India soft-pedals on US nuclear deal
Foreign Desk Report

NEW DELHI—India’s coalition government has virtually ruled out signing a controversial nuclear deal with the United States without the support of its communist allies, sparking fresh uncertainty about the fate of the pact. The communists oppose what they see as a strategic alliance with the U.S., and have threatened to withdraw vital support from the ruling coalition if it moves ahead with the deal.
A voter-friendly budget presented last month fed talk that the Congress party-led government was preparing to dump its leftist allies, sign the deal and face early elections.
But Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee has rejected such a possibility, saying it would not be possible to sign a major international deal as a minority government, if the left pulled out.
“A minority government cannot, need not and should not sign a major agreement like this,” Mukherjee told the Outlook magazine, adding even Washington would not agree to it.
The Indian government has said it is seeking the broadest possible political consensus over the deal which Washington says should be concluded before the November 4 U.S. election. The deal will give India access to American nuclear fuel and technology. “First the consensus will be with the supporting parties,” Mukherjee said. “Then we shall try to evolve a larger consensus.
“If the government does not exist, how can there be an agreement? So we shall have to carry them (leftists) with us, if possible.” Mukherjee’s comments came after the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) hardened its stance and gave the government until March 15 to convene a meeting to discuss the status of the deal.
The communists had allowed the government to negotiate global approval for the deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but have indicated they will be looking for a firm commitment at that meeting not to “operationalize” the deal.
“If the government thinks that after arriving at an agreed text with the IAEA they can proceed to take the next steps for operationalizing the agreement, they are mistaken,” an article in a CPI-M mouthpiece, People’s Democracy, said. “The future of this government depends on the decision they will take.”
Congress needs the support of the communists to get its budget through parliament, with a vote likely in early May.
For the time being, keeping its coalition together could be the main priority, even if that means promising not to advance the nuclear deal, analysts said.
The deal, to become effective, has to be ratified by the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group after clearing the IAEA and placed before the U.S. Congress for a final approval. Washington has said time is tight and a short U.S. legislative calendar ahead of the American presidential election could complicate the deal’s passage. But Mukherjee rejected suggestions that India had a deadline to meet. “We never started with a fixed timeline. We did not say this is the time by which I shall complete,” he said.
“I’m just telling you that we are trying”. The communists issued the threat in the latest issue of party mouthpiece “People’s Democracy,” ratcheting up pressure on the government not to go ahead with the pact. The threat follows US calls for India to conclude the deal quickly before November’s American presidential polls.
“It is for the Congress leadership to decide whether it wants to be seen as kowtowing to the pressure of the Bush administration,” said the party journal to appear this weekend. “The future of this government depends on the decision they will take,” the party said in the article headlined “Turning Point Has Arrived.”
The decision by the minority government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has to be “quick and clear,” said the article, adding “the Left parties will take all necessary steps to stop the government from taking such a harmful step.”
National elections are due in just over a year and neither Congress nor the communists have been eager for early polls.
Congress has suffered a string of state poll drubbings while the communists are in trouble in their strongholds of West Bengal and Kerala. But analysts say Congress may be gathering the courage to face the electorate sooner rather than later by presenting a populist budget last week that included a 15-billion-dollar loan bailout for farmers and income tax cuts.
The government “can take the bull by the horns... and say the deal is done,” said B.G. Verghese, analyst at the New Delhi Centre for Policy Research. “We don’t have a system of having ratification of treaties by the legislature.
“Then we’d have to see whether the Left’s statements were huff and puff.” Meanwhile, Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Prakash Karat has asked Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee for an “urgent” meeting of a joint government-Left nuclear committee and has set a March 15 deadline.