Tehran builds bridges with India's
left By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - Having failed to impress New
Delhi over the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) vote, Tehran is looking at the next best
option - working on India's left parties, on whose
support the Congress Party-led Manmohan Singh
government survives.
The left parties have
virulently criticized the government for its
anti-Iran vote at the IAEA, which could result in
Tehran being brought before the United Nations
Security Council over its nuclear program, and
have threatened to launch countrywide agitation.
Last week, leaders of the left parties met the
prime minister in protest.
Recognizing the
key role that the left plays in sustaining the
government, senior
Iranian diplomats in the capital have been meeting
with left party leaders, praising their stand as
well as impressing on them that pressure should be
built on the government ahead of the November 25
IAEA board meeting that will decide whether Iran
should be referred to the UN for possible
sanctions.
The Congress Party-led United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) cannot survive without
left support. In the 2004 general elections, the
Congress won 145 seats out of the total 539
declared results in parliament, so it could only
muster a majority with the support of the Left
Front, which won 64 seats.
The UPA relies
on a few other like-minded parties, such as the
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) to total more than the
requisite 270 seats to continue in power. While
the Congress also has the outside support of other
regional outfits, such as the Samajwadi Party
(SP)and the Bahujan Samaj Party, there is no way
that the other parties could prop up the
government should the left parties decide to
withdraw support. The opposition Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) won 138 seats. Tehran senses the
predicament. A senior Iranian diplomat met the
Communist Party of India (CPI) national secretary
D Raja on Wednesday at the party headquarters in
the capital. The CPI is a prominent left party.
While a CPI leader described the Iranian
diplomat's visit as a "casual interaction", it is
safe to assume that the meeting could only be very
serious.
A spokesperson of the Iranian
Embassy in Delhi told Asia Times Online, "Several
officials of the Iranian Embassy have been meeting
left party leaders, but we are not in a position
to tell the nature of the interactions or the
officials who have been speaking." According to
reports, Iranian first secretary (political)
Siamok Burhani and a couple more officials who met
Raja had detailed discussions on the nuclear issue
and were given a copy of the left's note on
Delhi's vote at the IAEA. Burhani is said to have
praised the left for supporting the Iranian case.
The meeting with Raja comes ahead of a similar
meeting with the Communist Party of India -
Marxist (CPI - M) , another prominent left party.
There are efforts to develop direct linkages with
Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist Party
that form part of the left front.
According to some reports, Tehran is also
looking to build bridges with other political
outfits in India, especially those that enjoy
considerable Muslim support, playing on
pan-Islamic sentiments. The SP, which has the
backing of Muslims in the large state of Uttar
Pradesh, has already severely ridiculed New Delhi
on the anti-Iran vote. The effort is also to rope
in the RJD, a key coalition partner, with a
sizeable Muslim base in another important state of
Bihar, where state elections are due later this
month.
It will not be easy for New Delhi
to balance interests, though Manmohan has received
full backing of the core group of the Congress
Party, comprising top ministers and leaders,
including power-behind-the-throne, Sonia Gandhi,
on the IAEA vote. Some members have expressed
fears that Muslim support for the Congress may be
affected, but such suggestions have been brushed
aside.
Delhi's vote at the IAEA was a
reaction to hearings in the US Congress on a
proposed India-US nuclear pact that will see India
receive US assistance in developing its civil
nuclear program. The possibility of the deal being
blocked was emphasized in recent meetings of
Indian leaders with President George W Bush and
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. By voting
against Iran, New Delhi saved a key element of
foreign policy - India's new-found high with
Washington, which has termed as "very significant"
India's anti-Iran vote. Bush even called Manmohan
and thanked him.
In November, however, New
Delhi may find the going much more difficult. With
Tehran prodding the left, it could turn out to be
a battle for New Delhi's survival if it chooses to
go with the US-EU combine to take Iran to the UN.
Prakash Karat, the general secretary of
the most prominent left party, the CPI - M, has
sounded the bugle: "Just a few days of sustained
American pressure has led the Manmohan Singh
government to cave in ... Unlike India, Iran is a
signatory of the [nuclear] Non-Proliferation
Treaty and there is nothing substantial in the
charges of violation and concealment leveled
against it as revealed in the reports submitted by
the IAEA inspections ... The stark truth is that
India, in an unconscionable step, has ranged
itself with the US and the Western powers and
broken ranks with the non-aligned countries ...
The prime minister is directly responsible for
this state of affairs. The left parties cannot
countenance this new direction of foreign policy
... By the next board meeting of the IAEA in
November, the Indian government will have to undo
the damage done."
New Delhi tired of
left dictates The Manmohan government is
clearly tired of left dictates. This is not the
first time that the left parties have taken
umbrage at New Delhi's policy leanings. They have
given a tough time on economic reforms, including
privatization of airports and foreign direct
investment in the retail sector, even calling
nationwide strikes in protest.
Despite
intervention by Sonia Gandhi, the issue of
disinvestment of public-sector equipment-maker
Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited remains
deadlocked. The left also has problems with
foreign investment in other sectors, as well as
employee pension and provident-fund reforms.
Though some of the criticism is well founded,
there is a growing feeling, especially in
government, that the left parties want to make
matters difficult by design. This includes the
possible formation of a third front government
without the Congress and the BJP, which the left
dislikes even more.
According to some
observers, the left criticism is rooted in its
ideology (even if outdated) rather than the
pragmatic approach of Indian policy makers. Such
opposition would not have been forthcoming if
India had inked similar agreements with Russia or
China, which would be seen as a victory of Marxist
thought over capitalist and imperialist forces. It
is another matter that China has embraced
capitalism with a vigor that was never envisioned
by its communist founders.
Earlier this
year, the left parties raised a major row on a
defense agreement that India and the US signed. In
a statement the CPI - M said the pact would only
help serve US strategic goals in Asia and "was
fraught with serious consequences" for the
country's strategic and security interests. "If
this agreement is carried forward, India will be
placing itself in the same category as Japan,
South Korea and the Philippines, all traditional
military allies of the United States," the
statement said.
Many see the shrill left
opposition as more to do with practical politics.
The states of West Bengal and Kerala will be
electing new governments soon. Most of the 64
seats that the left holds in parliament are from
these regions. The Congress and the left parties
will be fighting a head-to-head battle in the
elections, which makes the support of the left to
the Congress in Delhi a little piquant.
The two sides will have to present
different agendas to the people of the states.
While there is a strong constituency that supports
economic reforms, there is equal opposition to the
same by sections that belong to trade unions of
government organizations, as well as farmers and
peasants in the hinterland yet unaffected by
growth and reforms. A firm anti-US stand also goes
down well with them, given the socialist/Marxist
leanings of power to the people as against the
individual.
The left realizes that
economic reforms are important. It is a paradox
that the government of West Bengal, a left bastion
for long, has been rooting for foreign capital to
boost the state's economy, in contrast to the
stand of the party in Delhi. But, public posturing
is a different calling.
The question,
however, is whether the left's criticism will
result in curtailing New Delhi's policy decisions,
including India-US relations. While the government
has been trying to mollycoddle the left, the
Manmohan-Sonia combine has been pushed into a
corner.
Some observers say that the battle
between the two coalition partners will only
become more apparent, with the government going
for an all or nothing approach and general
elections as a last resort. The one soubriquet
that the Manmohan government will detest is being
lame duck.
There are many indications to
suggest that the government wants to stick to its
guns on the Iran issue. On the other hand, like in
the past, it might simply capitulate to the left
again, to survive another day.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New
Delhi-based journalist.
(Copyright
2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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