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A careful reading of the articles in this collection serves to expose thoroughly the groundless demonisation of the CPI(M) and the Left in general, and Karat in particular, that has been the stock-in-trade of much of both print and electronic journalism over recent months. While the collection includes a couple of articles presenting precise critical observations on the proposed India-U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, its unifying theme is the dangerous continuity in the foreign policies of both the BJP-led NDA and the Congress-led UPA, especially in relation to India-U.S. ties. In fact, the continuity in some respects even predates the formation of the BJP regime in 1998. Following the collapse of the USSR in 1991 and its own emergence as the sole superpower, the U.S. initiated steps for bringing India into its strategic plans and framework. The P.V. Narasimha Rao-led minority Congress government began the process of India-U.S. military collaboration in 1992. However, it was the NDA regime, which as Karat puts it tellingly, that was most craven in its attitude to the U.S. It is precisely the desperate efforts of the BJP-RSS combine when in power from 1998 to 2004 to seek the status of a junior ally of the U.S. that make a mockery of its oppositional posturing in the context of the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal currently under the scanner.

Karat traces the several steps in the process of successive Indian governments trying to forge a strategic relationship with the U.S. The relationship has military, political and economic dimensions. Military collaboration with the U.S. began in 1992 with the setting up of the India-U.S. Army Executive Steering Committee, followed by the setting up of the Joint Steering Committees of the two countries’ Navies (1992) and Air Forces (1994). The India-U.S. Military Cooperation Agreement followed in 1995. The BJP, with A.B.Vajpayee declaring the U.S. a natural ally of India and L.K.Advani becoming the first Home Minister of India to pay a visit to the CIA headquarters, “took the military collaboration to the level of a strategic alliance.” After a brief setback caused by the Pokhran explosion and the consequent sanctions, the BJP redoubled its efforts to curry favour with the U.S. It resumed the International Military Exchange and Training programme with the U.S. and offered port and airport facilities for U.S. forces when they intervened militarily in Afghanistan. It allowed the FBI to set up an office in New Delhi, welcomed the National Missile Defence programme of President Bush, and allowed use of Indian naval ships to escort the U.S. ships through the Malacca Straits. In January 2004, talks on the next steps in strategic partnership (NSSP) with the U.S. were started. But before the BJP could complete its work of making India a junior partner of the U.S., the elections of 2004 came, and the BJP-led combine was unseated by the Indian voters.

The National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) adopted by the new UPA government in 2004 stated that “The UPA government will pursue an independent foreign policy keeping in mind its past traditions. This policy will seek to promote multi-polarity in world relations and oppose all attempts at unilateralism.” However, in practice, the foreign policy of the UPA has also been largely one of seeking a strategic relationship with the U.S., with India as a junior partner. The New Framework for U.S.-India Defence Relationship signed in late June 2005 and the Indo-U.S. Joint Statement of July 18, 2005 signalled the eagerness of the UPA government to enter into a strategic relationship with the U.S., despite the NCMP excluding it. Soon, by voting against Iran twice in the IAEA, the UPA government demonstrated its willingness to abandon the time-tested foreign policy of non-alignment to secure the status of a subordinate ally of the U.S. The Indo-U.S. nuclear deal has to be understood and examined in this context, and not evaluated as a standalone text.

Karat makes a convincing case for India not choosing to embrace the U.S. as a strategic partner by reminding us graphically of U.S. shenanigans across the world in the name of ‘democracy’ and its open espousal of ‘regime change’ in various parts of the world in complete disregard of principles of national sovereignty and independence. Now that the UPA government seems to have resiled from its earlier obdurate stand on the nuclear deal, public debate should take on board the substantive points made by Karat on the dangers of a strategic partnership with the U.S. and of the associated pressures on economic policy as well in such areas as financial liberalisation, FDI in retail, the Indo-U.S. Agricultural Knowledge Initiative dominated by agribusiness and retail trade multinationals. The importance of a sensible energy policy which requires India to keep its international options open also needs to be underlined, and the very modest contribution of nuclear energy in this regard under even the most optimistic scenario understood.

The level of media and public discourse on the nuclear deal and on foreign policy will be greatly enhanced if some of the print media contributors and the television anchors take the trouble to read and understand Karat’s book, instead of dismissing the Left as “irrationally anti-American”. But that may be too much to hope for.

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