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Tuesday, March 11, 2008

The Indo-US Nuclear Deal

Juvenile Delinquency as Ideology

Someone needs to explain to the dour and dyspeptic leaders of the Left that governance is a serious business, worlds apart from a JNU power play in student and teacher union politics. Many people in the government look upon them as recalcitrant juveniles, who must be mollycoddled and yet told firmly where to get off.

Take the most recent standoff on the civilian nuclear deal that the US is facilitating to enable India to end its isolation in the global community. Not being a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and having conducted several nuclear tests, India has been denied access to all manner of advanced technology, not just in the nuclear field but in every other sphere.At the turn of the millennium, egged on by its business community and the increasingly powerful lobby of Indian Americans, US policymakers decided it was important to engage with India. The Americans say they admire India’s democracy that has survived the pushes and pulls of its mind-boggling cultural diversity and has put its economy on a fast track that will benefit the whole world.

The Left’s commissars believe that the Americans have a devious intent, mostly to challenge China, their lord and God. Never mind that they don’t accept America’s stated intent at face value; they seem to have no faith in the Indian government, especially Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who they demonize as an agent of US imperialism. In May 2004, after Sonia Gandhi spurned the highest office in the land that was constitutionally hers, several left supporters were disappointed. “We admire her but her decision to make Manmohan Singh the Prime Minister is a betrayal,” a CPM activist told me.

Congress politicians have historically devised electoral strategies based on caste and religion; the so-called progressives, proudly wearing their Nehru and Indira loyalties on their sleeve have focused on Left ideology and turned to the Left for ideas and tactics. This is the main reason why the Congress has become a moribund formation: unable to fight the aggressive caste-based parties like the DMK and the BSP. The progressives within it have proved unequal to the task of formulating a new ideological charter, preferring instead to walk the primrose path to the socialist hell of corrupt governance and inept politics.

So now we have this conundrum: the progressives are with the Left in opposing the civilian nuclear deal; the traditional caste and religion based factions couldn’t care less, Meanwhile, the newly emergent force of young politicians have no say in what happens because both progressives and traditionalists in the party still value “seniority.” The Prime Minister’s Office is today the only truly pragmatic and visionary influence on policy; as such, it is, along with most informed and influential opinion in the country, the major supporter of the civilian nuclear agreement.

When family members fight among themselves, children have a field day; they play one off against the other and manage to scream and shout to be heard, hoping one or the other of the elders will support them. This is exactly what Prakash Karat and his band of juveniles are doing. When the Prime Minister recently spoke out in favor of the deal and the Delhi Chief Minister accused them of being agents of Beijing, they screamed and caterwauled, prompting the foreign minister to say what amounted to “there, there, children, we won’t do anything to hurt you.”

copyright: rajiv desai 2008

1 comment:

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