The ‘educated’ Indian elite were ecstatic. They crooned that India had ‘arrived’ as a premier naval power; that it had flexed its muscles in the cause of “global welfare” by fighting to eradicate the scourge of high seas piracy! When the truth came to light, the then Foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee, did not remedy or even apologise for the goof-up. He arrogantly justified the bungling. New Delhi took it with the nonchalance shown when poor Indian chaps become victims of stage-managed encounters or get gunned down by cops “by mistake”.

On July 10, an Indian dhow “Nefya”, carrying camels, sheep, and cattle, met the same misfortune of the Thai fishing trawler crew. Coincidentally, Nefya too had the same number of crew, 16; all of whom were Indians. Off Bosasso port in the Gulf of Aden waters, pirates seized the dhow to use as a mother-ship according to Andrew Mwangura, co-ordinator of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Program. (The pirates apparently decided to release all the livestock onboard which belonged to Somali businessmen.) In the wee hours of July 12, pirates in two skiffs, operating with the Nefya, opened fire on a Liberian-flagged very large crude carrier (VLCC ), the “A-Elephant”. The VLCC was almost identical to the Saudi-owned Sirius Star that Somali pirates hijacked in November 2008 and held for two months. A chopper based on the French warship Aconit, a part of the European Union’s naval force Atalanta, helped stop the attack. The merchant vessel was slightly damaged in the attack. Mercifully for the Nefya crew, the French warship had not torpedoed the ‘mother vessel’ as the Indian Navy had done.

The world press has moved on after the Indian ‘feat’, but the attacks continue. The reason why Somali fishermen turned into pirates in the first place is still very much an issue. The main factor has been the illegal dumping of toxic waste by many first world countries off the Somali coast, for the past two decades. Somalia has not had a functioning central government for 20 years and militia groups who control the coastline have little incentive to rein in in the pirates. Ransoms that started out in thousands of dollars have since climbed to the millions and Somali gunmen continue to defy foreign navies patrolling the Indian Ocean waters.

It is time India realised that policing, which costs billions of dollars, is neither the job of, nor within the capability of, this country. One third of this country's population lives in abject poverty. The powers that be will do well to stop chasing delusions of grandeur for the sake of enjoying the power that comes with it, which will only push them deeper into misery.