BJP's rethinking on n-deal isolates the Left

Perhaps realising that the Bharatiya Janata Party was unnecessarily alienating the middle class by opposing the nuclear deal, L K Advani has now decided to change tack. It's not full support to the measure yet. That would have been too much of a climbdown, which would have left Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie high and dry -- the fate of all those who try to be more loyal than the king. So, a few caveats have been entered, such as ensuring India's strategic independence and an assurance of uninterrupted fuel supply.

But, even then, there is enough of a turnaround to confirm that the BJP had initially opposed the pact without much thought. Evidently, it was something of a reflexive action common to virtually all Indian Opposition parties, which take their task of opposing the government far too literally. The BJP's earlier grouses against VAT are a case in point. In the present instance, the party practically joined hands with the Left to create the impression, which the comrades conveniently exploited, that a majority in the Lok Sabha was against the agreement.

The BJP might have taken this unwise step because it felt that if the government succeeded in pushing ahead with the deal without too much difficulty, it would run well ahead of its opponents by winning over nearly the entire middle and upper classes. It would thereby deprive the BJP of large segments of what it had come to regard as its natural constituency. It is a loss which the party cannot sustain, especially in its present state of disarray, where the old order comprising Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani, is refusing to fade away while the new order -- Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj -- is yet to take its place. So, if it let the government clinch the deal, the BJP will have to say farewell to any hope of returning to power in the foreseeable future.

However, before it could inflict too much damage on itself, the BJP decided to change course by saying it was all right for India to be a strategic partner of the US. How far this latest stance will help it regain lost ground is difficult to say, but at least the party can no longer be accused of hypocrisy. If it had laid itself open to this charge, it was because of the fact that for long periods in its history, starting from the Jan Sangh days, it was regarded as pro-American.

Since its ascent to power at the Centre, it has, of course, matured considerably and can no longer be labelled so easily. After all, Pokhran II was in defiance of the US. It also resisted American attempts to persuade the Vajpayee government to send troops to Iraq. All the more reason, therefore, why its opposition to the nuclear deal caused surprise, especially because the agreement would mark the end of the sanctions imposed on India after Pokhran I and II.

One reason for the BJP's lapse, if it can be so described, was perhaps the search for an emotive issue prior to the next general election. Since the Ram temple issue is no longer expected to fetch too many votes, nor can the Ram Setu affair, the BJP has to look for another talking point. The party has also realised from its experience in the Uttar Pradesh elections, when it had to disown a controversial anti-Muslim compact disc, that its strident anti-minority postures, which were articulated by Kalyan Singh in UP, were no longer yielding political dividends.

Hence, perhaps, the decision to jump on to what it deemed a useful nationalist plank by accusing the government of a sell-out to America. In taking this line, the party may have been misled by people like Yashwant Sinha who entered the organisation not long ago from the socialist camp. The confusion within the party on the question of leadership also probably prevented a close examination of the subject. It is worth noting that Advani came out with his present distinctive line only after the RSS let it be known that it will distance itself from the BJP.

There is little doubt that the government will now breathe a huge sigh of relief not only because of the BJP's qualified approval of the deal, but also because this stance has coincided with the murmurs of disquiet in the Communist Party of India-Marxist over the hardline positions of its so-called rootless intellectuals in Delhi.

Reports from Kolkata that the Bengali comrades are comparing Prakash Karat and Co with the Taliban are not surprising because the party in the state is in no position to face the electorate in the context of Nandigram and Singur episodes.

It is the same in Kerala, where the V S Achuthanandan-P Vijayan confrontation is bound to undermine the CPI-M's position. If Karat and Co have turned a blind eye to these internal difficulties in their rush to uphold their longstanding pathological antipathy towards America, the reason is that these leaders ensconced in the party's Delhi headquarters have never fought and won an election outside of college campuses.

There are two reasons why the Left adopted such an inflexible stand, which has revived the old allegations against it of being unpatriotic because its scuttling of the deal will be appreciated in China and Pakistan. One reason is that the government's retreats on the economic front over disinvestments, insurance, banking, labour and pension fund reforms, airport privatisation, FDI in retail, etc, must have convinced the commissars that it will retreat on the nuclear deal also.

The other reason is that the Left had no alternative. For the first time, India is formally saying goodbye to its Cold War prejudices and forging a close partnership with America. Of course, it is too big to be a camp follower of any country and will have fruitful relations with others, too, notably Russia, Japan, Britain, France and the European Union. But it will not be a second Venezuela or Cuba as the comrades apparently want.

This proximity to the capitalist world is not something which the Left, especially the CPI-M, can digest. After years of revolutionary fulminations against market economy and its main champion, the US, the commissars -- at least the apparatchiki in Delhi -- apparently think that it will be highly embarrassing for them if they let the government enter into a strategic relationship with the US although they have the power to pull the rug.

Big Brother may have also been egged on by siblings like the CPI, the Forward Bloc and the Revolutionary Socialist Party, who have been more vociferous about pulling down the government than the Marxists. Their shrillness is not surprising. Usually, the smaller a party, the louder it tends to shout.

However, in their dogmatic arrogance, the rootless intellectuals apparently did not take one factor into account. It is the sense of disquiet among their comrades in Kolkata. The latter, led by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, having replaced Marx with the market, are no longer as anti-American as when they coined their celebrated slogan: Amar nam, tomar nam, Vietnam, Vietnam.

Their unwillingness to face the elections was articulated by the nonagenarian patriarch Jyoti Basu when he asserted that there won't be a mid-term poll. They will be pleased, therefore, if the government avoids an early poll because of the BJP's indirect support to the deal. But it is something which will anger the Delhi apparatchiki all the more, for they will be quite isolated. They may even withdraw support to the government as a result, but the loss will be theirs, for the government won't fall while the commissars will lose their capacity to wield power without responsibility.