There146;s a world out there

unprecedented clout with the Centre. Let8217;s take just two areas where the Left could make a big difference 8212; relations with China and Bangladesh.

All of Left rhetoric on Indo-US defence and nuclear pacts boils down to just one simple proposition. 8220;Don8217;t get entangled in an alliance with the US against China.8221; Few in the country would disagree with the proposition. But how does the Left propose to prevent such an outcome? The only way to prevent Delhi from drifting into an alliance against Beijing is to ensure that Sino-Indian relations acquire greater depth and momentum. For all the recent improvement in Sino-Indian ties, it is no secret that there is profound wariness in Delhi about Beijing8217;s intentions and capabilities.

The Left parties cannot be blind to the simple fact that unless there is a resolution of the long-standing boundary dispute, Sino-Indian relations will never acquire their true potential. The boundary negotiations between Delhi and Beijing have reached a sensitive stage. In April, the two nations have identified a set of guiding principles for settling the boundary dispute.

The Special Representatives of the two sides are now expected to work out the broad nature of mutual territorial concessions that will lead to a final settlement. Are the CPIM and CPI ready to exercise their influence, not just in Delhi but also in Beijing, to ensure that the talks between the Special Representatives will move quickly towards an early and reasonable settlement?

There are growing doubts in Beijing whether the Congress government has the political will to bite the bullet on the actual territorial concessions that India will have to make. Are the Left parties prepared to pressurise the prime minister into taking that much-needed political risk to accelerate the boundary talks with China and clinch the final settlement?

Equally important, Left parties should be telling the communist leadership in Beijing that its demands on Delhi to cede large slices of territory in Arunachal Pradesh could lead to a certain failure of the boundary talks. And that in turn could lead to a loss of the enormous good will China has developed in India over the last decade or so.

The top guns of the CPIM and CPI, Prakash Karat and A.B. Bardhan, were both in Beijing recently. Did they tell their Chinese comrades to focus on a pragmatic boundary settlement built around the territorial status quo? Did they tell Beijing that continued supply of nuclear technology and missiles to Pakistan will deepen Indian distrust of China? We don8217;t know.

What we do know is that the Left parties have taken little interest in the practical aspects of Sino-Indian relations. Take, for example, the decision by the NDA government in June 2003 to open up border trade with China at Nathu La in Sikkim. As the bureaucracy in Delhi dragged its feet in implementing the decision, it was Pawan Chamling, the Sikkim chief minister, who pressed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to take action. There was no pressure at all from the Left.

If the Left parties had a long term vision of Sino-Indian relations, they would be demanding that Delhi agree to transit trade at Nathu La, build a modern highway between Lhasa and Kolkata, and offer port facilities in West Bengal for goods from western China. They would also want to re-establish consulates and trade missions in Tibet and West Bengal.

For nearly six years, Beijing has been proposing a framework for sub-regional economic cooperation between eastern India, southwestern China, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Thanks to the resistance in Delhi, this so-called Kunming initiative, which could immensely benefit West Bengal and the North Eastern states, has languished. Should not the Left parties be demanding that Delhi reverse its

unwise position on Beijing8217;s Kunming initiative?

The Congress and the BJP leaders in Assam are pressing a reluctant Delhi to reconsider its opposition to the reopening of the Stilwell Road that provides a land link to Yunnan in south-western China through Myanmar. There has been no word from the Left.

The apathy of the Left when it comes to Bangladesh, which so directly affects the well-being of West Bengal, is even more appalling. When the Left leaders do speak up on Indo-Bangla ties, they sound no different from those of the BJP by focusing on terrorist camps and illegal migration.

While both these issues are important, one would have expected that the Left Parties, many of whose MPs come from West Bengal, would come up with creative new ideas on boundary management, pressed the Centre to address the genuine grievances of Dhaka, and engaged the political classes there to break the logjam in Indo-Bangla ties.

Even as Captain Amarinder Singh, the Congress chief minister from Punjab, demonstrates impressive local initiative in promoting cooperation with West Punjab in Pakistan, the Left Front government in Kolkata and the Communists in Delhi have done very little to break out of the conventional paradigm on Bangladesh.

All this underlines the reality that beyond the rhetoric of non-alignment, anti-imperialism, and multilateralism, the Left parties have precious little to offer on how India should be creatively addressing the many foreign policy challenges that confront it.

But given the current division of the Parliament, the nation has no option but to hope that Left parties will realise, sooner than later, that an effective Indian foreign policy involves a lot more than just standing up against the United States.