Reluctant gambler hits Indian jackpot
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - After a fortnight of intense backroom bartering and two days of
heated parliamentary debate, India's United Progressive Alliance (UPA)
government has won a vote of confidence in parliament by 275 to 256, with 10
abstentions. The thumbs-up will give the government a fresh lease of life. It
also gives Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the go-ahead to push the India-United
States civilian nuclear agreement to its conclusion.
In the end, the UPA government won the vote by a convincing margin. It has a
mandate from parliament now on the nuclear deal. With the vote behind him, the
prime minister will now step on the gas to take the nuclear agreement forward.
Manmohan, generally viewed as a weak and unassertive prime
minister, has emerged from the vote as a tough leader, who is willing to take
risks. If in 1991 he, as finance minister, took the requisite steps to put
India on the path of economic liberalization, he has proved now that he will
risk his post and the government to persevere with the nuclear agreement to end
India's nuclear isolation. So far looked on as a quiet, respected but reticent
economist-turned-reluctant politician, Manmohan has emerged from Tuesday's vote
as a strategist and a smart politician.
But he and his government have come out of the contest with their image
tainted. Over the past fortnight, unprincipled alliances were forged,
ministerial portfolios and election tickets were dangled and huge sums of money
were reported to have been offered to win support. It did seem that the
government was willing to adopt any means to assure its survival.
If speculation over the cash-for-votes wasn't bad enough, ugly scenes of cash
flashing in parliament followed on Tuesday. Less than an hour before the prime
minister was to give his concluding speech in Parliament, three members of
parliament (MPs) of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emptied a bag
of currency notes, alleging that they had been offered around $2 million by the
UPA's new ally, the Samajwadi Party (SP) to vote with the government.
Although the allegations are yet to be substantiated and were obviously an
attempt by the BJP to scuttle the vote and embarrass the government, still it
has left a blot on the UPA government.
The government might have won the vote but it is hardly in a position to
celebrate, leave alone heave a sigh of relief.
Winning the vote was the easy part. It will have to deliver on the promises it
made to the MPs to win their backing and give them the portfolios that were
promised. The support on which the government is standing today is based not on
shared ideology or programmatic understanding but on rank opportunism. It is a
matter of time before the MPs who were lured with portfolios and election
nominations return to demand more. Clearly, the government is standing on very
shaky legs.
If the Congress and the UPA have emerged from the vote with their image
tainted, the other parties - the BJP, the left, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)
and the other smaller parties are hardly smelling of roses. After all, with the
exception of the left, all the parties were busy poaching support and engaging
in horse-trading.
But for the BSP, which managed to use the current political maneuvering to sew
up some smart alliances that could propel it to a major role in the next
government, the others have lost out in the recent crisis.
The left is in the doghouse for having triggered off the political crisis in
the first place. It has severely undermined its secular credentials by joining
hands with the right-wing BJP to bring down the UPA.
But it is the BJP which has emerged the biggest loser. Ironically, this was the
party that was expected to gain the most when the crisis erupted. It was
expected to win in elections in the event of the government falling.
Believing it would win in a snap poll, it opposed the deal to bring down the
government. That was an unprincipled about-turn. After all it was the BJP that
took the first steps on the nuclear agreement when it initiated the strategic
dialogue with the US after the 1998 nuclear tests. Its bid to scuttle the
agreement has not gone down well with its urban, middle-class supporters.
Worse, when the BSP made rapid gains in sewing alliances, the BJP realized that
its chances in a snap poll would not be quite as bright as it had originally
calculated. This prompted it to soften its effort to bring down the government.
During the debate in parliament, its assault on the government wasn't
aggressive enough. Obviously, the prospect of the electoral battle that lay
beyond the vote and outside parliament loomed.
With the numbers game slowly swinging in favor of the government - abstentions
among its ranks and that of its allies was being reported - it appears to have
decided to go down maligning the UPA. Hence the dramatic allegations of bribery
on the floor of the house ahead of the vote. But even this drama could go
against it as the cash-flashing in parliament has been seen by many as
disrespect to the dignity of parliament.
The smirk on the face of its leaders visible in the run-up to the vote has
suddenly vanished.
The UPA has its work cut out for the next few months. An investigation into the
bribery charges is likely and should that prove the bribery allegations, the
vote will be a pyrrhic victory.
In the short lease of life it has got with the vote, it will have to rush and
act on inflation and rising prices. It doesn't have a chance of electoral
victory if it goes to the polls in the present economic situation.
Meanwhile, it will be hoping that its efforts on the nuclear agreement will be
fruitful so that it can hold it up as among its achievements.
Under the India-US nuclear agreement, India, a nuclear weapon power that is not
a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), can access nuclear
reactors, technology and fuel. It will end India's 30-year long nuclear
isolation in return for India opening up its civilian nuclear facilities to
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)inspections. By defying the left and
pressing ahead with the nuclear agreement and by risking a vote, the UPA has
earned itself some brownie points. It has signaled commitment to ending India's
nuclear isolation, improving its energy security and enhancing its stature on
the international stage.
The coming months will be action packed as it works to push the agreement
through.
The immediate challenge before the government is winning the approval of the
IAEA board of governors on the India-specific safeguards agreement. India has
convened a formal meeting of the IAEA Secretariat in Vienna on July 25 to brief
all member-states on the technical aspects of the proposed India-specific
safeguards agreement. The IAEA board is slated to meet on August 1 to discuss
and possibly approve the safeguards agreement.
Approval by the IAEA board is unlikely to be difficult, say officials.
However, Pakistan, one of the 35 members on the board is reported to be
blocking a consensus. It has raised a technical point that the nuclear
facilities to be brought under safeguards have not been listed in the annexures
of the agreement finalized with India. It has raised objections to the urgency
being shown in Vienna to push the India-specific safeguards agreement, reports
Indian Express.
If a consensus cannot be reached, it can be voted on but India is keen to avoid
a vote. If there is a vote, IAEA member states that have strong positions on
non-proliferation and are also members of the NSG "will be forced to take
positions on the Indo-US nuclear deal. This, in turn, can have adverse fallout
in the NSG where these countries would be bound by a public stand [taken in the
IAEA]. Since NSG takes its decisions only by way of consensus, a lack of
flexibility may escalate problems for US interlocutors who will be making the
case for India [in the NSG]," points out Indian Express.
The going will not be easy in the NSG but if India gets its nod - the US,
France, Russia and others are expected to push India's case at the NSG - the
agreement will go back to the US Congress for an up-down vote. The US
Congressional calendar might not have the requisite number of working days left
to clear the deal before US President George W Bush's tenure expires in January
2009.
Like the nuclear deal which is running up against a time constraint, the UPA is
running on borrowed time. Analysts are giving it another couple of months of
survival at the maximum. The supportive legs on which the government stands are
expected to crumble soon.
It is likely that the government will dissolve parliament in September and call
for elections in November. That will be about six months before its term ends.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
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