Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
They know, like what happened in confidence motion, Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh will get shields in the privilege motion in the Parliament in the matter of the nuke deal. Hence the Communists’ endeavor to usher in victory of Indian democracy will not succeed. A living democracy may march towards victory, not a dead democracy. We are a dead democracy as the democracy we had dreamt of has been replaced by plutocracy by the modern leaders of the Congress Party that the BJP, when in power, had also contributed to. The final deathblow to whatever semblance of democracy was still thriving in the fort of our belief came from the present Prime Minister and his colleagues in the design of the nuke deal with USA. To get back and revive our democracy we need to build up the second war of independence. And the Communists belonging to plutocracy’s opposite ideology can do it. For this, instead of participating in the Parliament, which has become the launching pad of plutocracy, the Communists should quit it and then only they can lead the nation in its much-needed second war of independence.
At this juncture, we may view the nuke deal updates for a moment.
There was free vote in USA both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate on the issue of allowing the USA-India nuke deal. Members of rival political parties supported or opposed it sans any party whip.Indian Parliament was debarred from expressing its wisdom in the matter through votes, as Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh and his colleagues did not want democracy to work.
The USA House of Representative passed the proposal on September 28 and the Senate on 2 October 2008 by majority votes allowing President Bush to go ahead to sign the nuke deal with India. Juxtaposing this scenario with Prime Minister Singh’s year old assertion that the deal is “signed, sealed and non-negotiable” one gets shocked over the vicious game Singh has played against our country.
The deal is a “bonanza for US firms” according to eminent US policy makers as reported by the Reuters on August 5, 2007 and is “so clearly in the interest of the United States” that, Senator Joe Lieberman, known for his role in policy making and proximity to President Bush, had claimed on August 14, 2007 as was immediately reported by the Reuters, that both the Houses of USA Congress would sure support it. And, as we saw, notwithstanding opposition by eminent members of both the Treasury and Opposition, the USA Congress passed it finally on October 2, 2008.
The US House passed it because it fulfills American purpose. Describing the nuke deal with India as “net gain” for USA, the fact sheet presented by US administration states that the US Congress supported the initiative, as “There are powerful security, political, economic, and environmental reasons to support this initiative.” The USA administration is looking forward to a “new strategic partnership with India in a way that will provide global leadership in the years ahead,” the fact sheet notes.
This motive of USA is further elaborated by Republican Senator Richard Lugar from Indiana, considered one of the most cerebral lawmakers in the US Congress, when, in addressing the US National Defense University on October 17 he categorically stated, “The bottom line is that American efforts to shape the world are unlikely to succeed fully without the cooperation of India.”
Recalling how “in response to India’s nuclear programme and tests of nuclear weapons, the United States has systematically denied broad categories of sensitive technology to India,” Lugar admitted that the United States, for decades, had placed India, into a lower tier of nations who were neither friends nor enemies. India responded by helping to lead the Non-aligned Movement in frequent opposition to US global initiatives at the United Nations and elsewhere.” So, according to Lugar, India that has exhibited its power to stay the strongest hurdle for US domination over the Globe, is a power without the cooperation of which “American efforts to shape the world are unlikely to succeed fully.”
This is why USA had been putting all pressures on India to accept her hegemony and had been planting her lobbyists and agents in India’s political positions. India has discussed this American design many times in the Parliament prompting at a time the late Swatantra Party MP Piloo Mody to come into the floor with a badge depicting assertive words, “I am a CIA agent.”
As progressive political outlook in the Country declined in course of extinction of the freedom fighters who had brought us liberty from foreign yoke, agents of plutocracy and lobbyists of USA became able to grab power and finally the United States got its committed man in Man Mohan Singh who pushed the country into its hegemony.
India that had challenged US design to subdue the world and had founded and led the NAM, after Singh grabbed the Prime Minister chair, has made shocking compromises. “We have already received some benefits from this engagement,” said Lugar, as India has been “taking a more positive outlook toward the US military presence in Afghanistan than it did originally.” Further, Lugar pointed out, “It supported our efforts to constrain Iran’s nuclear program through its votes in the IAEA Board of Governors’ in 2005 and 2006,” and added, “India has also taken a more supportive attitude toward the Proliferation Security Initiative, though it has thus far declined to join.”
Singh has repeatedly been saying that the nuke deal will solve India’s energy problems; but this most cerebral lawmaker in the US Congress has unambiguously declared that had this deal not been possible, energy problem of USA would have been unmanageable. To quote him, “The United States’ own energy problems will be exacerbated if we do not forge partnerships in India.” But how this and why? Answer is simple. USA has almost exhausted her uranium resources and is very much in want of fuel for her reactors. India has abundant stock of thorium and pushed into isolation as she was because of American conspiracy, she has developed her own unique technology of using thorium for power generation. In the guise of cooperation and partnership, it would be easy for US to grab thorium from India along with the related technology. More over, USA wants to commission new generation reactors in place of the outdated ones. Life span of a nuclear reactor is 40 years. USA has 103 nuclear reactors at the moment out of which, in September 2008, its Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has given extended life to 49 reactors, nearly half of the US total. Nearly 30 reactors are decommissioned whereas a few such as Fort St Vrain, Big Rock Point and Shoreham have been totally dismantled. The majority is in various stages of dismantling. No wonder with these reactors USA’s energy generation was in such a mess that had India not signed the agreement pledging a market to these decommissioned or about to be decommissioned reactors paving way for USA to commission there the new generation reactors, as Lugar has hinted to above, the United States’ own energy problems would sure have “exacerbated”. So Lugar holds the deal a crowning foreign policy achievement.
In other words, we have a Prime Minister who has helped President Bush to have the crowning foreign policy achievement of USA.
This would never have happened had the Communists of India not helped Singh to become the Prime Minister. Singh in his previous avatar as Finance Minister of Narasimha Rao had sabotaged Indian pledge enshrined in the Constitution to build up India as a socialist country and had opened up Indian economy to pave the path for plutocracy to kill our democracy.
Indian peoples had never voted the Congress Party to form a government. They had only very clearly refused BJP a fresh mandate as the government led by it with Vajpayee as Prime Minister had strengthened plutocracy ushered in by the Congress through Man Mohan Singh. In the hotchpotch that helped the Congress Party to claim the top post Sonia was of course the choice because rightly or wrongly it had fought the elections under her leadership. In fact, general voters who had supported the Congress Party had done so keeping Sonia in mind; never Man Mohan Singh. Had the Congress Party fought the elections in the name of Singh, it would have been totally rejected. The common peoples of India could never have supported the American lobbyist who had craftily rendered the national pledge for making India a socialist democracy inconsequential and ushered in plutocracy. But Sonia did not dare to claim the PM post and instead proposed Singh’s name just at the time when the nation was awaiting a call to her from the President to take oath as the PM. There was enough stick to bit Sonia with to compel her to abdicate her claim. As for example, the episodes involving R.K.Dhavan and Ottavio Quattrochi.
The Thakkar Commission had found the needle of suspicion pointing towards Dhawan in the matter of murder of Mrs. Indira Gandhi, but instead of prosecuting him Sonia’s husband Rajiv Gandhi had rewarded him with powerful positions. Sonia and Dhawan had together taken Mrs. Gandhi to the AIIMS and starting from that till Dhawan’s reemergence as the power center in Rajivraj, the entire episode is shrouded under a mystery that is yet impregnable to the common man; but Rajiv’s wife must be knowing the real reason and if there was any hidden motive, can easily fidget over the possibility of exposure. Similarly sticky were the allegations against her Achilles’ heel Quattrochi in Bofors scandal.
These were such sticks that the powers that could have wanted Singh in the top post might have used to compel Sonia to suppress her aspiration and to suggest Singh’s name in stead for the coveted post.
Had Singh not become the PM, the USA might not have got it so easy to make India sign with it the nuke deal.
But the most baffling political confusion that shocked every supporter of suffering Indians was that the Communists of the country supported Singh in becoming the Prime Minister and helped him retain the position till he organized escape from accountability through the drama of confidence vote. This was perhaps the worst of mistakes that the Communists could ever have committed. But they committed this mistake as otherwise, according to them, the communalist BJP could have grabbed power again.
And, here they erred.
BJP is not the only party in India that is communal. India got divided into Pakistan and Hindustan on communal basis under leadership of the Congress Party. The Constitution of India has stressed that the government should so deal with religion that the peoples would get glimpses of sociological evolution of their country and would develop necessary orientation to study anthropology of religions for socio-scientific consolidation of the entire Indian society. But has the Congress, so overwhelmingly in power for so long time, not tampered with the objectives of the Constitution in this regard and not encouraged religions to ruin national solidarity and integration by allowing rival religions to emerge as political powers? How could the Communists found the Congress as non-communal?
What is communalism? Communalism is assertive display of one’s own religion in the midst of followers of other religions. If the sandalwood mark on Advani’s forehead connotes to Hindu communalism the turban on Man Mohan Singh’s head cannot but be a display of Sikh communalism. Respecting rival religions may be secularism, but displaying one’s own religion is communalism. How could the Communists conceive Mr. Man Mohan Singh as non-communal?
Is there any political party of atheists in India? No. Then all the political parties in India are active or passive peddlers of faith in fate. Faith in fate is absolutely anathema to Scientific Communism because it makes one make tryst with destiny and allows her/himself to tolerate exploitation by a better placed person.
Is there any political party in India that has affinity with atheism? Yes, only the parties of the Communists. So Communists should never have allied with any political party or politician who peddles faith and promote tolerance to exploitation and assist plutocracy.
The Communists should have noted that with emergence of Man Mohan Singh in Indian politics, economic inequality has so widened and exploitation of marginal farmers, daily wage earners, working class members and common consumers has become so ruthless that the political state has become synonymous with an exploitative state leading to dwindling of political nationalism. Hence we see emergence of regional nationalism and sub-regional nationalism. Regional and sub-regional nationalism has often resulted in local chauvinism of which ugly glimpses are recently seen in Maharastra and Bihar in Railways recruitment matter. Nationalism being the base of collective identity of human beings dwelling within given geographical limits, when political nationalism dwindles, peoples rush into religious nationalism to overcome inherent individual sense of insecurity through collective cultural identity that eventually gives birth to communalism. So unless India is changed from the present condition of exploitative state to a socialist state, communalism can never be controlled or foiled. It was a folly on part of the Communists to have supported Congress against BJP to foil communalism.
In order to change India from communalism to political nationalism, Communists must war against plutocracy. They must make peoples know that Indian democracy has already been shanghaied into plutocracy. And to start this war they should relinquish the Parliament that now seems as harboring plutocracy. They should vow not to contest elections as long as peoples are not awakened against plutocracy and every cult of faith in fate is not rejected. The Communists alone can do this because it is they that are ideologically the only ones equipped to exterminate plutocracy.
A man, who loves his motherland, may expect this much from peoples that are politically pure.