It is not very often that the great Indian Political Drama transcends to a mindgame. What normally borders a street brawl has not just elevated itself to a game of bluff but has actually gotten beyond it with some inspired psy-ops.
But first Prakash Karat’s Doublespeak on the Nuclear issue.
First 20 Aug 2007, Prakash Karat in The Hindu explaining why the CPI-M is opposed to the Indo-US Nuclear Deal.
To make India’s foreign policy and strategic autonomy hostage to the potential benefits of nuclear energy does not make sense except for the American imperative to bind India to its strategic designs in Asia
The Act includes provisions imposing restrictions on transfer of technology and barring access to dual use technologies, thus denying India a full nuclear fuel cycle
So here is Karat arguing that the Indo-US Nuclear deal would put constraints on India’s strategic autonomy.
Now contrast this with Prakash Karat on 13 May 2001 in the People’s Democracy actually complaining that the Nuclear Lobby in India was attempting to free India from any constraints to develop its Nuclear Weapons. This in the CPI-M mouthpiece in an article criticizing the then Vajpayee lead NDA Government’s welcoming of the Bush National Missile Defence program.
Underlying the effusive welcome by the BJP-led government, is the hawkish position that India should be freed from all constraints to develop its nuclearweapon force.
The Bush plan with its dismantling of the arms control regime is seen as an opportunity for India to develop its own nuclear force.
So there you have Prakash Karat on record lamenting that India’s Nuclear Lobby would be given too much Independence or Autonomy to do what it wants and he is blaming the Americans and George Bush for attempting to remove constraints on India’s Nuclear Weapons Program.
With that Offstumped welcomes you to this week’s episode of Who’s Bluff is it anyway ?
An interesting mind game playing out between the The Hindu, The Indian Express and the Telegraph.
The Hindu is carrying what the ultra hard Left pro-Chinese Karat Faction actually want and can go public with.
The Telegraph is carrying what the soft Left Bengal Faction would like to leak about what the CPI-M privately wants.
The Indian Express is carrying what the soft in the head Prime Minister’s Office would like all of us to think the CPI-M privately wants but does not acknowledge publicly in the vain hope that it actually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So you have Shekhar Gupta in his sunday op-ed National Interest hardselling the argument that it is the Left and not the Prime Minister that is looking for an honorable way out.
If Shekhar Gupta brought some much needed Sunday Levity to this mindgame, the Congress spokerspersons from Abhishek Singhvi to Priyaranjan Dasmunshi are providing weekday comic relief with their deep denial of being on life support.
There was something for everyone in this week’s episode of Who’s Bluff is it anyway ?
Electile Dysfunctional D. Raja and A.B. Bardhan got to bluff that they can still stick it up to the Congress with their threats of bringing down the Government. Mayawati’s BSP got to bluff that it actually understands the Nuclear Deal. The dinosaur of Indian Politics VP Singh got to bluff that he was still relevant, not that anyone was paying much attention to him anyway. The UNPA got to bluff that it was still United and Progressive its marginal presence in the Lok Sabha notwithstanding. George Fernandes got to bluff that “I think so I am sane” but the bluff actually ended up on him. The Prime Minister wanted to call the the BJP’s Havan bluff but ended up scalding himself at the altar of the Left’s fire. Sonia Gandhi got to bluff that she was actually solidly behind the Prime Minister, while Pranab Mukherjee kept toeing the line that the Party would like to rule the entire term.
So the mind games go on, another day, with the UPA-Left’s bluff on the people of India continuing on life support.
It is time we called their bluff by demanding a vote in Parliament.
Filed under: Uncategorized
ohh hoo hoooooo hahahahah that was one awesome writeup. somebody please save this country from marxist commies, and i don’t mean the chinese. when was the last time china was marxist anyway?
In my mind, this whole obsession with nuclear power is unhealthy because it clouds the real solutions needed to fix the Indian power industry. Fuel source is just one aspect of a well-functioning power industry.
The real problems facing India’s power sector are economic in nature. India needs to liberalize both the power sector as well as all the feedstock industries – coal and natural gas as soon as possible. Opening up fuel sectors to open imports and market-based pricing will have the invigorating effect of commercial prospecting for more domestic reserves as well as foreign sources. The entire value chain will get forward and backward integrated and commercial investment will pour into the industry. Satisfying the growing needs of an electricity hungry population is a huge opportunity. However, the investment cannot materialize in the absence of a clear and transparent framework of a national energy market. Companies need to be assured that they can charge commercially viable rates and that the consumers will pay their bills. To some extent, Delhi and Mumbai have already shown how this can be done.
On the fuel front, India as well as the rest of the world have huge supplies of natural gas and coal. Many companies including Reliance have found huge reserves of gas in the KG basin and other places. Worldwide trade in Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) has shown tremendous growth in the last few years. There is no need for capital intensive and insecure projects such as the Iran pipeline : just investing in a number of LNG regasification terminals will do the job cheaper and better. Petronet is already importing LNG in Dahej and then feeding it into the ex-Enron power plant by hauling it in a pipeline. Where is the need for any nuclear power at all?
The answer to energy security lies in opening up the energy market and taking on the subsidy mafia and electricity thieves. Unfortunately this intellectually and morally bankrupt government, instead of doing the right thing, is trying to take the easy way out by going for nuclear power generation! Energy security needs unlocking and deployment of India’s huge coal and gas reserves, not investment in costly nuclear plants whose fuel supply will be at the mercy of a foreign country.
That is the true cost of having this government held to ransom by the Leftards.
Yossarin – While you sort out the UPA-Left’s Bluff, here is BJP’s theatre of the absurd…>>>>>>>>>
The monsoon session of Parliament, starting unusually late, must have come as a big relief to the beleaguered Bharatiya Janata Party. It can now concentrate on doing what it does best: disrupt proceedings regularly and resort to theatrics to divert attention from its twin problems of internal squabbles and edgy allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The disarray in the BJP forces it to deflect attention from itself, as the party of super patriots and self-appointed Hindu theologians looks apprehensively at its prospects in the state assembly polls that will be spread over the next 12 months, to be followed by general elections in on or before 2009.
The eagerness with which the BJP has pounced upon the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal for berating the government is indicative of its desperation. It was the BJP in power at the Centre that had laid the path for closer Indo-US ties. The BJP’s frustration arises from the fact that the Congress has built upon that foundation. The BJP’s chorus against the nuclear deal would not have sounded out of tune if the party had the honesty or the courage to say that India needed no such deal with the US and opposed New Delhi’s policy of getting closer to Washington.
The BJP should have looked inward before it put forward the demand for amending the constitution to give parliament the right to examine and have the last word on certain agreements that New Delhi enters with other sovereign nations. In the six years that it was in power while leading the NDA coalition at the centre, the BJP did not take parliament into confidence about the vague American ‘gift’ of the ‘Next Step in Strategic Partnership’ to offset the elevation of Pakistan as a ‘non-Nato’ ally of the US that made Islamabad eligible for receiving the latest Nato armoury.
The NDA Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and most of his colleagues in the cabinet were compulsive globetrotters but they did not have much tangible gains to show for their expensive overseas jaunts. Vajpayee was the first foreign leader to give legitimacy to the dictatorship of Gen Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, a dubious distinction. After abusing each other for over a year, the two had a ‘historic’ meeting at Agra. What exactly transpired there? The Pakistanis keep insisting to the day that the two had all but concluded an agreement on Kashmir?
In an earlier meeting Vajpayee had reportedly told his then Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, that the year 1999 was going to be the year of resolution of the Kashmir problem, thanks largely to back channel diplomacy. At least this is what Sharif has said in his book. Will Vajpayee or any other BJP leader bother to clarify these issues now?
The less said about BJP’s stand on terrorism the better. One has only to recall that almost all the major terrorist attacks on India took place during the BJP/NDA rule as was the shame of a senior Indian minister escorting Pakistani terrorists to their safe haven in Kandahar under the Taliban rule. BJP’s demand for ‘hot pursuit’ of terrorists is sheer political perversity for if it was possible to adopt this policy what prevented the Vajpayee government from taking this course?
The BJP’s fondness for running campaigns against its opponents based on half-truths has started to eat into its entrails. The party is as much divided at the level of national leadership as at its various state units. One set of BJP leaders is all the time trying to outsmart the others. After being knocked down in UP the biggest worry for the party at the moment is to retain Gujarat, its pride possession. Chief Minister Narendra Modi has perhaps as many enemies within the state BJP as in the opposition. More worrisome for the BJP is the hostility he has generated against his rule in the VHP and other offshoots of the Sangh Parivar and the possibility of BJP dissidents closing ranks with the Patel lobby in the Congress- NCP combine.
The national leadership of the BJP talks in two tones about Modi. He is lauded as the BJP’s mascot to woo the Hindu votes. But many in the so-called second line of BJP leadership regularly take a swipe at him through off the cuffs briefings to select media personnel when he appears to lay claims to a larger role in the BJP.
Chief Ministers facing dissent within the party is, of course, nothing unusual. It happens all the time, whether the party in power is the BJP or the Congress or whatever. Problem with the BJP is that it continues to trumpet the myth of its ‘discipline’ and the ‘party with a difference’. In Rajasthan and Chattisgrah, for instance, the BJP appears more like a ‘party with differences’ than cohesive units. The return of BJP’s old horse, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat to Rajasthan politics will put a further strain on the state party as the former Vice President is widely believed to be keen on seeing his son-in-law replace the present incumbent, Vasundhara Raje, since she is an ‘import’ from Madhya Pradesh,.
A pet theme of L. K. Advani, the BJP oracle, is the brittleness of the Congress-led UPA coalition. But before that, he would do well to turn his attention to the NDA coalition that his party heads. His party has lost the presidential election with a bigger margin than anyone had expected and it showed the deep cracks that have developed within the NDA. While some allies defied or ignored the NDA call for voting in favour of Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Shiv Sena, a BJP clone voted for the Congress-backed candidate. The BJP also suffered cross voting in the Vice Presidential election.
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The UPA-Left combine may be a frying pan today, but for the people of India – moving from UPA to NDA is not an option because it is like moving from “frying pan” to “fire” !!
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Sir,
A very well written piece of POLITICS BUT WITH LOT OF humour.Makes people THINK. comments by right or wrong are also interesting. thanks
The PM has got it right this time !!>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The communists have stayed true to their form. In their book anything anti-American is kosher. Similarly, just anything anti-Congress is kosher for the BJP. Both parties are driven by their antipathies even if it means throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
It’s another matter that the BJP was discussing just this deal with the US before it was ingloriously turned out of office. Mind you the BJP led NDA government was even willing to send troops to Iraq in return for little more than just a pat on its head. This is the party that recognized China’s occupation of Tibet for as little as a semi-official website acknowledging Sikkim’s integration into India as a done deed, after having taunted Jawaharlal Nehru for years for having forsaken the Tibetans. Then for a while it had a different view of Jinnah’s place in history. But now the BJP has once again discovered nationalism and so it goes hammer and tongs at the nuclear deal with America.
Look at what the two Bluffers (BJP and the Left) are saying when they reject the Indo-US nuclear deal. Three concerns seem to predominate:- 1. The first is that it would undermine the indigenous nuclear program.
2. The second is that it would impair the weaponisation program.
3. And the third is that it would compromise our independent foreign policy.
None of these fears are well founded. It seems just politics as usual.
If the indigenous program was any way on track or near it, we would not have needed the deal with the US as badly as we do it now. The simple truth is that the AEC, much like the DRDO has hidden behind layers of secrecy to cover up its non-performance. We have less than 4000 MW of nuclear power generation capacity and our nuclear power plants are functioning at about half that capacity due to serious technical and unresolved safety issues. A white paper would be order. And this is not the time or place to delve deeper into this.
As far as the weaponisation program is concerned, the communists have all along decried it. Even the BJP did not have more than a cock-a-snook round of tests. Remember it wanted the tests for little more than political reasons. Vajpayee has often been on record as wanting to test even in his first thirteen-day interregnum as prime minister. I can understand if he has forgotten about it, but surely his colleagues can still recollect it? Further the BJP voluntarily eschewed all further testing. So what is this fuss about testing all about? The day India thinks it needs to test; it can abrogate the treaty with the US and get on with it. A treaty is not for life. It is only for as long as it suits both parties.
And as far as compromising our independent foreign policy, after committing troops to Iraq has the BJP any moral right to speak about? Now let’s examine this charge even further. Does signing the deal imply that we have to see eye to eye with the US on all issues? Even its NATO allies don’t do that and there is no reason why we should?
On the Indo-US nuclear deal, the government has done well and done the right thing. The Prime Minister and his negotiating team must be congratulated for securing the best bargain under the circumstances. As India embarks on a period of high economic growth, and we have a window of just a few decades in which we make our transition from a low- income country to atleast a middle-income country, our requirement of energy to power that growth will grow exponentially. International hydrocarbon resources are finite just as national hydro-electric potential is. Coal based thermal plants too are a limited option given the attendant problems due to atmospheric pollution. Nuclear power, under the circumstances, is our best and possibly only option. We need atleast 45-50000 MW’s of nuclear power capacity if we are to get on to a growth trajectory that is annually 2 per cent more than what we are expected to achieve. Assuming we grow at 10 per cent after 2020 instead of 8 per cent, the cumulative difference in GNP created till 2050 would be in the order of over $100-120 trillion. That is not small change. Remember India’s population will stop growing around then and it will start aging. This means the dependency ratios will become increasingly burdensome, precluding rapid economic growth.
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Therefore if you call yourself a patriotic Indian (rising above party affiliations) – this one time you should be with Manmohan Singh.
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Right or Wrong
I think large section of BJP supporters are extremely upset at the party’s unprincipled gangup with the leftists.There is the real danger in letting the likes of Yashwant Sinha hijacking foreign policy of the party
But your pathetic attempts to protray Congress and Manmohan Singh as paragonS of virtue is laughable.
Expect for the nuclear deal,the UPA government has been unabashedly following pernicious communal socialist agenda(excellent coinage by Yoassarin).Cheered on by the well-entrenched leftist intelligentsia and abated by fellow travelers in media,Manmohan Singh lead government was reveling in its visceral hatred of BJP ,demonizing it (the way Narasimha Rao’s legacy continues to besmirched by family retainers ).And likes of Arjun Singh and Shivraj Patil epitomise the inefficiency and incapacity of this government
Manmohan is paying the price for bending over backwards to please the unelected leftist apparatchiks in A AK Gopalan Bhavan. No wonder the worshippers of Mao and Stalin are today overcome with delusions of grandeur and aura of invincibility.I could see the smug on handsome poste boy of Communism,Yechury’s face as he was speeding away in his big sized car (picture courtesy-CNN-IBN)
Manmohan tried to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.He tried to up the ante by throwing the challenge to the left but looks like Sonia Gandhi ,family retainers and the left-wing coterie in party has no qualms in continuing to do business with the Yechury dudes of the world
The Congress and BJP are both possessed with death wish and have no learnt lessons from the UP debacle
Unless Congress party that gets rids of the family and BJP frees itself from some of its regressive communal politics,i think both of them are heading towards being fringe players
Another of Karat’s bluffs is this:
The major pitch being made for the nuclear cooperation agreement is that it will help India meet its energy needs. This ignores the very limited contribution that nuclear power makes to our overall energy generation which is just 3 per cent and which cannot exceed 7 per cent even if the ambitious plans for expansion are implemented in the next 25 years.
7% is immense for a country like India. 7% of energy in 2031-32 means 56,000 MW. That can power 15 Delhis of today: http://atlantean.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/7-percent-is-not-just-7-percent-mr-karat/
Dear Right or Wrong,
Your antics are very amusing, friend. I advise you to get out of your BJP fixation, maybe then you’ll be able to think coolly, and recognize certain facts.
The most important of which is that it is the Left, and not the BJP, which is really coming between Manmohan Singh and his Glory. Recall he belongs to the Congress, the party that suspended Indian democracy during the Emergency, and jailed all of political opposition. This is not a party known for consensual politics. If it can ride roughshod over dissent and opposition, it WILL. Respecting diverse viewpoints, accommodating concerns and negotiating with dissenters is not in its nature. Having ruled India for most of the time that the country has been independent, this party believes that it has a natural right to be always the ruler, with the Nehru-’Gandhi’ dynasty at the helm. Arrogance is in its blood. If it wants to seal the deal, it will just go right ahead and seal it, the BJP can go buy itself a screw. That kind of party. The BJP is opposed to a host of other Congress’s policies too — does the Congress care?
So stop prentending that the BJP has anything to do with the undoing of your beloved Manmohan. There is this artsy-fartsy Russian movie I watched long ago. An elderly man failing in his career has the ultimate insult delivered to him in the form of a youngish female boss. He gets drunk, goes home and beats his wife to pulp. You sound like that husband. You are all rage at the BJP because the Left is rubbing the Congress’ nose in dirt. And that’s why I said your antics are fun to watch.
If Manmohan Singh really wants to salvage the deal, he can do it. He needs to take the BJP into confidence and negotiate with it. The Congress needs to swallow its pride, lose its lust for power, and invite the BJP over for discussions and for exploring ways of reaching a compromise. Note that the BJP is not fundamentally opposed to making a deal with the US as the Left is — it is claiming opposition only to certain provisions of the deal. These differences can be discussed, debated and ironed out.
It is the government’s responsibility to carry opposition along with it, not the opposition’s duty to help a bungling government tide over its crises. If you have a private channel with Manmohan Singh, you can help him by reaching that message.
Hi Oldtimer
Beautifully stated
The political naivity of Manmohan stands exposed -his reliance on substandard spinmasters like Baru/Gupta is laughable
BTW the most disastrous fallout of Manmohan’s rule is the imminent leftward turn of Indian politics with the commies at the fulcrum.
The left’s opposition to deal is consistent with its recently launched pernicious political project of Muslim mobilisation.The coming together of ‘reds’ and ‘greens’ ,potentially constitutes the greatest threat to the Indian polity AS YET
The left will suffer marginal losses in their traditional bastions in the ensuing polls but it will more than made up by TDP/SP gains.It could cut it loses in Kerala by tacit backing of Madhani.SP might not lose ground in UP as whipping up anger on the nuclear deal will pave way for complete muslim consloidation behind SP.TDP and Left alliance stands to gain in AP.Jayalaitha too might hitch on to the bandwagon.Even the socialists in NDA can gravitate towards this front
Looks like its only Mayawathi who stands in the way of complete left turn of Indian politics
So either BJP or Congress need to quickly stich up alliance with Mayawati .
Oldtimer – Congress was a responsible opposition, BJP is not !After it was booted out in the last elections, its leaders have become inconsolable & unruly ! After being rejected by the votors – it was kicked around really hard by its majority shareholders – RSS/VHP. Obviously, frustation looms large…
While the Govt took it upon itself to carry the opposition along with it on the N-deal – the opposition (particularly the BJP which would have otherwise given an arm & leg for such a deal) saw it as one more opportunity to embarrass the Govt ! The spin doctors like Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie were pressed into action to spread lies about the deal.
If I have a private channel with Manmohan Singh, I will certainly advise him to ignore the “BJP concerns” on the N-deal for sure
Right or Wrong.
You have a typical indian mentality. Here when some of our family member does something wrong, we blame it to neighbourhood, colony, city etc that they have influenced the family member to do wrong.
Similarly, you are putting all blames to the opposition NDA for this pact not seeing thru while its actually one of their family members (Left) who are not letting do them. And also you are blaming NDA that they have influenced left to do so.
Opposition will never support any of good or bad deal my dear frnd. It is the task of the ruling party to take care of it. Don’t forget that congress when in opposition staged so many walk outs when NDA was trying to put N-Deal. That too when NDA tried to keep opposition in loop.
How can you expect NDA to support congress when they even have not talked about it once with them.
You are too optimistic Man, where you just expect and don’t give anything
Raaj – it is not easy to get a taste of your own medicine ! The Offstumped bloggers have been too used to berating the UPA, Sonia and Dr Singh – in practically every article written by the author – greedily lapped up by most of the bloggers, and asking for more !
In that context, some “hard facts & realities” published against the BJP has obviously not gone down too well with most bloggers.
@Right or wrong
We don’t need you to give us a daily dose of “hard” facts about the BJP.
IBN,NDTV,Times and TV Today are doing an admirable job.
You can get back to your work.
The Chinese poodle in Madras – N. Ram; Editor-in-Cheap of The South India China Post – has today delivered a squeal of a retort to his many thoughtful readers. The good folk, since they have a memory and plenty of goodsense, have asked the Chinese-dalal-of-a-chump, N.Ram why his paper that earlier opined that the 1-2-3 agreement is a good deal is now saying that it is a bad deal for India. N.Ram squealing (ouch! that leash from Beijing must hurt!) mumbles about how the 1-2-3 agreement is OK, but the alliance that it might necessitate with the US isn’t! Ram shd shift his rag to Beijing, it sounds so typically communist, guided pure;y by the expedient!
Advani of BJP has openly comeout with support for government with regard to 123 agreement!!!!!!!. He wants a spin that an act similar to Hyde act to be enacted in Paliament(it is not even worth the paper it will be printed after its passage)for this support.
Left is banking on Muslim support(just like Madani in Kerala) but then it can boomerang in Bengal though they will gain AP.
[...] in August as the Left and the UPA played a game of bluff Offstumped had analyzed the responses across different sections of the media to draw inferences on [...]
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