NEW DELHI: The United States-India nuclear cooperation agreement, tabled in India’s Parliament on Monday, has precipitated the worst-ever political crisis for the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s United Progressive Alliance (UPS) government since it was formed a little over three years ago.

Although the existence of the ‘left-of-centre’ UPA government is not immediately threatened, it has clearly lost the support of the communist parties on this defining foreign and security policy issue.

Support from the 59 members of parliament of the Left parties, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has been critically necessary for the survival of the UPA, which lacks a majority of its own in the 543-strong Lower House of Parliament.

This means the UPA will remain isolated on a major issue pertaining to India’s external relations and her strategic posture, with a strong bearing on her energy options. The alliance will become politically vulnerable and might find itself in an impasse in the coming months.

Singh, who has staked a lot on the nuclear deal, faces an unpleasant choice. A majority of India’s legislators oppose it for a variety of reasons. If he tries to bring them on board by addressing their concerns, he will have to go slow on the deal’s implementation.

Here, he risks losing a narrow window of opportunity for the agreement’s ratification by the US Congress by the end of 2007, before it goes into election mode.

Alternatively, he can quickly ready the deal for US ratification after getting it approved by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) and by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). But that will deprive it of domestic legitimacy and broad-based support.

Ironically, Singh brought this crisis upon himself. On Aug. 11, two days before the text of the “123 agreement” (so called because it will amend Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act, 1954 to lift prohibitions on nuclear cooperation with India) was laid in Parliament, the Kolkata-based ‘Telegraph’ newspaper carried an interview with him.

In the interview, Singh staunchly defended the deal, attacked its critics, and dared the Left to withdraw support to the UPA. He said: “I told them that it is not possible to renegotiate the deal. It is an honourable deal, the Cabinet has approved it…if they want to withdraw support, so be it...”

He also said: “They are our colleagues and we have to work with them. But they also have to learn to work with us.” He chided the Left for not having “thought” things “through” on the nuclear agreement and the welcome accorded to it by nuclear scientists and experts.

This brought a sharp rebuff from CPM general secretary Prakash Karat, who said the UPA was running the government with the Left’s support; it should decide whether “it wants to run this government”. Karat also sarcastically remarked that Singh is “very sensitive about his government’s relations with the US, but this (the deal) is a matter of serious national import.”

“After Singh so openly challenged the Left, and made disparaging remarks against it, Karat had no choice but to join issue with him,” says Anuradha Chenoy, a social scientist with Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, and a keen observer of Left politics.

Chenoy added that it could not have been “an accident that Singh chose to grant the interview to a Kolkata-based paper, rather than a national daily published from New Delhi’’. Kolkata is the capital of CPM-ruled West Bengal state which has gained a reputation for being extremely market friendly.

Singh, said Chenoy, wanted to reach out to the West Bengal leadership of the CPM, which is considered more “pragmatic” than the central leadership. “Singh has a good equation with Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhatttacharjee, whose ‘free-market’ policies he often praises.”

However, it is unlikely that Singh’s stratagem of playing off differences within the CPM will produce a major shift in the party’s stand on the deal. India’s communist parties tend to close ranks when attacked. Bhattacharjee might be sympathetic to right-wing economic policies, but has a different stand on foreign policy issues. He has recently made strong statements criticising the nuclear deal for its pro-US strategic dimension.

On Monday, the Left parties reiterated their opposition to the deal by walking out when Singh finished reading his statement on it in the Lower House of Parliament amidst relentless slogan-shouting by regional party and right-wing MPs.

When it became clear that the Left would not cow down and dilute its opposition, the Prime Minister sought a breakfast meeting with Karat on Tuesday, to which Karat agreed after much persuasion. Singh also talked to Bhatttacharjee, whom he is likely to meet on Friday.

“Going by past experience, the Left parties are unlikely to change their stand against the deal,” argues Achin Vanaik, a political scientist at Delhi University. “They usually act in unison. And it is known that the Left parties other than the CPM are even more critical of the UPA’s policies and would like the Left to reconsider supporting it unconditionally. The Communist Party of India (CPI), for instance, advocates issue-based support.”

Vanaik explained that more will be known after political bureaux of the CPM and CPI meet this weekend. “We’ll soon know whether they dilute or maintain/harden their stand. Their biggest constraint is that they cannot risk toppling the UPA government because that would help the Hindu-chauvinist and jingoistic Bharatiya Janata Party. But they can continue to oppose the nuclear deal without formally voting against the government and thus risking the possible return of the BJP.”

At stake here is the Left’s distinct ideological-political identity. In the three states (including Kerala and Tripura) in which it rules, but especially in West Bengal, its economic policies are not markedly different from the UPA’s. This has produced some discontent among Left cadres.

If the Left parties lose their image as staunch opponents of US “imperialism”, they risk serious erosion of core support and loyalty. Both the CPs are scheduled to hold party congresses early next year, where their leaders will face the scrutiny of the rank-and-file.”

Unlike the Right and centrist parties, which focus primarily on asymmetries in the “123 agreement” in the rights and obligations of India and the United States, and some of whom (not the BJP) oppose close relations with Washington, the Left concentrates its criticism on the deal as part of a US-India “strategic partnership” or India’s strategic embrace of the US.

The Left too speaks of asymmetries at some length and is worried that the US can terminate the agreement arbitrarily, while India must accept safeguards (inspections) on some of its nuclear facilities in perpetuity.

The Left at least refers to the impact of “123” on India’s advocacy of universal nuclear disarmament, which the UPA promised to return to in 2004. The Left also mildly questions the relevance of nuclear power, which the deal promotes, to India’s long-term energy security.

“These are strong suits which the Left would do well to develop,” says Vanaik. “This will help it demarcate itself sharply from others. In particular, it should emphasise that the nuclear deal will increase India’s capacity to make nuclear weapons; and this cannot give us more security. On the contrary, it will fuel a nuclear arms race not just with Pakistan but also with China.”

The International Panel on Fissile Materials, a group of independent scientists, estimates that the nuclear deal will allow India to produce and stockpile enough plutonium for more than 300 Nagasaki-type bombs every year. This can be done through reprocessing fuel in unsafeguarded power reactors, diverting domestic uranium from civilian to military uses, and continuing/expanding fissile material production in unsafeguarded civilian and military facilities.

Meanwhile, the political fate of the nuclear deal remains unclear. How the UPA handles the issue will determine its longevity.

—Dawn/ The IPS News Service