Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 08, 2007
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Online edition of India's National Newspaper Saturday, Sep 08, 2007 ePaper |
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Front Page
P. S. Suryanarayana
SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh “is wasting a lot of his time and political resources” by being “completely obsessed with the nuclear [energy] deal” with the United States. Sensing Dr. Singh’s political “behaviour” of this magnitude as an “akratic” phenomenon, N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, said here on Friday that the government “looks like a one-horse, one- trick pony.” In a roundtable session, organised by the Singapore-based Institute of South Asian Studies and the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Mr. Ram said: “In Greek philosophy, I think, it is known as akrasia: you don’t do the right thing, although you know. You know that it is wrong, and yet you do it. Why? You can apply it to politics, his [Dr. Singh’s] behaviour is akratic.” Tracing the political context in which the nuclear energy deal seemed to be a bee in the Government’s bonnet, Mr. Ram said: “In the next few months you will see this drama progressing, going to the next stage or act or whatever – maybe, even some kind of denouement.” The crisis for the survival of this government “has been put off” for now. But, if its term were to get aborted, “a late abortion, perhaps,” then “this introduces a large degree of completely avoidable political uncertainty, if not instability in India.” And, “who is going to champion this deal after the term of this government? This is a big question that hangs over us,” given that the divisions over the U.S-India “123 Agreement” had already made the parties on both the Right and Left spectrums of politics “hot under the collar.” And, “in the next elections, whether they come in 2008 or 2009, we are going to have surprises.” Obsessed with the nuclear deal, the present government “has missed out on other things where it has done well.” Citing the employment guarantee scheme, in which the government had some results to show, and the Right to Information Act, which “is mightily popular in India,” Mr. Ram said Dr. Singh “has still got a couple of years or little less than two years,” in the normal course, to address the rural crisis. On Dr. Singh’s handling of the crisis over the 123 Agreement itself, Mr. Ram said, “It makes no sense to exclude the main Opposition party in Parliament … from decision-making on what is seen as such a strategic issue.” With this comment, he agreed with Vikram Khanna, Business Times Associate Editor, who chaired the roundtable session, that the Indian political parties were “making a song and dance” about the nuclear deal. Mr. Ram, who was in Singapore on his way back from China where he had gone to participate in a bilateral quasi-official working group meeting, said: “I can assure you that there is no great anxiety, no great concern about the stability of [China-India] relationship, even if there are specific concerns on India’s trade deficit [and] China’s attitude towards the nuclear deal. But these are easily handled, if you have this kind of vision [as displayed by Dr. Singh] that seeks to open up with China. The two-way trade this year between India and China is expected to reach a level of $30 billion, which is far ahead of what was projected earlier on. There are concerns about the structure of this trade, India largely exports raw material, mainly iron ore to China, and China exports manufactured goods, and the new economy needs to be enhanced in this trade relationship on both sides. And, if you include Hong Kong, and Macau, and if you are following the one-China policy [and] if you [therefore] include Taiwan, then China is already India’s largest trade partner.” On “what is often branded as a quadrilateral relationship that is emerging, led by the United States and [including] India, Japan, and Australia,” Mr. Ram noted that “it dominates much of the political discussion on strategic areas as well as the media columns.” “Some Chinese observers have raised the question: ‘Why would you need aircraft carriers [for the current naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal] if there was no target? Is China the target?’ But they are not hot under the collar. Most serious analysts and policy-makers in China have figured out that there is nothing really menacing about it, and yet it sends signals that, I think, are avoidable.” Shining the spotlight on the various “visions” on the Indian political scene about the phenomenon of “a rising India,” Mr. Ram said: “We are on the up [as a nation], there is no question about it in many respects, but politically speaking, we haven’t quite got our act together.”
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