Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: Sept. 2, 2007
As the Middle Kingdom celebrates a remarkable
foreign policy triumph achieved entirely by leveraging its hold on India's
internal affairs, we should be asking one fundamental question: Who governs
India? Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat?
It's always hazardous to prophesise the course
of Indian politics but the exultant body language of Messrs Karat, Yechuri
and Bardhan last Thursday suggested that the Communists knew they had won
their most famous victory since Non-Alignment mortgaged Indian foreign policy
to the Soviet Union.
The scale of the Communist victory should
not be minimised. First, regardless of all the brave talk of international
diplomacy resuming in November, it is safe to surmise that time-servers in
the Congress don't want the shadow of a snap poll looming over the UPA Government
for the remainder of its tenure. They will ensure that the nuclear issue is
not resurrected as long as the Communist threat persists. As far as they are
concerned, the grandstanding is not worth jeopardising the remaining months
in power at the Centre.
The Prime Minister's spin doctors have argued
that a temporary postponement does not materially affect the negotiations
at IAEA and with the NSG, but this is an optimism aimed purely at salvaging
the week's headlines. Manmohan's pathetic isolation within his own party will
become obvious regardless of Congress' acknowledgment of the merits of the
nuke deal.
Second, the Congress will be naïve in
believing that appeasement of the Left has secured peace and that subsequently
good-cop Yechury will prevail over bad-cop Karat. Adept at boxing above its
class, the August crisis has demonstrated to the Communists that it is possible
to win the ideological game without spilling blood. It is now certain that
the Left will now enlarge the battlelines to other spheres, viz economics,
education and social policy. Incredible India should be ready to confront
its most serious internal challenge.
Third, in taking on the threat of the Prime
Minister to withdraw and be damned, the Left has shown that it is the more
resolute player. Manmohan has not merely blinked, he has been forced to eat
humble pie. Already regarded as weak, his belated attempt to come across as
a decisive leader has come a cropper. Since failure is never a collective
responsibility, the Prime Minister has cleared many obstacles in the path
of his exit route. He looks set to go down in history as the leader who walked
on snow and left no footprints.
Finally, the Left has not merely won a famous
battle against "US imperialism", it has taken a giant leap towards
shedding a baggage that it has been forced to carry for decades: The taint
of being at odds with Indian nationalism and nationhood. This is a charge
that has dogged the Communist parties right from their inception. Exorcising
the movement of charges of extra-territoriality is, under the circumstances,
a stupendous gain.
Curiously, the CPI(M) didn't have to lift
a little finger to show that it is leading the charge to uphold Indian sovereignty
against foreign encroachments. Its work was done by those who nominally sit
in the Opposition benches in Parliament. The BJP's impression of reaffirming
a me-too Leftism -- driven, it would seem, by the need to proclaim the infallibility
of its spokesmen -- has unwittingly served as the most glowing testimonial
to Communist nationalism.
The debate over the Indo-US nuclear agreement
is not going to dominate the political discourse at the grassroots either
now or in the future. The next General Election, whenever it is held, will
be fought on bread and butter issues. However, the long-term effects of a
thwarted agreement will haunt India. Future historians may come to view August
2007 as the moment the political class stalled India's leap into the big league.
We may still get there but who will compensate for the lost time?
Still, magnanimity demands we shouldn't begrudge
the victory celebrations in our eastern and western neighbourhood. They have
shown that containing India is a remarkably low-cost option.
