ship itself. the INS Tabar is a pretty much a tug boat with a gun on board. The strangest part of the story was revealed by CNN. In a story that showed a heavy dose of skepticism, CNN reported ” India claims pirate ship sunk”. The key word for those who have Phds in semantics is “claims”. The statement by the spokesman of the Indian Navy also does not inspire much confidence.
(CNN) — An Indian warship has exchanged fire with a pirate “mother vessel” off the hijacking-plagued Horn of Africa, leaving the ship ablaze, an official said Wednesday.. Indian naval spokesman Nirad Sinha said: “Given the condition we left it in, it would have sunk by now,” he said.
Apparently the Indian ship fired on the “mother ship” and the IN claims that the pirates took off on speed-boats. Please note that in essence, the Indian Navy ship fled the scene and took off, too scared of the retaliation by the “mother ship”. There is no debris, no bodies, no trophies, only gossip and tall claims.
CNN downgraded the “incident” from “sinking the mothership’ to skirmish”.
These trawlers (of the mothership variety) have been traversing the Gulf of Aden for about 5000 years (give or take a few years). They have been active in piracy for at least that long, if not longer. The first title of this story was ‘Tin pot sailor sinks “pirate’ dingy: Indian ruse to fish in troubled waters”. If anyone had any doubts about India’s intentions, one has to see the antics of the Indian Navy in Somalia. A small incident has been elevated and embeleshed for political purposes. It took a little Indian frigate to make a big splash and raise the morale of the Super power India as World Power. The naval sinking tells the world a “new sheriff is in town”.
The “missile” that hit the traveler did not kill anyone. The pirates, if they were pirates escaped on this speed boats. The brave Mehta did not pursue or capture anything. We are sure world capitals called midnight meetings of their naval strategists to see how to counter the great presence of the Bad one–Commodore Mehta.
