We were Bought (Letter to Deep and other comrades)

When Manmohan Singh became the prime minister in 2004 I was working as an editorial trainee in Mangalam daily in Kottayam. The se cular left in MG University as well as in the newspaper was genuinely happy with the poll outcome. We believed that a non-BJP government at the centre was a historical necessity given the atrocities of the Muslim genocide in Gujarat in 2002 engineered by the fascist Narendra Modi and the shameless way the Advani & Co defended them. There was so much hope in the air. We called the critics of the Left-Congress alliance cynics. But a colleague of mine in Mangalam, a Leftist and a committed secularist, warned that it would prove to be a fundamental error if the Left backs Manmohan Singh, a servile of the global capitalism, as the prime minister of the country. We also shared apprehensions at that time, but tried to remain hopeful. I still strongly believe that the decision to support the UPA was a historical one. Historians may judge how this ideological tie-up helped restore the faith of Indian poor and the minorities in the democratic institutions that were completely maligned by the fascist BJP. But as Kishore Abraham, my Mangalam friend, warned, Manmohan Singh steered the corporatisation of Indian democracy through out the last 4 years. He buried down the attempts of the Congress party to regain its social democratic agenda and paved the way for the complete corporate takeover of Indian democracy. When India first voted against Iran in the IAEA, we saw how the Left upped the ante along with the Samajwadi Party and others. In a class room discussion, I asked a JNU professor if India would change its vote in the second IAEA meet. She was blunt: "We were bought". And India again voted against Iran. Those words get louder now. Desperately we have to admit Deepak, we all were bought by the American imperialism.
(John Stanly)

Why the deal should be screwed?

* The deal backers, including the prime minister, says it would lead to a sort of nuclear renaissance and bring about a revolution in India's energy sector. Is it so? Many independent (not part of the govt) scientists have made one point clear. The nuclear deal is not going to make any major difference in India's energy sector why becoz the nuclear energy satisfies only 2.13 percent of our total energy requirement.
* R. Ramachandran, The Hindu's science editor, wrote recently in an opinion editorial that the demand-supply mismatch in the uranium sector is because of the govt's continuous apathy for the last two decades. He argues India could produce enough amount of uranium to run its reactors investing one third of the money it's now paying to the US to buy reactors.
*It was Manmohan Singh, who was the then FM, cut down the spending for uranium production in early 1990s, saying "nuclear energy is not viable" for a big country like India.
*Once India set up the new reactors and started receiving uranium from the US, it will have to ensure, by any cost, the uninterrupted supply of uranium, which according to many, gives a strategic upper hand to the US.
*The PM lied in the Parliament that the 123 agreement overrides the Hyde Act. In fact, State Sec Condy Rice has more than once informed the Congress, which has to ratify the deal that the legislation is binding. The Hyde Act requires the US to stop uranium supplies to any country that conducts weapon tests.
*The deal backers say the US cannot influence the Indian foreign policy since safeguards agreement underscores India's right keep a "Strategic Reserve" of uranium and take "corrective measures" if the uranium supply gets interrupted. But both these options are mentioned only in the preamble of the Safeguards Agreement and have not been explained further. (We know what happened to the proposal of keeping a strategic energy reserve at global level to meet the fuel crisis).
* The basic argument is that whether India shd align itself with the US, an Empire which is on the decline. We know how Indian FP was taken over by the pro-US lobby in the last two decades. If the US is a myth, as what the deal backers argue, why India voted against Iran in the IAEA. Why the NDA government initially decided to send troops to Iraq. (Dont forget that the VP Singh government backed Saddam Hussein when he attacked Kuwait, a move that tarnished India's image in the Arab world).
*Why this deal? It's for whom? Why the government is doing everything possible, including intimidation (CBI reopens cases against Maya), horse trading (Talks with smaller parties) and even reaching an ambigous behind-the-scene deal with the SP, only to sail the deal thru, at a time when the country is reeling under high inflation? It’s an undesirable, mysterious deal in the name of nuclear energy, which is not able to meet even 2.5 of the total energy requirements of the country.

(John Stanly)