Is Prakash Karat, the CPM’s cerebral general-secretary, opposing the Indo-US nuclear deal at China’s behest? The insinuation is nonsensical. And dangerous too. True, dogmatic anti-Americanism has been the bane of the Left, just as its blind anti-BJPism is. But to suggest, as is being done through a systematic whisper campaign across the country, that the communists are working as “Chinese agents” in trying to scuttle the deal is itself to exhibit anti-communist dogma and prejudice.
According to one commentator, “The main beneficiaries of the deal getting delayed, from a strategic point of view, are China and Pakistan — in that order. So whose interests are we protecting?” Another expert has opined, “The choice presented to India is stark and simple. Either India integrates itself with the global powers or it isolates itself to be dominated by China and perpetually countervailed by Pakistan.”
The unstated accusation in these opinions is that the Left parties, helped strangely by the BJP, are serving the interests of China and Pakistan. As far as the BJP is concerned, nobody will take this charge seriously. But it is baseless, even with regard to the communists. I believe Sitaram Yechury, CPM’s intelligent and articulate politburo member, when he says, “Our position on the nuclear deal is neither pro-China nor pro-Pakistan, but pro-India.”
True, the communists have committed big blunders in the past by giving precedence to their ideology over India’s national interests. They kept mum when China and the now-defunct Soviet Union stockpiled nuclear weapons, whereas they strongly opposed Pokharan II. But to claim, as one major newspaper did editorially, that Karat and his comrades are “untouched by history” is plain silly.
A telling example shows how history has forced them to shed their rigidity on the nuclear issue and embrace India’s national interests. In May 2004, the newly formed UPA formulated its Common Minimum Programme, with Yechury playing a major role in its drafting. The CMP unambiguously committed the government and the Left to “maintaining India’s credible nuclear weapons programme”. Wasn’t this a big shift from the CPM’s earlier strident opposition to the Vajpayee government’s doctrine of “minimum credible nuclear deterrence”?
Even in the current debate, the communists have rightly questioned Dr Manmohan Singh’s indirect acceptance, in a bilateral agreement with the US, of Washington’s stand on future nuclear tests by India. Like the BJP, they too view it as an assault on our sovereignty.
Karat’s principal opposition to the nuclear deal is on account of its long-term implications for India’s independent foreign policy. Here, too, the Left is right in saying that the prime minister has been less than transparent about the strategic dimensions of the deal. Why is he pretending that it is only about nuclear energy, when most of those supporting it are telling us how the deal will help India gain a place at the “global high table” and how it will prevent China’s “unipolarity” in Asia?
These claims are based on President George Bush’s patronising promise of assisting India to become “a big power”. And when Singh himself praises Bush as “the friendliest US president”, one must know that they have discussed, and agreed upon, something more than additional megawatts of nuclear energy in power-starved India.
What could it be? Washington’s objectives are two-fold: firstly, to draw India into the NPT regime, which every Indian government in the past had rejected as discriminatory; and, secondly, to prop up India as a counter to China in its strategy of “containment of Beijing”. The latter has dangerous implications. Why should we needlessly antagonise China by yielding to a tight American embrace? In dealing with China, we should never lose sight of our present weaknesses and vulnerabilities. China, unlike the US, is our neighbour. And it never pays to have an outsider meddle in our neighbourly ties, especially when we have an unresolved border dispute. Also, unlike the US, whose global power is already waning, China, along with India, is a rising power in Asia and the world.
It is ironical that the very same party that once created ‘Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai’ euphoria is now insidiously whipping up anti-China hysteria. India paid a price then, and might well do so again if we do not play our cards carefully.
It’s high time we defined India’s long-term national interests in a sound and mature way, from our own independent perspective. Let our three major political constituents — Congress, BJP and Left — collaborate in building a new consensus on our foreign policy and strategic defence, based on India’s age-old and universally relevant civilisational values. We should make friends with every country in the world. But let us not fall prey to the guiles of a friend who terrorises much of the rest of the world and is unwilling to learn history’s lessons. What else can one say about Bush who, in trying to shore up dwindling domestic support for his country’s occupation and butchery in Iraq, has callously counted the “benefits” of the previous US wars in Japan, Korea and Vietnam, which claimed millions of lives?
If Dr Manmohan Singh counts this trigger-happy cowboy from Texas as India’s best friend, we all have something huge to worry about.
According to one commentator, “The main beneficiaries of the deal getting delayed, from a strategic point of view, are China and Pakistan — in that order. So whose interests are we protecting?” Another expert has opined, “The choice presented to India is stark and simple. Either India integrates itself with the global powers or it isolates itself to be dominated by China and perpetually countervailed by Pakistan.”
The unstated accusation in these opinions is that the Left parties, helped strangely by the BJP, are serving the interests of China and Pakistan. As far as the BJP is concerned, nobody will take this charge seriously. But it is baseless, even with regard to the communists. I believe Sitaram Yechury, CPM’s intelligent and articulate politburo member, when he says, “Our position on the nuclear deal is neither pro-China nor pro-Pakistan, but pro-India.”
True, the communists have committed big blunders in the past by giving precedence to their ideology over India’s national interests. They kept mum when China and the now-defunct Soviet Union stockpiled nuclear weapons, whereas they strongly opposed Pokharan II. But to claim, as one major newspaper did editorially, that Karat and his comrades are “untouched by history” is plain silly.
A telling example shows how history has forced them to shed their rigidity on the nuclear issue and embrace India’s national interests. In May 2004, the newly formed UPA formulated its Common Minimum Programme, with Yechury playing a major role in its drafting. The CMP unambiguously committed the government and the Left to “maintaining India’s credible nuclear weapons programme”. Wasn’t this a big shift from the CPM’s earlier strident opposition to the Vajpayee government’s doctrine of “minimum credible nuclear deterrence”?
Even in the current debate, the communists have rightly questioned Dr Manmohan Singh’s indirect acceptance, in a bilateral agreement with the US, of Washington’s stand on future nuclear tests by India. Like the BJP, they too view it as an assault on our sovereignty.
Karat’s principal opposition to the nuclear deal is on account of its long-term implications for India’s independent foreign policy. Here, too, the Left is right in saying that the prime minister has been less than transparent about the strategic dimensions of the deal. Why is he pretending that it is only about nuclear energy, when most of those supporting it are telling us how the deal will help India gain a place at the “global high table” and how it will prevent China’s “unipolarity” in Asia?
These claims are based on President George Bush’s patronising promise of assisting India to become “a big power”. And when Singh himself praises Bush as “the friendliest US president”, one must know that they have discussed, and agreed upon, something more than additional megawatts of nuclear energy in power-starved India.
What could it be? Washington’s objectives are two-fold: firstly, to draw India into the NPT regime, which every Indian government in the past had rejected as discriminatory; and, secondly, to prop up India as a counter to China in its strategy of “containment of Beijing”. The latter has dangerous implications. Why should we needlessly antagonise China by yielding to a tight American embrace? In dealing with China, we should never lose sight of our present weaknesses and vulnerabilities. China, unlike the US, is our neighbour. And it never pays to have an outsider meddle in our neighbourly ties, especially when we have an unresolved border dispute. Also, unlike the US, whose global power is already waning, China, along with India, is a rising power in Asia and the world.
It is ironical that the very same party that once created ‘Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai’ euphoria is now insidiously whipping up anti-China hysteria. India paid a price then, and might well do so again if we do not play our cards carefully.
It’s high time we defined India’s long-term national interests in a sound and mature way, from our own independent perspective. Let our three major political constituents — Congress, BJP and Left — collaborate in building a new consensus on our foreign policy and strategic defence, based on India’s age-old and universally relevant civilisational values. We should make friends with every country in the world. But let us not fall prey to the guiles of a friend who terrorises much of the rest of the world and is unwilling to learn history’s lessons. What else can one say about Bush who, in trying to shore up dwindling domestic support for his country’s occupation and butchery in Iraq, has callously counted the “benefits” of the previous US wars in Japan, Korea and Vietnam, which claimed millions of lives?
If Dr Manmohan Singh counts this trigger-happy cowboy from Texas as India’s best friend, we all have something huge to worry about.