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The way forward for UPA and Left

Ten days after the United Progressive Alliance and the Left parties agreed to a mechanism to try and reconcile their differences on the civil nuclear deal between India and the United States, the rhetoric remains sharp on both sides. Hopefully, the recent war of words will not carry into the joint committee. For the effect of that will be to prevent the committee from honestly looking for a way out. The spin from the government side has been that the Left has a “hidd en China agenda.” For their part, sections of the Left have portrayed Manmohan Singh as tailing the United States and taking India into the American camp.

Consider the implications of this mutual name-calling: With the patriotic credentials of one half of the Lok Sabha — the half that commands a majority in the House — self-admittedly suspect, who would don the nationalist mantle by default? Of course, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. The situation is untenable. Having professedly come together in the national interest, the UPA and the Left can hardly use the same plank now to undermine each other. The UPA-Left rift on the deal is evident enough. Yet there are compelling reasons for both sides to find an acceptable middle ground that would preserve this alliance — for now and possibly for the future. Innuendo and insinuation can only enlarge the gulf between two sides whose interests, jumbo sound effects notwithstanding, converge more than they diverge.

That Indian negotiators fought long and hard to get us a deal that surpassed the most optimistic expectations is not in dispute. The reportage in this newspaper shows that as recently as April 2007, India and the U.S. remained deadlocked on key areas of cooperation. India refused to compromise, among other things, on lifetime fuel-supply guarantees for its reactors, the right to reprocess American-origin spent fuel and the right to have only IAEA, not bilateral, safeguards. The American attitude was typically arrogant: Why couldn’t India accept what was being given? Then came the virtual ultimatum — from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In a June 2007 meeting with U.S Under Secretary of States for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, he conveyed in the “clearest manner possible” that India was not budging from its position. The tough line had the desired effect, and the Indian side, overcoming near-insurmountable obstacles, produced a 123 agreement that was viewed by the world at large as tilting overmuch in India’s favour. This comment from the Strategic Security Blog, a project of the Federation of American Scientists, says it all: “In summary, there isn’t much of a deal here at all, India gets what it wants.” The Indian mood was reflected in the changed attitude of its scientific fraternity. Atomic Energy Commission chairman Anil Kakodkar and Principal Scientific Adviser to the government R. Chidambaram were not men easily pleased. Mr. Kakodkar’s earlier reservations were well known, and that is why the Indian government had him vet every clause and sub-clause of the 123 agreement. To the joy of the Indian side, the two key scientific figures gave the deal the thumbs up.

The point of recalling this sequence is simple: An Indian Prime Minister who held his ground and wrested a remarkable bargain for his country from the world’s only superpower could not also be a weakling who would mortgage his country’s interests to the same superpower. The notion that Dr. Singh would do less than the best for India must be rejected. At the same time, it is important to ask why the image persists — of a Prime Minister too closely aligned with the U.S. Clearly, this has to do at least in part with Dr. Singh’s self-acknowledged friendship with George Bush. The Prime Minister may have told off the U.S. administration via Mr. Burns, but how often is this related as part of the nuclear deal folklore? Hardly ever in contrast to the high recall value of Dr. Singh’s repeated pro-Bush pronouncements. The Prime Minister perhaps stated a truth when he described President Bush as the “friendliest towards India.” The current occupant of the White House has undoubtedly gone farther than any of his predecessors in doing right by India. Bill Clinton would consider no concessions in return for insisting that India get back into the non-proliferation regime.

However, from a global perspective, the Bush administration’s notoriety would be difficult to miss. President Bush may be friendly to India but it is a dark and sinister face that he shows to parts of the world: Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine are excruciating daily reminders of Team Bush’s self- righteous excesses. This brings us to that old, old question: Should India be content with pulling off a deal that is only good for India? Or should it harness this deal to spread its wings far and wide? A section of the Indian establishment certainly believes pragmatism should be the keystone of Indian foreign policy: Forget the world and act in your self-interest. But ultimately this is a self-limiting approach. If India has clinched a good bargain with the U.S. by virtue of being an emerging power, by that very argument, India must also prepare itself to play the role of a future world leader.

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen set this out powerfully in an essay — “India in the world” — he wrote for The Hindu’s 2007 Independence Day special edition. To quote: “What have we done over the last f ew decades to give shape to our global understanding of the world? I fear the answer has to be: not much. A country that never liked being confined to just minding its “own business,” seems now dedicated exclusively to that minding, pointedly excluding larger ideas and objectives. In fact, Indians seem to have become comprehensively sceptical of the “vision thing.” Curiously, Professor Sen named Dr. Singh, “with his deep personal interest in world affairs, his pioneering role in initiating economic reform that can be used not only in India but also in many other countries …”, as that one Prime Minister who could present the larger Indian vision to the world. The 123 agreement is good for India primarily because it frees India’s nuclear programme from the unfair restrictions of the past 33 years. Can there be a bigger opportunity than this, the end of our technological isolation, to revive our engagement with the “larger ideas and objectives” that once formed the core of our foreign policy vision?

The Left parties have concerns about the text of the 123 agreement. But they have greater concerns about the context of the agreement. If it is accepted that the agreement is good for India, the way to save the agreement is to decisively move the discourse away from the U.S. and President Bush. In Tarapur recently, Dr. Singh did make the point that India’s energy cooperation would eventually operate at multiple levels. Somehow, this vital aspect — which establishes the 123 agreement to be a mechanism in fact for shifting the focus from the U.S. to other countries — has not been stressed enough.

On the other hand, recent developments — New Delhi’s decision to host the USS Nimitz, the visit of the Japanese Prime Minister and the naval exercise of the quadrilateral group of Australia, Japan, India and the U.S — have combined to strengthen the impression that India sees itself as part of the U.S. strategic bloc. It is possibly just a coincidence that these events have come together. Yet this possible coincidence is unfortunately timed — virtually on the eve of the first meeting of the UPA-Left joint committee.

Today the Congress-led UPA finds itself at a critical juncture. It can go its separate way or it can devise a method to take the Left parties on board on the 123 agreement. The former course must appear attractive, especially in the context of recent opinion polls suggesting a near-majority for the UPA in a mid-term election. On the other hand, there is also the India Shining precedent. The NDA paid for its overconfidence with a resounding defeat. Significantly, the same polls also indicate two other things: One, the UPA has entered the anti-incumbency phase. And two, the nuclear deal is a non-issue with the people.

The next general election, whenever it is held, will be fought on bread and butter issues. And this is where the UPA-Left alliance becomes important. The Manmohan Singh government’s biggest achievements are on the social sector front — the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the Right to Information Act, 2005, and the Rajinder Sachar committee’s report on the status of Muslims. The first feedback on the NREGA suggests that it is already a success. The RTI has taken off on the ground and the government has decisively moved to implement the Sachar panel’s recommendations. The Congress must ask itself if any of this would have been possible without the support of the Left. The Left parties in turn must ask themselves if these achievements are worth sacrificing for the sake of an uncertain future with the entirely unpredictable United National Progressive Alliance.

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