IN the preceding pages, we have seen the true nature of the Nuke Deal as a charter of modern day slavery to US imperialist interests. The UPA has exposed its true colours as the Unashamed Partners of America, and the BJP too provided ample evidence of its well-known loyalty to Washington.

Now that the Deal is done, the real battle in the court of the people has begun. And it’s not just the fine print of the Deal, but the very character of our democracy and freedom that is at stake in this battle.

The existing Indian constitution does not require parliamentary ratification of major international treaties, let alone any popular referendum. A few wise men making up the council of ministers can impose any treaty on the country, be it the case of making India subservient to the unequal clauses of WTO or placing the country at the strategic disposal of the American superpower. Yet if the nuclear deal got debated several times in Parliament and the government had to resort to all kinds of manipulations, monetary or otherwise, to cobble a victory it only reflects the groundswell of popular opposition already generated by the deal.

In spite of all the pro-deal hype generated by the ruling classes and their political and intellectual representatives and media managers, the people of the country have enough understanding of the real meaning of imperialism, US imperialism at that. Two hundred years of colonial rule may have schooled and trained a comprador ruling class in India, but the people have not forgotten the pain and humiliation of colonial bondage and they are certainly not enthralled by the spectacle of the growing imperialist invasion of our economy and steady erosion of our sovereignty and autonomy to pursue policies in our own national interest. If the idea of the nuclear deal has already generated so much debate in the country, real life experience of all its ominous implications is surely capable of steeling a much more powerful patriotic-democratic resistance in the coming days.

Following the failure of the impotent parliamentary opposition to stop the Manmohan government's shameless run after that charter of modern-day national slavery -- the Indo-US nuclear deal -- the working people and patriotic-democratic intelligentsia of the entire country must rise against the pro-imperialist and anti-democratic treachery perpetrated by the ruling classes and their thoroughly corrupt and opportunist political representatives. The UPA government’s anti-people pro-imperialist policies must be resisted and defeated by the united resolve and strength of an awakened people. The BJP’s bid to claim ‘nationalist’ opposition to the Nuke Deal must be vigorously challenged and its true loyalty to US imperialism exposed. Revolutionary communists must take the plunge to intensify and win this crucial battle in the days to come.

The task of the Left today is not to offer piecemeal opposition to this or that ‘deal’ with the US but to resist the entire spectrum of Indo-US strategic partnership and educate the masses about the inherently and incorrigibly anti-people, pro-imperialist and treacherous character of parties like the Congress and BJP which should never be relied on again. By declaring that they are ready to reunite with the Congress after the polls if the leopard promises to change its spots, sections of CPI and CPI(M) leadership have already begun hampering this education. The revolutionary Left cautions the people against such opportunist vacillations in the name of tactics and calls for a consistent, long-term struggle against imperialism and all its lackeys in India.