Congress and the Commissar

As I watched Commissar Karat and his fellow commies charge the prime minister with bartering away India8217;s 8216;sovereignty8217; in exchange for the nuclear deal

As I watched Commissar Karat and his fellow commies charge the prime minister with bartering away India8217;s 8216;sovereignty8217; in exchange for the nuclear deal, I wondered if they were suffering from historical amnesia. Or do they just choose not to remember our Soviet era in the hope that nobody else will either.

Well, having become politically conscious in those bleak decades, I remember all too well. I remember that all our weapons came from the Soviet Union and all the shoddy consumer goods we produced were exported to that country in a form of commerce that was more barter than trade. I remember what a shabby, hopeless country India was on account of this restricted engagement with the world. I remember how India8217;s foreign policy was so dictated by the USSR that we did not even dare condemn the invasion of Afghanistan? How is it that the comrades did not see any threat to our sovereignty in those bad old days?

If our sovereignty was strong enough to survive when all anyone talked about when they discussed India was 8216;our starving millions8217;, then it is more than likely to survive now when the economy is growing at nearly 10 per cent and we are considered an 8216;emerging economy8217;.

As a proud Indian who relishes the fact that we no longer wander the world with a begging bowl in our hands, it disgusts me when people talk of our 8216;sovereignty8217; as if it were so fragile that it could be destroyed by a single treaty. But, it is not about a single treaty, is it?

What bothers our lefties is our growing closeness to the United States. In the words of a statement that arrived in my mailbox from Medha Patkar and a couple of her NGO pals, 8220;This deal is part of a successful attempt by the United States to build a strategic relationship with India, in confronting the rising capitalist challenge from China, where India will be used as its client in the region.8221;

Thank you, Ms Patkar, for spelling it out. China is indeed a capitalist country today and it does not want India to begin to compete, so it uses our communists and muddle-headed activists like Medha Patkar as a fifth column. Well, it8217;s time that the prime minister took them on, even if it means sacrificing his government. Let him state clearly that a closer strategic and commercial relationship with the United States is in India8217;s national interest and if the Marxists and sundry other political parties think otherwise, then let them put their case before voters in the next election and see what happens.

As every poll indicates, the average Indian thinks friendship with the United States is a good thing and a very large number think the nuclear deal is in India8217;s national interest. On my travels these days, I constantly run into people who harangue me for not writing strongly enough against those 8216;Chinese agents8217;. And it delights me to inform you that the Hindi press is currently filled with articles that revile Commissar Karat and his comrades for their inordinate fondness for China. The sense I get of the public mood is that our communist parties are not going to get enough seats to bully whichever government comes to power after the next general election.

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May I happily predict that the party that is going to suffer most over its cussed and incomprehensible opposition to the nuclear deal is the Bharatiya Janata Party. Last week, its ally, the Shiv Sena, broke ranks on the issue, and if the BJP bothers to conduct its own poll, it is likely to find that its voters are no longer sure that the national interest is safe in BJP hands.

Where it was looking quite strong a few months ago, it now looks like it is going to be in no position to lead a coalition government, leave alone win even the seats it currently has in the Lok Sabha. Good. Another spell on the opposition benches may restore some sense of reality.

The real beneficiary of the prime minister standing up to the Commissar will be the Congress. There are optimistic murmurings from party headquarters even over the possibility that the government may fall as soon as next month. As for the prime minister, he has not looked more prime ministerial since he took the job. As someone who has been critical of many of the things he has done and failed to do in the past three years, may I say that over the nuclear deal, he has behaved like a statesman. It would be a terrible shame if he is forced to back down now by those pressures the Left is so adept at exerting over the Congress8217; crypto-Marxists.