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Nuclear pact with US Profile On Record
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New world order History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce.
– Karl Marx
THE
American invasion of Iraq – a repetition of the war launched by the senior George Bush at the end of the last century – is certainly one of the biggest tragedies of our times, transcending in its global fallout over the Vietnam war. Some American policy makers seek a way to retrieve their immense downslide by a strike over Iran’s nuclear facility. Strange indeed are the ways of the present incumbents in Washington. But if the conspiracies hatched by Cheney and company for a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities materialise, it will indeed be a tremendous farce. The tragedy of the Iraq war has been many-sided. Iraq – an oasis of secularism and modernity among the Arab lands – has been devastated and splintered, and the United States itself has suffered multiple damage; the full impact being far beyond initial reckoning. And so, while Iraqi secularism foisted by former dictator Saddam Hussein has given way to the rise of religious revivalism – an impetus both to Shia-Sunni sectarianism as well as the Al Qaeda – the American economy has lost all round. In trade, jobs, industrial viability: a loss of several trillions of dollars. American dreams of capturing a vast oil wealth have vanished into thin air. And the downslide continues, with the bottom line still not visible. A recession had been predicted in the United States, among others, by the great George Soros. In fact, the recession has already begun rolling out. How severe is the impact of this recession is yet to be evaluated. To this we must add the immense loss suffered by the world at large and global economic relations. Among others, the petroleum crisis has been intensified and hastened, slowing down worldwide economic growth, emerging economies like India and China too being brought within the economic setback. The earthquake on the bourses of America, Europe, Asia’s far east, and now enveloping India too, is a barometer of the damage. Has the tragedy of the Iraq war transformed American policy vision at the top echelon? Have the lessons been learnt? Not yet. The policy of American dominance of the globe, particularly West Asia’s oil wealth, from which emerged the Iraq war – call it neo-imperialism of the 21st century – stays. One does not have to go far to glean this grotesque reality of the global scene. The finding fell in my lap thanks to the frank and straight answers to my queries by a leading American foreign policy exponent, Robert Kagan of the Financial Times. He spells this out without inhibition, in reply to questions posed by this writer. Q: How is it that invasion of Iraq came just when the lessons of Vietnam were being widely accepted? Is it an underlying streak of global dominance in American policy or 21st century neo-imperialism? Robert Kagan: Good questions, although there are many “lessons of Vietnam” and not everyone agrees what they are. But as a general matter, I would say that the Iraq intervention came at a time when the “lessons of Vietnam” had been practically expunged from the American memory… As to your second question, the argument I am advancing in (my book) Dangerous Nation is that there is an “underlying streak of global dominance” in American policy, and always has been. You could call it 21st century neo-imperialism if you like. But I would say that American policy continues to spring from the same ambitions, the same belief in power, and the same conviction of ideological superiority that has always shaped it. That is calling a spade a spade – no ambiguity or camouflage. However, the conclusion one derives is that we are in a period of many a ‘tragedy’ and ‘farce’, for while American intention of dominance remains, Washington has lost the ability to realise its aims and desires. Two successive developments have changed the course of history: one is 9/11 Al-Qaeda strike on the World Trade Center in the United States, followed by the American invasion of Iraq. A new factor has begun to mould the world scene – a factor that never existed in the history of interaction among nations – the outburst of religious fundamentalism shaped by the Al Qaeda. What is the explanation of these happenings? Memories are short-lived, but only a decade or two ago, the Anglo-American combine was playing ball to religious revivalism and merrily encouraging ‘religious fundamentalism’, precursor of the Al Qaeda. Religious revivalism was the lever to keep the Third World backwards. It was also the stick to beat the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan with, and India in Kashmir. The Taliban was born, thanks to a joint undertaking by Washington and the Pakistan ISI. America provided the dollars and heavy weapons while Pakistan provided army leadership. Now history bends: it has taken a sharp turn from the pattern of the outgoing decades. Indeed, the pattern of outgoing centuries. But the rulers in Washington find it difficult to adjust – to shed their illegitimate quest for dominance and their ambivalent ways. They continue to live in the world that has been lost, bringing in its wake a new turbulence rocking the American edifice. The acute struggle for change is writ large in the American presidential election scene. The Barack Obama phenomenon promises to bring a new element to the American scene. With what consequence for the world at large is yet an enigma. All this adds up to an underlying global shift in the power structure. Imperialism, American imperialism in particular is in dire straits. It is breaking up and a new world power structure is emerging. The turbulence under the feet of the United States is becoming unmanageable. Witness the unfolding scene in Pakistan, in West Asia, and the course of the Iraq war. The American grip over the Islamic world has been lost, if not destroyed, in the oil hub of West Asia, and in Pakistan, for long the kingpin of American operations in Asia, the lost American clout is dragging its one-time ally into an abysmal crisis of existence. To complete this traumatised picture: America’s trans-Atlantic allies in Europe are no longer partners but estranged friends. In the new power structure, Russian economic revival has created another power centre. Along side, one witnesses an upswing in countries of the East, with China and India leading a new economic upsurge. The rapid acquisition of science and technology, notably the advanced sciences – nuclear, space and IT – by the two countries has given them economic strength which is the key requisite. With China’s rise in the world power structure and global economic balance, it is India’s oscillating growth that leaves a question mark. An opportunity to remould the world scene is now with us. But there are also vulnerable facets. India’s new found strength was demonstrated by the much-lauded Indo-US nuclear accord. Contrary to apprehensions voiced by the Left parties and the BJP, the nuclear accord meant a victory for India and a submission by the United States, as the tenuous course of the year-long negotiations on the 123 Agreement clearly showed. Yet, the inability to clinch the nuclear accord on account of domestic political compulsions displays a structural political weakness that may yet pull this country away from attaining its rightful place in today’s world. Along with the opportunity at hand for India to play a worthy role in the global mainstream, there are danger signals too. The scene ahead is packed with a critical global oil/energy crunch side by side with food shortages the likes of which have never before existed. The post-Iraq economic crisis heralds a Western financial downslide, itself a new phenomenon. A struggle for markets is on the agenda. Indian domestic political cracks can pull this country down and away from mustering all its strength to meet the challenges ahead. That danger has to be
forestalled.
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— Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf — JD(S) supremo and former Prime Both candidates (Mc Cain and Obama) have their flaws and their admirable points; the doughty but sometimes cranky old warrior makes a fine contrast with the inspirational but sometimes vaporous young visionary. Voters now have those five months to study them before making up their minds. But, on the face of it, this is the most important choice America has had for a very long time. — Leader in The Economist Equidistance means not siding with one country against another. My exact meaning of equidistance is to have good relations with both India and China. — Nepal Maoist supremo Prachanda Politics is like the stockmarket and Rahul Gandhi is a long-term investor. He is not a speculator playing for short-term gains. — Congress MP Milind Deora Clenching your fists and raising slogans won't help. Get back to work. Till the land. That will be more rewarding than mouthing empty slogans. — Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achutanandan's advice to the party cadre I have been bitten. I must avoid infection. Or else I will be as dead as Naipaul’s fiction. — Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott My life view is that the glass is always half-full, not half-empty. I neither get carried away by victory nor does defeat destroy me. — Spain football coach Luis Aragones — Shankar Mahadevan — Meeta Pandit, recipient of the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar of the Sangeet Natak Akademi |
Nuclear pact with US THE time is fast running out on the Indo-US nuclear deal. As we approach the final stages of the process of decision making, it is becoming increasingly evident that the current debate is more in the nature of political posturing with an eye on the next elections than on the merits of the deal. There is now near unanimity among those who have studied the deal and understand its implications not only that it is very much in India’s interest but also that our failure to grasp this momentous opportunity will do us incalculable harm. In fact, we would be much worse off than if the deal had never been negotiated. We could then at least preserve the possibility of starting with a clean slate. But having concluded the negotiations in good faith and fulfilled all the constitutional requirements for its approval, if we fail to go ahead with the deal, our credibility as a serious negotiating partner will take a serious beating, from which we may never be able to recover in the foreseeable future. Not surprisingly, the strongest opposition to the deal has come from the Left. The fact is that they never wanted the deal in the first place. They began by giving a long list of conditions to our negotiators for the 123 Agreement, evidently in the hope that it would be impossible to satisfy all of them. But thanks to the exceptional skills of our negotiating team, ably led by the Prime Minister, each one of the conditions was fully met. That being so, how can we explain their continued opposition to the deal? Does it not amount to a serious breach of faith? The Left parties are now opposing the very idea of a strategic alliance with the US. They do not realise that this deal is not just about Indo-US co-operation, but it is the first and an essential step towards ending the “Nuclear Apartheid”, of which we have been the victims for so long. It will open up the possibilities of civil nuclear co-operation not only with the US, but also with all the other countries who possess the resources that we vitally need and which would continue to be denied to us if we do not go ahead with the deal. The stand taken by the BJP has evolved considerably as the debate has proceeded. In their most recent pronouncements, the BJP leaders have indicated that their only outstanding objection to the deal is the provision in it “banning” future nuclear tests. Since there is no such provision in the 123 Agreement, the reference obviously is to the Hyde Act. However, it needs to be stressed that the relevant provisions of the Hyde Act are far less stringent that those that already exist in the US law forbidding nuclear co-operation with countries who conduct such tests, under which the sanctions imposed on India after the Pokhran tests are still in place. On the other hand, the Hyde Act no longer makes the cessation of such co-operation mandatory, but provides for bilateral consultations to determine whether the tests are justified by our changed security environment, and if so no sanctions may be imposed. In the same context, the BJP had indicated at one stage that they would be prepared to support the deal if the Indian Parliament were to adopt appropriate legislation affirming that the Hyde Act is not binding on us. Wouldn’t it be an extraordinary step for Parliament of any sovereign nation to single out a particular law of another sovereign nation for such affirmation? Isn’t this implicit in the very concept of national sovereignty? In my view, such a step would call into question our faith in our own sovereignty. If the BJP’s approval is indeed held up purely because of their doubts about the legal implications for India of the provisions of the Hyde Act that have not been incorporated in the 123 Agreement, surely a way can be found out of this impasse without taking a step that casts doubt on what is our sovereign right any way. In so far as the UPA is concerned, rightly or wrongly, the successful conclusion of the deal has come to be associated with the personal prestige of the Prime Minster. His enthusiasm for the deal is, apparently, not shared by the other UPA leaders. If it comes through, and I am one of those hard-core optimists who still believe that it will, it will doubtless be a personal triumph for him and will secure for him a permanent place in history. It can only fail if the UPA does not have the guts to go ahead with it, having come thus far. It will then have to take the blame for the consequences that will follow. Those who are aspiring to renegotiate the deal on more favourable terms for India only need to look at the latest opinion polls in the US presidential race. In all likelihood, the next incumbent of the White House will be one who is so firmly committed to nuclear non-proliferation that he is bound to insist on India signing both the NPT and the CTBT as a precondition for any nuclear co-operation with us. What will then happen to our dreams of becoming a full-fledged nuclear power? This is an issue that must be squarely faced by all those who, unlike the Left, are aspiring to assume the responsibility of running the country after the next elections. Can they afford to play politics with a matter of such grave national interest? At the present juncture, it is the UPA that has to play the most crucial role in deciding the future of the deal. It is time for serious introspection by the UPA leadership whether, if it comes to the crunch, abandoning the deal at this stage is a price worth paying for a few more months in
office.
The writer is a former Ambassador to the U.N. Conference on Disarmament |
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Profile Even as the nonagenarian leader slipped into coma and the doctors attending on him gave up all hopes, the CPM posted his profile and bio-data on its website for the benefit of the media and the general public. Now, his fellow comrades at the AK Gopalan Bhavan, the Marxists headquarters, have hurriedly removed the embarrassing piece. Disapproving doomsayers, Surjeet the quintessential politician and Chanakya of coalition politics, made surprise recovery and was discharged from the hospital. The joke doing rounds in political circles quotes politicos and old-timers as saying that it was not the medicine but the Congress defeat in Karnataka and the signs of a resurgent BJP that made Surjeet recover. “Tell him, there is going to be a mid-term poll or that the BJP is returning to power, that is enough to propel Surjeet from the ashes”, they say. Indeed, Surjeet has been the architect of coalition politics at the Centre. Considered soft on the Congress, he played a major role in sewing up the United Front, led by H.D. Deve Gowda, in 1996 with outside Congress support to keep the BJP at bay. As the CPM General Secretary in 2004, he was able to tame the hardliners like Prakash Karat and help cobble together the UPA, headed by the Congress. Though a hardline comrade, Pappji, as he is popularly known, has something in him that made him dear across the political divide. In the perfidious world of power politics, Harkishen Singh Surjeet is a phenomenon. His 93 long years, of which 70 were spent in the hurly-burly of politics, re-election to the powerful post of the CPM General Secretary for the fourth time, has indeed set a new record. Age appears to have frozen in case of this white turbaned Sardarji from Jalandhar. For almost two decades, Surjeet has filled the power vacuum and known for his eel-like smoothness in filling the void; some call him a powerbroker. His critics say, he is a leader with fingers in many pies and legs in many camps. Perhaps, for his manipulative skills that the CPM thought he is ideally suited in the fast changing political scenario in which new alignments may have to be forged and new equations hammered out. Surjeet was, after all, a king-maker in 1996. The militancy in Punjab brought him close to Indira Gandhi and later Rajiv Gandhi; both the Prime Ministers gave ear to him. He kept his liaison with the Congress leaders throughout the regime of P.V. Narasimha Rao and later played an important role in bringing I.K. Gujral as the Prime Minister. He was known to be in touch with Sitaram Kesri when the Congress leader pulled the rug from under the feet of Deve Gowda and toppled his government. One wonders if Surjeet had a role when Marxists committed “the historic blunder” by blocking Jyoti Basu as a compromise candidate to head a coalition of smaller parties at the Centre. He held the view that the largest opposition party (the Congress) should take part in a coalition as there was no other way to establish a stable government. It must be said to his credit that he brought about the change in Marxists’ stance — “if the BJP is cholera, the Congress is plague”— and enabled the CPM to win allies and getting Lok Sabha seats in the states where the party had little roots and
following.
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On Record IT is the job of a lobbyist to open the possibility for Indians to have a seat on the Board of large French firms and then create subsidiaries in India. This would be a logical step in developing mutual win-win situations between the two countries at a time when India is raring to be one of the biggest powers. French lobbying firm Euromédiations set up by Véronique Queffélec aims to bring the corporate decision makers together so as to develop strong business ties and in turn improve the relations between the two countries. The Tribune met her last week. Q: What are your views concerning lobbying in India? How lobbying can establish itself here? A: The Commonwealth countries, the US and Israel have a rich tradition of lobbying where it is seen as an activity in its own right. In France it is not so, but lobbying is alive and well in India. I have been working as a lobbyist both for the Indians and the French, aiming to establish useful bridges between the two countries. On the French side, helping them to understand and work with the complex Indian decision-making process: the National Union and the federal states, but also helping them to work with numerous and varied networks. On the Indian side, explaining to the political and administrative deciders, the advantages of, the norms, the specificities of French firms so that they may take them into account in their decision-making processes, to consider whether they are pertinent and potentially useful for the country’s needs. I did something very similar when I worked for French firms with respect to the European Community. Q: How can a lobbyist like you help a French firm set up shop in India? A: In Asia, France has staked a lot on China, just recently they have started discovering India. The French are fascinated and puzzled by the systems, they don’t understand the modus operandi and even less the organisms that are supposed to help them in this task. They often have one or several representatives and sometimes they are Indian. What can one do if one is based in the Tamil Nadu or Maharashtra and don’t know the decision-makers at the Centre in New Delhi? What can a Frenchman do when he doesn’t really know the political or administrative organisation of India, and even less its networks? This is what a lobbyist does, help in mutual understanding in the interest of both countries. Q:
What do the French think about doing business in India? A: Indian culture and spirituality have always fascinated the French. But they are just beginning to discover the potentials of the Indian market. They have misgivings and are often concerned about the complexity and the number of decision-making factors; the difficulty and delays of the administrative procedures, the high import taxes and the differences in the notion of time. The French have an idea of India that doesn’t necessarily match Indian reality, and that’s where lobbying can be useful. Q: Any firms that you have been able to lobby successfully between the two countries? A: My first victory was in 2007 when I worked on the creation of the first Euro-Indian firm in business jet sales and management, SCR-Masterjet India Ltd., a deal between SRC-Ltd, a leader in central Asia that operates in the main Indian airports, and Masterjet, based in Lisbon, London, Paris and Geneva. Q: How can French firms contribute to India’s growth potential? A: India needs synergies for its development even though historically, India has stronger ties with Commonwealth countries. It would be good for India and France to get to know each other. India has the power, the intelligence, the creativity and the drive of youth and the wisdom and age-old knowhow. France is a fine old country where luxury and refinement are a tradition. But it also has unique, innovative and competitive firms in many fields where India is seeking expertise. Many factors are present on both sides to guarantee a useful cooperation in a number of areas; the setting up and management of infrastructure in water resources and waste handling, construction of roads, highways, airports, railway networks as also in such sensitive areas as Defense and civil nuclear
energy.
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I cannot become a useless vegetable and I can't be witness to the downfall of the state…I am an elected President of Pakistan under the Constitution. I will judge if I have any value in the country…My going or staying depends on me and Pakistan.
Why blame the Janata Dal (Secular) for the BJP's victory in Karnataka? We did our best to keep the BJP out and yet the Congress did not respond when we pulled out of the alliance with the BJP…It is for the Congress to introspect.
Music is a gift from God. Everytime I take to the microphone, I am unsure of what will emerge from me…I feel a power has taken over…Everything falls in place— like the instruments playing in the background.
I don’t exactly know when my own training started. It’s like when you are a fish you just know how to swim. Even when you are not learning formally, you are hearing the other disciples. And that’s a very important part of learning.
THE media has prepared his obituary in advance; even his party appeared to be in a hurry to sing requiem for him but Har Kishan Singh Surjeet rose like a phoenix. Ninety-three-year-old veteran Marxist was discharged nearly a month after being admitted to a local hospital, following a cardio-respiratory attack.