Left Adventurism: time to call the bluff!
The Left has really become a pain in the neck. The time has come to call its bluff. It is blackmailing the UPA government almost from day one. It imagines it has the key to unlock the world. Or, to the world’s wisdom!
Such is its self-imagined arrogance that it doesn’t think it owes a duty to the country and the people when it comes to its own acts of obstruction to a democratically constituted government.
With all its limitations, the UPA has been doing its job according to its light.
One can find fault on many of its details but one can’t find fault with its basic approach. It is a liberal democracy with a liberalisation economic agenda and the Indo-US nuclear deal was not just a one-day wonder. It has been there for a long time. India is a nuclear power in a way, we have exploded our nuclear devices, and it is almost like a nuclear weapons capability country.
The fine details needn’t concern us.
It is the right thing to go for the nulcear deal. Given the concerns over our energy needs nuclear power is one option. We are not alone. There is a nuclear ‘reanissance’. So, we have to adhere to the trends in the world.
Now, the Left’s objection is that by signing the deal India would tie itself with the USA strategically. Now, what is the strategical tie-up? Yes, it is co-operation in nuclear power and technology exchange and also to further develop our capabilities in the latest technologies. Will it amount to military tie-up? Without mincing words, yes, we would get some advantages, why even enormous advantages.
The China factor is not mentioned by everyone concerned. Yes, China is our neighbour and it will be there with all its pinpricks. China is not a completely friendly. It has its own perceptions. Let them have them. But it is a fact that China need to be restrained in its current penchant for nibbling at our territory. We are not strategic experts. But we have enough common sense to see that China should also know that we are stronger in our resolve to stand up to its current, rather in a manner that is not mature and not statesman-like in its behaviour with us, a big neighbour.
China has always been perceived by the world over as an odd man out. That perception won’t go away.
India is an open country, an open society, a great democracy, USA has a very strong presence of American Indian population and there are prominent Indians in American government and the academia and so it makes perfect sense to move closer to the USA in our foreign relations.
All this doesn’t mean that India doesn’t retain its independent foreign policy. Willy-nilly, we are already having an independent foreign policy only and we can’t be any type of a satellite country of the USA, as say, the Philippines or even Japan.
After all, each country has its own history and also compulsions arising out of its own histories and the past associations.
Luckily, India has a great pedigree, Gandhi and Nehru and a Third World leadership and the NAM.
Whoever becomes the Prime Minister of India, he or she can’t easily deviate from this line.
So, it is now imperative that the UPA government signs the deal. Now, if the Left with its numbers turns negative then, the time to snap the ties with the Left has come. The Congress is already, it looks, started to do its home work, it has to soar up its numbers and if the Samajwadi party comes round then it is time to call it a day.
Isolate the Left! That would be good for the country and for many other reasons. They have nothing worthwhile to contribute to the progress of the country. They are ruling W.Bengal and Kerala and one can see how they had turned the two states into backward regions. They haven’t shed violence as their tool and disruption of development projects as a policy. At the Centre they are a constant pain. They don’t seem to know any other subject except the nuclear deal. They think they know what is good for the country and what is good for the world! This self-deception of the first order, by any definition.
The Left, as represented by Karat is at the moment of writing seems thoroughly isolated from the rest of the allies and also within the Left itself, Karat is seen as an adventurer in the long tradition of Left Adventurism, a disease in its history of ideological perfectioneering!
Karat is not an elected member of any forum, not the legislature or Parliament. He has also a long history of ruining the chances of the veteran leader, Jyoti Basu for the Prime Ministership. Basu called it a historic blunder!
Now, Buddhadeb B hattaracharya is also likely to raise his voice along with Basu over this adventureism. So, the chances of Karat pulling out of the last minute percipice, it’s very likely.
Except perhaps, TDP or one or two minor voices, the UPA is likely to carry the day with its decision to vote for the deal.
July 15 is the deadline and it is very likely that by the time the final parting of ways between Sonia Gandhi’s “yes” to the deal would make the Left unwelcome to her in the next election alliance-seeking.
Of course, the elections are another thing. The deal won’t catch the imagination of the public. But it depends. In the hands of a leader like Nehru or Indira Gandhi, it would rekindle the pride and prestige of India. One is not sure what Manmohan Singh would leave behind him as his legacy from the deal.
Anyway given the current turn of the tide he might have his own share of the glory.
As for the country, it is important that India becomes a strong power; its technological up gradation gives her the due that is now missing from the international community.
India must go for total nuclear weapons removal and total disarmament.
The Congress is already devising the counter strategy. That is the right way to move forward.
Image Source : boston.com