India Nuclear Roundup

by CKR

Word of the unrest in the Indian Parliament has reached the American media by steamship and pony express. Both the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times have taken note.

Reuters gives a timeline.

I thought I'd do a little googling to see what the Indian press is saying. I don't know the Indian press very well, but some of these seem to be interesting. I'll just add short comments, in some cases letting the articles speak for themselves.

India's ruling Congress party says that the government will not fall over the issue. But that's what you'd expect the ruling party to say.

D. Raja, the national secretary of the Communist Party of India, one of the parties protesting the agreement, says he's not talking about taking the government down, but...

Who is talking about felling the government? We haven’t said so. We have a position on the issue, which we have conveyed to the Congress leadership and we are waiting for a response from the Congress chairperson. It is for them to decide if they want our support or not, why should we succumb?

Several articles have noted that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been seen by some to be simply an agent of Sonia Gandhi. Gandhi is said to have returned to India from a trip to South Africa, indicating that she sees the situation as serious. IndoLink suggests that Singh's strong stand on the nuclear agreement and, presumably, winning any test of his government, would establish his independence.

Calcutta's Telegraph feels that the Left is overplaying its hand.

What must be unambiguously stated at the outset is that most Indians would trust Manmohan Singh to safeguard the nation’s interest and dignity rather than Prakash Karat [General Secretary of the Communist Party of India].

A poll quoted by US's ABC News tends to support this assertion.

The CPI is asking for time to study the agreement, or to put it on hold, or possibly to renegotiate it. I have seen all three assertions, which may depend on timing or the people speaking. Siddarth Varadarajan feels that this is a good move. However, although it is not necessary for the Indian parliament to approve the agreement, it is necessary for the US congress to vote favorably on it. The fall will bring votes on budget measures, which should be in place in time for the new fiscal year starting in October, although those budget measures will carry amendments against the Iraq war. Barack Obama and Chuck Hagel have introduced a bill on nuclear nonproliferation, the debate on which could interact with the India agreement. (Hat tip to Leonor Tomero for the Obama-Hagel bill.)

Delay on India's part will encourage questioning from the US congress and will make approval less likely. Then there are the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers' Group who also must weigh in on the agreement.

Probably the most outrageous report is from India Daily.

One of the solutions that are emerging in the negotiations is that the Left takes control of the negotiations. PM Manmohan Singh is upset and eager to step down as PM. He never intended to lie but was forced to do some because of the Americans.

Some think tanks believe Sonia Gandhi will propose that the Left appoint Karat as PM of India and lead the negotiation with America directly.

Nicholas Burns earlier pointed out that the negotiations are final, so it's not clear what the editorial writer is thinking about. Perhaps, since the Indians have managed to negotiate a supra-NPT-nuclear-weapon-state status in this agreement, they feel they can go still further and negotiate yet more, despite the US government's stand.

If India got a Communist PM out of this, it would certainly not be what the Bush administration expected. It seems highly unlikely, but remember you read it on WhirledView first!

PLS will be returning from South Asia this week and has said she intends to write on this issue from what she's learned there. We have to give her time to recover from jet lag, but I'm looking forward to her take on this.