Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: July 30, 2006
If public memory is woefully short, the recollections
of politicians tend to be conveniently expedient. Those of us who remember
the heady days of May 1998 when India exploded its nuclear devices in Pokhran
will recall that the national celebratory mood did not always cut across party
lines. The two Communist parties - which had, in earlier decades, celebrated
the "worker's bomb" of the Soviet Union and China - were incensed.
Equally agitated was the "progressive"
wing of the Congress whose worldview was aggressively articulated by K Natwar
Singh, then a member of the Lok Sabha. Eight years after Pokhran-II, it would
be instructive to re-visit some of the pronouncements of the Comrades and
the Nehruvians - if only to confer profundity to the saying that consistency
is the virtue of little minds.
None of this history is unfamiliar to Yashwant
Sinha, the BJP Rajya Sabha member who has taken upon himself the onerous task
of delivering his party to the grateful clutches of Amar Singh and Sitaram
Yechuri - the moving spirits behind the proposed parliamentary resolution
on the Indo-US nuclear understanding. Sinha is sufficiently appreciative of
the political instincts of the cause he represents to realise that being seen
on TV addressing the media with the Samajwadi Party's public face by his side
(as he did last Thursday) does not bring instant comfort to those who swear
by Indian nationalism. Making common cause with the public defenders of SIMI
doesn't exactly convince the average Indian that national security is uppermost
in the minds of the BJP.
Nor were matters helped by Sinha's boast that
even Natwar Singh was on his side. The man who was instrumental in pushing
the NDA Government into acquiescing to the "unanimous" pro-Saddam
Hussein resolution of Parliament in 2003 may hate the Americans for what they
did to his great Iraqi friend. But didn't the BJP, only a year ago, wave the
UN-sponsored Volcker Report to argue that the recipients of oil vouchers had
sold the country's foreign policy for 30 pieces of silver?
The attempts by what can best be called the
Hizbullah faction of the BJP to win brownie points with the Samajwadi Party
may yet come to a naught because some of the Comrades are loath to abandon
political untouchability. That, however, would be an unforeseen face saver.
The larger question is: What is the BJP doing in the company of those who
hate America because of its unrelenting fight against terrorism? This is not
to suggest that everything is hunky-dory with the Indo-US relationship. There
are some aspects of the ongoing legislative ratification of the July 18, 2005
agreement which warrant concern. These are concerns shared by the White House
too. The BJP would be justified in expressing these concerns forcefully and
with clarity. But nit-picking over a clause or two cannot be allowed to divert
attention from the fact that the nuclear understanding is symbolic of a larger
strategic partnership.
India today needs business partners, markets
and a loose security umbrella to further its remarkable success story. The
US is a "natural ally" in the quest for technological excellence
and the fight against jihadi terror.
In a world which is lurching towards a civilisational
conflict, India and the US will inevitably be on the same side of the divide,
unless India is overwhelmed by dhimmitude. For all his shortcomings, the Prime
Minister has grasped this, although vote bank politics rule out any formal
acknowledgement of national threats. It is astonishing that the BJP believes
it can do business with forces whose primary commitment isn't (and never was)
to India.
Where it needs to oppose uncompromisingly
- as on the Office of Profit Bill and the lax national security - the BJP
either effects backdoor compromises or spouts inanities. Where it needs to
be supportive it goes ballistic and ends up unwittingly embracing Communists
and jihadis. Is there a leadership left in the party? Or, can any hustler
hijack the agenda?
