For UPA, is it one, two, three . . . stop?

Is it the beginning of the end of the UPA government? The answer, clearly, is yes.

Is it the beginning of the end of the UPA government? The answer, clearly, is yes. It can become no only if the Left parties, which alone have the power to keep the government going, choose to ignore the swelling unrest among their own leaders and cadres over the Indo-US nuclear deal. The Left8217;s diktat to Dr Manmohan Singh was: 8220;Do not operationalise the 123 Agreement.8221; To this the prime minister8217;s angry retort was: 8220;The agreement is now final and non-negotiable. Withdraw your support to my government if you want.8221; Never since May 2004 has there been such tu-tu main-main between the Communists and the Congress. The Left may not right away operationalise its power to pull down the government but, undoubtedly, the recent spat has put a big question mark over the UPA regime8217;s longevity.

That question mark has just got bigger after Washington unambiguously contradicted the prime minister8217;s solemn assurance about India8217;s right to conduct future nuclear tests. When the three-pronged attack from the NDA, UNPA and the Left showed that the government was in a minority over the nuclear deal, Dr Singh boldly declared in Parliament on August 13: 8220;A decision to undertake a future nuclear test would be our sovereign right. There is nothing in the agreement that would tie the hands of a future government to protect India8217;s security and defence needs.8221;

Just two days later, Sean McCormack, spokesman of the US State Department, put the record straight: 8220;The proposed 123 Agreement has provisions in it that in an event of a nuclear test by India, all nuclear cooperation is terminated.8221;

Clearly, the prime minister had misled Parliament. No amount of official spin can now rescue him from this predictable quandary. The Hyde Act, legislated by the US Congress, explicitly rules out continuation of cooperation in the event of a future nuclear test by India. This was further made clear by a candid press conference addressed by Nicholas Burns, the US Under-Secretary for Political Affairs, on July 27.

8220;This deal,8221; he said, 8220;brings India back into the non-proliferation mainstream in a way it was never before.8221;

This was as close as any US official could come to disclosing that the 123 Agreement is the backdoor through which India has been made to accept the non-proliferation treaty, which every previous Indian government had refused to sign.

More humiliating is the fact that India has agreed to have its nuclear capability capped, and eventually rolled back, by virtually bowing before the provisions of a foreign law. Burns is candid on this point, too. 8220;We kept reminding the Indian side, and they were good enough to negotiate on the basis that anything we did had to fall within and respect the legal guidelines that the US Congress had set forth.8221;

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Dr Singh8217;s own directions to the Indian negotiating team, headed by M.K. Narayanan, the national security adviser, were on similar lines: One, do not challenge the Hyde Act; and two, instead, use suitable language that would meet the obligations of both sides.

This is confirmed by Narayanan himself in his interview to The Hindu on July 28.

In other words, Dr Singh, who did not show the courage to come out of the negotiations after the US Congress passed the haughty Hyde Act, now wants to bind India8217;s strategic nuclear future for the next 40 years for that is the lifespan of the 123 Agreement to the dictates of a foreign law, and yet pretends that this is not so because of the linguistic jugglery in the agreement.

There is another important point on which Dr Singh has yielded to Washington8217;s wishes, without even taking up for negotiations a key promise of the UPA. The 123 Agreement strongly emphasises the need to prevent proliferation of WMDs weapons of mass destruction. This has been done at the insistence of the US, which does not want any more countries to acquire nuclear weapons. But where is the US commitment to de-proliferate the mountain of WMDs that it has already stockpiled?

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The moot question is: If the US could successfully introduce its own concern over WMD proliferation into the 123 Agreement, why didn8217;t Dr Singh press for the inclusion of a point contained in an important promise that the UPA has made in its Common Minimum Programme? The UPA government, its Common Minimum Programme says, 8220;will take a leadership role in promoting universal, nuclear disarmament and working for a nuclear weapons-free world.8221; Dr Singh, what is the point in your talking about Rajiv Gandhi8217;s nuclear disarmament plan to domestic audiences? Did you ever try to take President Bush8217;s commitment on it?

Another question: Why didn8217;t the PM make even a passing mention of the Indo-US nuclear deal in his Independence Day speech? After all, just two days earlier, he had called it a 8220;historic deal8221;, saying, 8220;This agreement with the United States will open new doors in capitals across the world.8221; As if capitals across the world will not open for India unless we seek America8217;s help! Did he keep mum on August 15 because of the information he must have received by then through diplomatic channels that the US State Department was going to contradict his August 13 statement in Parliament on nuclear tests? If true, it says something about how independent our prime minister really is.