Left warns govt about allying with US

JYOTI MALHOTRA

New Delhi, March 14, 2007 : Days before India and the US sit down for the first time to discuss the parameters of their nuclear agreement, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat accused the government of allying with the US to the ``detriment’’ of the country and warned that it would cost the government if it continued with its ``opportunistic’’ foreign policy.

``I want to tell the UPA government, and particularly the Congress party, that it will have to pay a heavy political price…if the government doesn’t stick to its commitment in the Common Minimum Programme, we will go to the people,’’ Karat said.

Karat’s comments came at the conclusion of a conference on the theme of ``War, Imperialism and Resistance in West Asia’’ in the capital, and indicated that the Left parties were gearing themselves to battle once again on foreign policy issues.

The Left leader’s eloquently argued comments on the discrepancy between CMP commitment and reality, especially on the US and West Asia, evoked considerable applause from the audience and indicated that apart from the forthcoming elections in UP, the UPA was in for a bruising time.

``Our party has questioned the terms of the 123 agreement (on nuclear cooperation) between India and the US. This agreement seeks to bind India into a strategic alliance with the US to the detriment of our country…in the name of (securing) nuclear energy, it cannot proceed to do so,’’ Karat said.

Karat pointed out that the CMP, which had been discussed threadbare with the Left parties before it was written down, called for a ``fresh thrust’’ to ties with West Asia. But the reality was that Israel had become India’s largest defence supplier, because of which New Delhi was hardly interested in joining forces with Palestine.

Truth was, he said, India’s willing strategic partnership with the US, or its ``junior alliance’’ status, was defining relations with old friends across West Asia.

``This is opportunism,’’ Karat said, adding, ``writing one thing in the CMP and practicing another will cost the UPA.’’

The UPA had not lived up to its commitments, he said. Support to the Palestinian cause was ``mere lip-service and formal.’’ In response to the brutalities being regularly committed by Israel against Palestine, India hardly had any comment, and it was not even forthright about asking Israel to stop building the wall between Palestinian areas and ghettoising it.

Demanding that the government ``come clean’’ on its policies, the Left leader argued that India’s nuclear cooperation with the US did not mean that it could come with conditionalities attached to it, such as on a relationship with Iran.

The Left was glad, he said, that Foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee had clearly stated that there could be no military solution to the growing crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme.

He pointed out that the ``fight for Iran’’ was not restricted to the inept handling of the nuclear vote. ``It is totally wrong if this government comes under pressure to disrupt state to state relations with Iran,’’ he said.

He said the Left was ``closely watching’’ the situation, warned against trying to scuttle the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline and said the Left parties, well aware of the US pressure to do so, ``were not going to accept’’ such an event.

In fact, Karat said, India was allowing itself to become the ``central pillar’’ in an axis between Japan and Israel, overseen by the US as the overweening power. He quoted the US ambassador to India, David Mulford, as saying that the ``US had decided to help India become a major world power.’’

Ironically, Karat added, the UPA was simply carrying out a policy that had been started by the previous NDA regime, whether on the US or on Israel. He pointed out that when the BJP came to power in 1998, defence relations with Israel amounted to a mere $320 million, but when they lost power six years later, it had burgeoned to a cool $ 2 billion.

The BJP ignored the anti-imperialist tendencies of the people, he said, and warned that if the UPA didn’t pay heed, it would suffer the same fate.

ENDS