What next?

The parleys on Sunday suggest that the government may still work out with its Left allies some way to avoid a showdown on the nuclear agreement with the United States. Whether that can be done and the government still can go ahead with operationalising the agreement must be in some doubt, since the Left has been quite categorical on this latter point. The government could hold up further moves on its civilian nuclear initiative till things cool down, but insofar as the Left's opposition is more to the broader Indo-US engagement than to some specifics of the Hyde Act and what has been negotiated under the 123 Agreement, it is hard to see how the circle can be squared. Failing to go through with an agreement that has been negotiated hard for more than a year will of course make Washington wonder whether it can do any deals at all with New Delhi; indeed, India runs the risk of becoming a bit of a laughing stock. Failure to go through with what has been negotiated would destroy the Manmohan Singh government's credibility in its international dealings, and any commitments that it can make. None of this is to be wished for, but those are the risks today.

This episode takes the UPA government's relationship with its Left allies one step back. So far, the Left had the ability to stop any new legislation that it did not like, since the government does not have a majority in Parliament without the votes that the Left commands. However, international treaties do not need parliamentary approval, and technically therefore the government has been free to negotiate them without the Left's imprimatur. However, with the Left now threatening to withdraw support to the government on the issue of an international treaty, the government's room for manoeuvre is further constricted. Even non-legislative action must henceforth be such as to have the Left's approval. Whether this is a basis on which the government can function, or would want to function, is one of the questions today.

If the government were to fall because the Left withdraws support, some major political re-alignments would be hard to avoid. It is difficult to imagine, for instance, how the Congress and Left would come together again after fresh elections. The Congress would then have to drum up other allies with whom to form a new coalition government, which it would probably find difficult to do. It would then have to cede the government to other groupings. These would be the opposition NDA, or a third force that incorporates the Left. The chances of such a third front, which incorporates neither the Congress nor the BJP, must be rated pretty dim. That makes it likely that the Left would lose its present hold on the government and on policy-making. It is this bleak post-election outlook that binds the Congress and the Left together, and which makes both keen on avoiding immediate elections. However, in the game of bluff that this situation has provoked, the Left is completely out-smarting the Congress.

What of the issue that is at the heart of it all, civilian nuclear power? The Left decries its importance by arguing that it will account for just 7 per cent of the country's power generation in 2020. This is a bogus argument because the first generating units that get set up following the US deal will be ready only by 2017 or later. The issue is the long-term outlook, and reliance on nuclear power is slated to go up to 20 per cent.

As for the Left's criticisms of specific clauses in the nuclear deal, it is relevant to recall that it has been critical of all major initiatives, as though the status quo is the best of all options in all possible situations. Thus, the Left criticised the 1998 nuclear blasts (but not North Korea's test more recently!), it criticised the 1994 Marrakesh agreement, which gave birth to the World Trade Organisation, although that has stood India in good stead, it criticised the 1991 economic reforms, and it criticised the Green Revolution. If it criticises the 123 agreement today, it is being entirely consistent with its past record.