THE BJP and NDA are only too happy to be subservient allies of the imperialist USA – their only condition is that they should have the hegemonic status in the subcontinent and be USA’s local cop on the beat in this region. It is well known that Vajpayee as PM had initiated the process of the Indo-US Nuke Deal, and reportedly, Jaswant Singh had congratulated the UPA policy makers who negotiated the Deal on “a job well done”.  So, the sole concern on the Nuke Deal professed by the BJP is based on a bomb-based jingoism. For all its ‘bomb-astic’ expressions of nationalism, the BJP’s position on the Deal as well as on all other matters of national interest smacks of servility to the imperialist US.        

No concern for India’s sovereignty and self-respect

The BJP claims to oppose the Indo-US Nuke Deal because, according to them, it will restrict India from developing its military nuclear potential – i.e, bombs. Its own claim to nationalism is based on Pokhran II – which it projected as a “Hindu bomb” which it tested in defiance of US sanctions.

The truth, however, is rather different.

The fact is that it is Pokhran II which placed India’s neck firmly in the US’ strategic noose – the Nuke Deal pursued by the UPA regime is merely tightening that noose.

The US imposed sanctions on India post-Pokhran, seriously affecting our nuclear programme. If the sanctions were a stick, the offer of relaxing the sanctions became the carrot that the US periodically held out in order to manipulate and induce India to tune its foreign and domestic policies in line with US interests. India had, prior to Pokhran II had a consistent position of refusing to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), on the grounds that the CTBT could not genuinely promote non-proliferation since the countries like the US which have acquired major stockpiles of nuclear weapons exempted themselves from any commitment to giving up nuclear weapons. Rather it allows these nations, with the most frightening arsenal of nuclear weapons, and a history of warmongering (the US is the only country ever to have dropped nuclear bombs on innocent people) to police the nuclear (and general political) behaviour of other nations! As one commentator remarked, CTBT was "like entrusting armed bandits to guard men and women in a village."

After Pokhran, the Vajpayee Government began to signal its willingness to sign the CTBT and pander to those armed bandits. The Vajpayee Government sent its emissary Jaswant Singh to have a series of secret, behind-the-curtain talks with Strobe Talbott, who had been Deputy Secretary of State in Clinton’s regime. Talbott tells us in his book Engaging India, that Jaswant Singh and he were both part of “a coordinated effort to improve the climate for consideration of the CTBT in India.” If the CTBT had been signed according to Atal Behari Vajpayee’s plans – would India have been ‘free to test’ new bombs, as BJP claims?

The worst was that the Vajpayee Govt was careful to hide its shameful manoeuvres and sell-outs from the democratic knowledge, supervision or consent of the Indian people. All Jaswant Singh’s talks with Talbott were held, neither in the US nor in India, but at various European locations, so as to keep the meetings secret from members of the public of both nations.

And of course, who can forget the shameful spectacle of the NDA Defence Minister George Fernandes subjecting India to humiliation by allowing himself to be ‘strip-searched’ at the US airport! That incident was a symbol of the shamefully subservient, supplicant relationship that the Vajpayee Govt forged with the US.

To sum up: the BJP’s war-cry of ‘we’ll test more bombs’ is hollow because it was willing to sign the unequal CTBT treaty, which would in any case have restricted India’s right to test nuclear weapons. More importantly: More bombs do not mean more freedom and self-respect, rather the opposite. Pokhran II eroded our freedom and paved the way for US intervention in our affairs: more bombs and arms race, even if blessed by the US, would only serve to mire India deeper in the web of the US’ imperialist designs.     

BJP: Willing ‘Strategic’ Servants of the US

Meeting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on her visit to India after the clinching of the Deal (October 4, 2008),BJP President and wannabe Prime Minister assured her that his party was “all for India’s strategic ties with the USA.”

The BJP, during the NDA regime, had proposed a ‘US-Israel-India axis’ – i.e supporting Israel in its occupation of Palestine and the US in its war and occupation of Iraq. Finding their own internal communal fascist policy to be in line with the racist US-led war on terror, the BJP promptly offered India’s services as a ‘natural’ ally of the US in the so-called ‘clash of civilizations’ against Islam and China. Immediately post-Pokhran II, Vajpayee had written to US President Clinton, trying to secure US support for India’s bomb, based on false claims that the Indian bomb would be a useful weapon against US enemies in the region – mainly China!

The Vajpayee regime was quite willing to send Indian troops to offer relief to the US troops occupying Iraq – only nation-wide protests forced them to drop the idea. Today, the US, in return for the Nuke Deal, wants India to help it wage unjust war on Iran.    

No Substantial Objection to the Nuke Deal

The BJP has also made it clear that it is not even opposed to the Indo-US Nuke Deal as such. In his 21 July speech in Parliament during the trust vote debate, Advani clearly said that all that he wanted was to renegotiate the deal. The first steps towards this Deal were initiated during the Vajpayee regime. Strobe Talbott, who had been US Secretary of State during the Vajpayee regime, has revealed recently that the Vajpayee regime would happily have settled for even less had the Clinton regime offered it to them. Initially, the BJP in fact maintained a silent and tacit approval of the Deal. Only opportunist compulsions forced it finally to take up a posture of opposition. As recently as in March, PM Manmohan Singh hailed Vajpayee as ‘Bhishma Pitamah’ (grand patriarch of Indian politics) and asked him to support the Deal in ‘national interest.’

Finally, we should all recall one particular striking example of how the BJP backtracked on its ‘opposition’ to Congress’ patronage of US MNC Enron, and how both sold out India’s interests and helped a corrupt US multinational loot India in the name of supplying us with power. The BJP accused the Congress of striking an unprincipled deal with US MNC Enron for its power project at Dabhol, Maharashtra. But the Vajpayee Government, tasting power for just thirteen days in 1996, tried, in those 13 days, to rush through approval of the terms of the Enron agreement by a cabinet decision without the knowledge or approval of Parliament! The BJP-Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra not only approved Phase I of the Dabhol project but also re-negotiated an expanded project with Enron including Phase II. Fuel and power policy were changed to suit Enron, introducing the policy of using naphtha as fuel. Soon after, Enron’s Dabhol Power Corporation began supplying electricity to Maharashtra at a price seven times higher than other electricity costs in India. A huge crisis resulted for the Maharashtra State Electricity Board, which was forced to foot the Bill. Corruption charges crippled Enron in the US later. But even the project was no longer in existence, the plants using naphtha, which had no use any more, had to be discarded.

To sum up: the BJP has no principled opposition either to the unequal and anti-national Nuke Deal nor to the imperialist US, and our anti-imperialist struggle will have to challenge and resist the BJP’s hollow nationalist posturing, communal jingoism and bomb-war-mongering at the same time as we resist the UPA Government’s betrayal of national sovereignty.

Don’t communalise the debate, please!

IN the course of the Nuke Deal debate, there were unsavoury attempts to communalise the debate by associating the opposition to the Deal with the Muslim community. It began with the Prime Minister’s statement, at the time of opposition to Bush’s visit and India’s vote against Iran at the IAEA, that the nation’s foreign policy was being “communalised.” The PM’s implication was that opposition to India enslaving itself to US imperialism was merely to do with ‘Muslim sentiment’ – and that Muslims opposing such policies were essentially anti-national. On the other side of the fence, Mayawati said the nuclear deal was anti-Muslim and we heard a politburo member of CPI(M) warning Mulayam that he would lose Muslim votes for supporting the deal. Amar Singh in reply said the nuclear deal was approved by some Muslim theologians and sought to neutralise his party’s support to the deal with America by the mischievous and misleading declaration that Barack ‘Hussein’ Obama might be the next US President and even he was in favour of the Deal. In reaction to such competing communal discourse, some sections from among the minorities have responded by asking Muslims to stay away from expressing their opposition to the foreign policy pursued by the Government.

Associating the Deal with the Muslim community, whether by opponents of the Deal or by its supporters, is highly dubious tactics. Tomorrow, if BJP ever comes to power and renegotiates the Deal, all opposition to the Deal or to other pro-imperialist actions (such as, say, support to US aggression against Iran or Pakistan) will be branded as ‘Muslim appeasement’ and Muslims will be targeted as “anti-national” and accused of wanting to “hold the country’s progress back.” On the other hand, it is also mischievous and condemnable to demand the Muslims ought not to intervene on matters of national policy. We are for the fullest and outspoken participation of Muslims, as of all other citizens, in all aspects of Indian policy including foreign policy – and no one should seek to question such participation.