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| Is Dr. Manmohan Singh really a singh (lion) or a paper tiger? | | |
Whether the Primer Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is really a singh
(lion) or a paper tiger is a matter of opinion. While his detractors
call him the weakest Prime Minister the country ever has and a
spineless person, his supporters claim him to be a person of large
nerves, who is firm and tough in taking the decisions and then
implementing the same, while at the same time being highly flexible
and dynamic. In the matter of nuclear deal struck between India and
USA, the Prime Minister who displayed his boldness by daring the left
parties, on whose support the UPA government sustains itself, to
withdraw their support to the Congress led UPA government, if they are
bent upon opposing and scuttling the deal. However soon after showing
his sharp teeth and guts to the leftists, Manmohan Singh is charged by
his opponents of having bent on his knees by putting the deal on hold
and conceding to the demand of the left parties for creating a
mechanism and panel for addressing the concerns of the leftists about
the deal and not operationalising the same till then. However, only a
day after the settlement reached between the Congress and the leftists
on the matter, the Prime Minister has ruled out keeping on hold the
deal, which has been already finalized, after much haggling with the
United States and has stated that "India cannot afford to miss the
nuclear bus".
This acrimony between the UPA, more precisely the Congress and the
left, both interpreting the compromise reached at between the two, in
their own way has created confusion worse confounded among the common
man over the issue. In fact any debate on the deal finalized between
India and USA, should have been discussed thoroughly in the Parliament
before its finalization, as has been done by USA in their own Senate
and the Congress. Any going back from the deal at this stage or its
diluting will go to erode the credibility of the country in the
international sphere. In fact convention needs to be built that any
international agreement by the country, which has bearing on its
foreign policy, should have the sanctioned of the Parliament and as
far as possible national consensus. But unfortunately there is no such
convention in this regard. Even in the matter of India's policy of non
alignment, which eventually in practice got tilt towards the USSR,
there was neither a national consensus nor the same was ever debated
thoroughly in the country's Parliament. But those days there was
practically a one party rule with the opposition being very weak.
The stand of the BJP and the NDA on the deal is more ambiguous and
vacillating than that of the Congress and the UPA. The BJP who even
went to the extent of charging the Prime Minister of sell out and
compromising the sovereignty of the country before the USA, soon
change its position, with leader of the opposition L K Advani giving
to understand that they had no problem with the deal if the country's
own law about nuclear tests is amended. The RSS to fully supported
Advani on this count and appreciated his move in this behalf. The pro
US lobby in BJP, which is quite strong and is represented by the
former External Affair Minister in the NDA government, Jaswant Singh,
with Advani too being a camp follow, were feeling inconvenient over
the party appearing to be on the side of traditionally anti USA left
parties. Its change from original stiff opposition to the deal to the
conditional support, perhaps has another background. It is generally
believed that the Muslims by and large are not taking friendly to
India striking a deal with USA, who is dubbed as anti Muslims. The BJP
and RSS would not like themselves to be part of any anti American
stance, which has the Muslim element in it and which can be
interpreted as aiming at appeasing the Muslims. However under pressure
from a lobby in the party who is opposed to the deal, Advani has again
retracted from his statement, conditionally supporting the deal.
The only firmness in the stand about the matter is of the leftists,
whether it is guided by their traditional anti US ideological,
moorings, coming down from the times of cold war, with the world
divided between the capitalists block led by USA and the communist
block led by USSR and China. It is notwithstanding the divergent
opinions about the bonafides of the leftists in their opposition to
the deal.
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