The Hindu Business Line : Fission over fusion

While challenging the UPA Government on going ahead with the nuclear deal, will the Left withdraw support and engineer the fall of this Government? asks RASHEEDA BHAGAT.

The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, and the CPI(M)’s General Secretary, Mr Prakash Karat…In the centrestage.

Has anybody noticed how in the animated, passionate dialogues within political circles, and much more, in the media, over whether the Left parties will really withdraw support and make the UPA Government fall, the graphics focus on two players — CPI(M)’s General Secretary, Mr Prakash Karat, which is not surprising, and the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, which is a surprise.

For a change, on our political horizon, the all-powerful Congress(I) President, Ms Sonia Gandhi, has taken a back seat and the present war of words is being played out by Mr Karat and his comrades, on one side, and Dr Manmohan Singh on the other. While one may not entirely agree with the Prime Minister’s cosying up to the US, even though it is not a surprising stance, what does come as a surprise, especially after everybody had berated him for being “too soft”, a “political lightweight” is the sudden firmness in his stance.

Depending on which side of the political ideological divide you are, you may, or may not, believe that he is after all carrying out the bidding of his mentor, Ms Sonia Gandhi. Even if that is true, the Prime Minister is doing a pretty good job of conveying the feeling that the standoff with the Left over the civil Indo-US nuclear deal has made him come into his own. The country should be relieved that at least he has taken a firm stand on something, though the consensus in circles that matter is that the fine-print will indeed compromise India’s sovereignty. Now that would be a terrible thing to do, particularly at a time when national pride is on an upsurge on the vibrant Indian economy riding on the bac k of our traditional industrial sectors on the one hand and the educated Indian middle-class fuelling the services sector, on the other. When an Iranian President — Mr Mahmud Ahmadinejad — is defying the world’s strongest country and refusing to be bullied down into submission by threats of military strikes, where is the need for India to bow before the US is a question that begs an answer.

Left agenda

Theories of the death-knell of the Indo-US nuclear deal benefiting China and, hence, being sounded by the Left might be a little too fantastic. But make no mistake about the fact that most Left leaders have their ears close to the ground. It is not for nothing that this block managed to get its highest ever number of 61 MPs in the Lok Sabha in the last General Elections.

Waving a red flag to the US comes in handy at a time when its strongest bastion in India — West Bengal — has been rocked over accusations of “land-grabbing” in Singur and Nandigram. But even as the Left block picks up valuable votes on the way, while challenging the UPA Government on going ahead with the nuclear deal, the question that is most pertinent is, will the Left withdraw support and engineer the fall of this Government?

By all accounts, this seems unlikely, as nobody wants elections. Of course, the political grapevine has been buzzing with talk on how Ms Sonia Gandhi has precipitated the crisis against the UPA Government by giving the green signal to the Prime Minister to dare the Left, in a newspaper interview, to withdraw support over this deal. This, say the pundits, is because Ms Gandhi wants a mid-term election as the BJP is in a state of perpetual disarray, and seems to be shooting itself in the leg all the time. Well, for this conjecture to be true, the Government run by Ms Gandhi’s party and its allies, needed to have given a sterling performance. It surely has not done that.

As the years roll by — we’re fresh from a mega celebration of the 60th birthday of our Independence — it becomes more and more evident that India has managed to make the progress it has thanks to the vibrancy, intellectual capital and hard work of its people and despite its politicians.

Disappointing governance

As many governments in the past, this one too has disappointed the masses. Rural India is in a mess, and its farm sector in a distress hitherto unknown to it.

Having done nothing that would make its ministers or MPs confident of returning to the people and seeking their votes once again, the Congress would hardly want to rock the boat at this moment. Actually, and ironically, Dr Manmohan Singh’s friends in the Left in West Bengal, particularly its Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadev Battacharjee, do not want early polls either. Both he, and his predecessor, Mr Jyoti Basu, have been telling their comrades not to do anything to destabilise the UPA Government. An election at this point might actually reduce the Left’s kitty.

But thanks to the cacophony of sound on our round the clock TV channels, and a print media only too eager to ape the frenzy on the electronic media, the whole issue has now turned into a marathon fight between Dr Singh and Mr Karat. For the moment, neither is blinking.

Dr Manmohan Singh has uncharacteristically taken a bold stand that there is no going back on the nuclear deal and, in a corresponding manner, Mr Karat, who was only a few days ago prepared to crack jokes on how the honeymoon might be over but the marriage could be saved, is singing a new tune now — that the sovereignty of India is more important than the life of any government.

The CPI(M)’s two-day Central Committee meeting was advanced from September-end to Wednesday to examine the Politburo’s decision to warn the Government not to go ahead on the deal. The CPI too has called for an emergency meeting of its National Executive on August 28 and 29 to decide on the standoff with the UPA Government.

UPA allies such as the RJD’s Lalu Prasad and the DMK’s M. Karunanidhi have appealed to both the Left parties and the Congress to resolve their differences.

In a typically loaded statement, the DMK chief said on Tuesday: “Those parties propagating unity of the nation should demonstrate their unity to others to preserve the unity of the nation.” None of the allies, one can be sure, wants an election which might kick in the all too familiar anti-incumbency factor.

The first round in this standoff goes to the Left parties. They have managed to imbibe some josh into their cadres, who were disheartened by the Singur-Nandigram episodes in West Bengal and the infighting in Kerala. They have also s cored brownie points with a section of Indian Muslims totally dejected over the manner in which Islam and Muslims are berated by the West, particularly the US. In an era where white knights in shining armour are difficult to find, Mr Karat might just fit the bill.

Leave the markets alone

The Indian equity markets are shivering; already under the global housing mortgage blues, the prospect of a mid-term election has psyched out the indices which have turned highly volatile.

On Wednesday, when the TV channels couldn’t find too many Left leaders to shake their fists at Dr Singh, the indices had a relief rally and the BSE jumped up a couple of hundred points after yo-yoing for the first half of the trading session. Public memory is indeed short. Remember the April of 2004, when the NSE and BSE had gone into a free fall because the equity market was mourning the exit of the BJP and entry of a Congress-led government? It seems to be cloning a similar behaviour once again, only the players have changed.

The message should be clear to both the BJP and the Congress — it is not that the stock market loves one party more than another; it just wants to be left alone, sans any political upheavals, to carry on business as usual!

(Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in)

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