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“National interest vs. U.S. strategic partnership”

VISAKHAPATNAM: The Left parties hope that the Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement will not be operationalised until the findings of the UPA-Left committee, set up to look into it, are considered.

Expressing this view at a meet-the-press organised by the Vizag Journalists’ Forum on Saturday, Communist Party of India general secretary A.B. Bardhan said: “We have pointed out that the agreement is in the shadow of the Hyde Act of the U.S. and reached only with a view to prevailing over the 123 agreement.” This would affect India’s sovereignty and independence.

Pointing out that the UPA had the mandate to reverse the National Democratic Alliance government’s policies and that it was based on the common minimum programme (CMP), he, however, said the issue was not one of confrontation. The actual confrontation was between the national interest, on the one hand, and the U.S. strategic partnership, on the other. “We cannot change our policy to base it on the fulcrum of Indo-U.S. partnership.”

The CPI leader, who was here leading a jatha from Kolkata to protest against the joint naval exercises with the U.S. and other countries in the Bay of Bengal, said the U.S. Navy had contributed 13 warships, including the infamous Kitty Hawk, which threatened the Bangladesh freedom struggle. The Indian Navy contributed seven ships and so had Japan and Australia.

Mr. Bardhan wondered why India was being dragged into this “strategic embrace” with the U.S. It was first agriculture, then industry, economic policies, foreign policy and finally defence. “Our tradition is an independent and non-aligned policy. Why is this given up?” In fact, when the Left signed the CMP, it was mentioned that the foreign policy would promote peace and oppose unilateralism, and that it would be independent, he said.

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