A report in People’s Democracy on the prime minister’s latest trip to Russia, says that India is wary of a nuclear deal with Russia, because it does not want to upset the US. It says, “the top officials of Indian establishment put out the excuse that this agreement would have violated international law and that it can be done only after India has done the IAEA safeguards agreement and obtained NSG clearance.” The report also reveals that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh explained to President Putin the problems within the ruling coalition regarding the Indo-US nuclear deal. Putin immediately said that he was aware of it and understood the compulsions. Blaming the peopleColumnist Prabhat Patnaik writes at length about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent comments on “fractured mandates”. He writes, “the essence of parliamentary democratic praxis, indeed of any praxis, is a respect for the people. Even when one is absolutely convinced about the correctness of one’s own position, if the people reject this position, then instead of blaming the people, one has to ask the question: why are they rejecting this position? To do so may lead to some productive self-criticism. But, not to do so, and to blame the people instead for handing out a 'fractured mandate' that prevents the implementation of 'manifestly obvious' ideas for the nation’s progress, belongs conceptually to an authoritarian agenda.”However, he does point out that he is not casting any doubt on the prime minister's personal aspirations, but in fact, pointing out that a conceptually authoritarian agenda in the realm of the polity is an integral part of a neo-liberal economic agenda. Disaster tourismThe CPM continues to defend the violence in Nandigram. In an article, senior leader Nilotpal Basu writes that “apart from the land question, the other demands which had been raised by the opposition in Nandigram have been almost fully met by the state government. The state government has announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh for all those who lost their life on March 14 regardless of whether they died of police bullets or otherwise.”Nandigram is fast returning to normal, he believes. People are returning to their homes. They have also made it clear that since the siege has been broken, there is no further danger to their lives. He writes that “the challenge now is to bring back Nandigram to the mainstream of development which it represented earlier.” He also adds that the NDA delegation has come back to Delhi from Bengal, where they only went to “score political points and to woo back an estranged partner. With inimitable pomp, Advani, undeterred by the latest Tehelka expose on the Gujarat carnage, has announced that what his delegation has seen in Nandigram is ‘unprecedented in the history of the country’. Believers would have said ‘God bless him.”
