Are India and Italy on a Collision Course

Anindito Mukherjee/European Pressphoto Agency A protest near the Italian embassy in New Delhi on Wednesday, against Italy’s refusal to send back two Italian marines charged with killing two Indian fishermen last year.

NEW DELHIâ€" A serious diplomatic incident appears to be brewing between India and Italy, at least as seen from this side of the Arabian Sea.

The Italian government said this week that it would not send two marines back to India to face a murder trial. The marines were granted permission to visit Italy to participate in elections on the basis of awritten pledge they would return, which was given to the Supreme Court of India by the Italian ambassador.

India’s government, politicians and media have reacted sharply to the news they are breaking their pledge to return to India. India’s relationship with Italy is shadowed by the fact that Sonia Gandhi, the ruling Congress Party president and one of the most powerful politicians in the country, was born in Italy.

The relationship is further complicated by a recent Italian investigation into bribery at Finmeccanica, which focuses on a helicopter deal with the Indian government. On Wednesday, the former chief of India’s air force was accused of corruption in connection with the deal.

As Congress Party politicians rushed to criticize Italy over the marines, the opposition rushed to blame the Indian National ! Congress party.

The Italian government’s decision to allow the marines to remain home violates “every rule of diplomatic discourse,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a speech on Wednesday in Parliament.

“Our government has already made it clear that these actions of the government of Italy are not acceptable,” he said. (The speech was also paraphrased on his Twitter feed.) “If they do not keep their word, there will be consequences for our relations with Italy,” he said.

Arun Jaitley, the leader of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party in the upper house of Parliament, called the incident the “first such case of state-sponsored deception and state-sponsored abduction.” He alleged that the Indian government was complicit in the situation.

The Italian ambassador to India, Daniele Mancini, told journalists Wednesday tht Italy wants to resolve this issue by “consensual means.”

Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, the two marines, face murder charges in the February 2012 shooting of two Indian fishermen who were on a fishing boat in the Arabian Sea, off the southern Indian coast. India said the shooting occurred in Indian waters, so any trial should occur in its country, while Italy contends that it happened in international waters.

In January, India’s Supreme Court ruled that the two men could be tried in India in a special federal court.

The marines were granted permission to go to Italy to celebrate Christmas, and they returned promptly. Earlier this year, they were granted permission to go to Italy again for four weeks to participate in national elections in late February.

The Italian Foreign Ministry told the Indian Foreign Ministry on Monday that the two men would not return.

“Italy takes this opportunity to inform the Indian government that, given the formal acknowl! edgement ! of an international dispute between the two states, Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone will not be returning to India upon expiration of the leave granted them,” the Italian government said in a statement.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs issued a relatively mild statement Tuesday in New Delhi saying the “government of India states firmly that it does not agree with the position conveyed by the Italian government on the return of the two marines to India.”

That now seems like an understatement, given Mr. Singh’s speech in Parliament on Wednesday.

Perhaps that’s because the national news dailies carried the story on their front pages Wednesday with belligerent headlines. “Italy’s betrayal on marines stus India,” The Hindustan Times said. The same paper called Italy’s decision an “undiplomatic sleight of hand” in an editorial, which concluded that “New Delhi should read the riot act to Rome over the deception in the case of the marines.”

The Times of India said that Italy’s ambassador “may get marching orders,” while an editorial chided the Indian government for being “a soft state.”