Indian left embraces 'nuclear nationalism' By Praful Bidwai
NEW DELHI - Confronted with stiff opposition to the US-India
nuclear-cooperation deal from the supporting parties of the left, Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh's minority government has initiated talks with
communist leaders to create a "mechanism" to resolve mutual differences.
However, the talks have not yet produced agreement on the mechanism, other than
acceptance that it should be a committee of political leaders that can invite
scientists and other experts for consultations. Nor is it clear that the
government will put on hold
further steps for completing and implementing the deal, as the left demands.
The committee will discuss objections to the nuclear deal raised by the left on
the ground that it will draw India into the US strategic orbit. It will also
examine to what extent a law on nuclear cooperation with India, passed last
December by the US Congress, called the Henry J Hyde Act, meets India's
concerns about sovereign control over its nuclear activities.
Unless agreement is reached on these thorny issues, the left has warned of
"serious political consequences" if Manmohan's United Progressive Alliance
(UPA) government goes ahead with deal. The left-wing parties' 59 members of
Parliament are crucial for the government's survival in the 543-member Lower
House.
It is not clear whether the left will go to the extent of withdrawing support
from the UPA, let alone vote against it and topple it. Under India's
constitution, an international treaty or agreement does not need Parliament's
approval for ratification. A cabinet resolution is enough.
But withdrawal of support by the left would seriously weaken the Congress
Party-led UPA and possibly lead to elections well before the Manmohan Singh
government completes its five-year term in May 2009.
Talks on setting up the "mechanism", being conducted between the government and
each of the four main left-wing parties, are expected to be completed in the
next few days. Whatever their outcome, it is plain that the fate of the nuclear
deal in India hangs on its domestic politics.
Meanwhile, indications of qualified support for the deal have come from an
unexpected quarter: the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main
opposition group.
On Sunday, BJP veteran and leader of the opposition L K Advani told the
influential Indian Express newspaper that his party would have no objection to
the nuclear deal if the government amends domestic laws to ensure India's
strategic autonomy and continuity in supplies of nuclear fuel for Indian
reactors. Advani has been keen to distance the traditionally pro-US BJP from
the left, which opposes a "strategic partnership" between the United States and
India.
He criticized the left for its "anti-Americanism" and said: "So far as the BJP
is concerned, we have no objection to a strategic partnership with the US. This
includes the forthcoming joint naval exercises."
Starting on Tuesday, the Indian Navy is to participate in large-scale exercises
off India's east coast, involving 20 ships from the US, Australia, Japan,
Singapore and India. The US alone is sending in 13 warships, and the left has
decided to protest against them strongly.
Ironically, what might get the BJP to support the deal is a formula proposed by
a Communist Party (Marxist - CPM) leader. Under this formula, the Indian
government would insure itself against a sudden termination of nuclear
cooperation by the US or other countries by enacting a "domestic Hyde Act".
This would prohibit the transfer of imported nuclear equipment or material out
of India if such transfer affects the continuous operation of Indian reactors.
Such an arrangement would take care of the Indian concern that the US might
suddenly stop nuclear supplies if India conducts a nuclear test, and that
Washington would have the right to demand the return of nuclear equipment and
material exported to India. This is mandated by domestic US laws, including the
Hyde Act.
"This is nuclear nationalism, which links national sovereignty with the
possession of mass-destruction weapons and one's unhampered ability to amass
them," said M V Ramana, an independent nuclear expert based in Bangalore. "This
is an unhealthy, even dangerous, doctrine. But unfortunately, it has become the
dominant public discourse in India. Even the left does not demarcate itself
sharply from it."
India's left-wing parties criticize the nuclear deal primarily on two grounds:
it will undermine independence in the making of foreign and security policy
through India's strategic embrace of the US, and it will erode India's autonomy
in running its nuclear program, including the freedom to test nuclear weapons.
It is only peripherally or in passing that the Indian left mentions the nuclear
deal for its likely negative regional and global impact on disarmament and
peace, and for its promotion of nuclear power, a highly controversial form of
energy generation.
"This is a deeply contradictory position," said Ramana. "The left alone among
India's political parties condemned the 1998 nuclear blasts and demanded that
India and Pakistan roll back their weapons programs. The left parties also
oppose further nuclear testing. So it's sad that they should now pander to
nuclear nationalism by criticizing the nuclear deal on grounds of sovereignty."
However, it is not clear that the left-wing parties will carry out the implicit
threat to withdraw support from the UPA if the alliance pushes ahead with the
deal. Collectively, the left's leadership is under twin pressures. The smaller
leftist parties, including the Communist Party of India, the Forward Bloc and
the Revolutionary Socialist Party, pull in the direction of ending support to
the UPA on grounds of foreign and economic policy.
There is pressure from the opposite direction from the left's dominant party,
the CPM, in particular its West Bengal unit, which is turning conservative
through its embrace of neo-liberal economics.
"The Bengal leadership enjoys a cozy relationship with the UPA and does not
want to upset the apple cart," said Rajat Roy, a Kolkata-based political
analyst and keen observer of the left, which has ruled the state for fully 30
years.
"The Left Front did brilliantly in the 2006 state legislature elections,
winning 235 of 294 seats. It knows that its tally of votes and seats is likely
to decline in a mid-term election. It wants to avert such an eventuality right
now," Roy said.
If national elections were held now, opinion polls have forecast a decline in
the number of leftist members of Parliament, from the current 59 to between 39
and 43. This is likely to have a sobering impact on the left-wing leadership.
Equally important, the UPA has quietly, if temporarily, shelved its plans to
negotiate a special safeguards (inspections) protocol with the International
Atomic Energy Agency in September, when its plenary meets in Vienna. Instead,
the government will take up the issue in November, thus giving itself more time
to work out a compromise with the left.
Manmohan has also declined a special invitation by US President George W Bush
to a meeting at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. This is meant to signal that his
government is prepared to make some distance from Washington.
However, uncertainties remain. Will the left be satisfied with a "domestic Hyde
Act" or insist on other assurances? Will the UPA suspend further steps in
completing the deal, and for how long? What is clear is that the primary
determinants of the deal's fate will be domestic.
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