[Marxism] CPI-ML(Liberation) View on 123.

[dave.walters@xxxxxxxxxxx]

[Since we've had a lot of postings from the Indian capitalist media and NGOs of 
late, I thought I'd 
post this from the Communist Party(ML) Liberation, the largest of the groups to 
the left of the CPI 
and CPI(M). They are but one of the many voices on the left opposed to the 
1-2-3 deal based on 
their belief that the agreement underminds the national independence of India 
as opposed to 
opposition based on non-proliferation and anti-nuclear power sentiment. --David 
Walters]

Stop the Anti-India Nuclear Deal!

Combat Anti-Communist Hysteria!

Intensify the Indian People's Struggle

against US Imperialism!


Unable to answer the specific objections to the Indo-US nuclear deal voiced 
primarily by the Left, 
the Indian ruling classes and the corporate media are trying to tackle the 
debate by whipping up 
a veritable anti-communist hysteria. Even as George Bush is described as 
India's best friend, and 
the nuclear deal with the US as the greatest victory till date for Indian 
diplomacy and the 
ultimate recognition for India's 'emerging power' status, communists are once 
again being dubbed 
pro-China and pro-Pakistan! The desperation of the ruling classes is not 
difficult to understand - 
they have been caught red-handed mortgaging the country's strategic autonomy. 


Manmohan Singh would like us to accept him as the greatest defender of India's 
independence 
and believe that the deal is a wonderful bargain which will spawn enormous 
economic benefits for 
the country without in any way compromising his government's 'independent 
foreign policy'. In the year 
of Bhagat Singh's birth centenary we do not need to learn about 'independence' 
from Manmohan 
Singh. A man who still cannot open his mouth in England without expressing his 
gratitude to his 
former colonial masters and who wants us to accept George Bush as India's best 
friend has no 
business lecturing us about independence. And as Prime Minister of India, he 
cannot be allowed 
to mortgage the country's strategic autonomy to his 'best friend'!


We are being told that the new 123 Agreement with the US will go a long way in 
meeting India's 
growing energy demand by significantly increasing the quantum of nuclear energy 
generation. But 
should we not take a close look before taking this 'leap', especially when we 
have our own 
bitter experience of a previous 123 Agreement on nuclear cooperation with the 
US? 


Yes, in 1963 in the wake of the border war with China, 'non-aligned' India was 
seduced and arm-
twisted by the US to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement. The terms of the 
1963 treaty look far 
more benign today compared to the stringent conditions that are written into 
the present agreement. 
There was no question of India granting eternal supervision rights on all her 
civilian nuclear facilities. 
Nor was there any India-specific law like the Hyde Act to govern the operation 
of that agreement. 
Yet following India's 1971 friendship pact with the Soviet Union and the 1974 
nuclear test, the 
US terminated fuel supplies for the Tarapur plant and unilaterally suspended 
the operation of the 
treaty which eventually lapsed in 1993. 


We can forget and ignore this experience only at our own peril. Today governed 
by the Hyde Act 
(true, the 123 Agreement does not mention the Hyde Act but it does not hide the 
fact that as far as 
the US is concerned domestic US laws will prevail and that includes the Hyde 
Act in particular), 
the terms of the 123 treaty are loaded unmistakably heavily in favour of the US 
and the geo-
political situation of the world too are likely to permit it to further 
manipulate the operation of the 
already unequal treaty and blackmail India's weak rulers to wrest high economic 
and political prices. 
In the narrow context of energy security and sufficiency, India will thus fall 
prey to US-controlled 
energy-dependency relying increasingly on imported nuclear reactors and 
imported nuclear fuel. And
 in the wider and deeper context of the future of India and her international 
role, the country will 
become increasingly vulnerable to imperialist manipulation and intervention on 
virtually every question 
of strategic significance. 


Those who claim that the US has gone out of its way to accommodate Indian 
concerns in the current 
deal are either naive or are telling a plain lie. The 'accommodation' of Indian 
interests and concerns 
is limited to certain linguistic expressions, like the catchword 
'consultation', an empty euphemism 
for American unilateralism. 


We can never be a party to such deceptive wordplay when it comes to defending 
the vital interests of 
the people and the country in the face of mounting imperialist offensive. The 
opposition of the 
patriotic Indian people and all revolutionary communists and democrats to the 
deal and to India's 
growing strategic subservience to US imperialism is firm, consistent and total. 
The CPI(M)'s talk 
of pressing only the 'pause' button till its concerns are addressed (the 
passage of the deal so far and 
the rapid development of the underlying context of India's strategic 
partnership with the US is 
enough indication as to how such concerns have been addressed and accommodated 
by the 
UPA) smacks, on the contrary, of its characteristic centrist vacillation and 
parliamentary 
opportunism which has historically prevented the party from offering any 
decisive opposition at 
every major juncture.


The cumulative impact of the ideological illusion sown all these years by the 
CPI(M) and the 
CPI regarding the 'independent' nature of the Indian big bourgeoisie and 
political concessions granted 
to the oldest and biggest party of the Indian ruling classes at various 
junctures, can now be seen and 
felt so clearly. We have all along been accused by these two parties of 
underestimating the so-called 
anti-imperialist potential of the Indian big bourgeoisie as we still 
characterise India as a semi-
colonial society and the Indian big bourgeoisie as comprador, collaborationist 
or dependent. 
Our insistence on giving primacy to anti-feudal, anti-imperialist struggles and 
our consistent emphasis 
on communist ideological independence and the independent political assertion 
of the working 
people have all along been ridiculed by them as a line of adventurism and 
isolationism. The 
principled ideological-political identity of the communist movement has been 
allowed to get blurred 
and compromised all too often by them in the name of secular unity with 
bourgeois parties. The result 
is now evident for all of us - when the CPI(M) and CPI leadership finally draw 
the line at the 
nuclear deal, they find themselves ridiculed and disowned by the very sections 
of the liberal opinion 
that have all along applauded their pragmatism! 


The corporate media is an important mechanism through which the ruling classes 
manufacture and 
impose (articulate and sell, if you will) their ideas - the ruling ideas, as 
the Communist Manifesto put 
it. We should not therefore be surprised to see the terms of the dominant 
discourse on the deal in 
the 'mainstream media' in India - they only reflect the basic class nature of 
our society and polity. 
But recent times have often shown how the discourse of the ruling classes has 
been challenged and rejected by the people through their own struggles. We know 
what happened to the "India 
Shining" campaign of the BJP or how the people of this country are responding 
to the SEZ Act 
passed unanimously by Parliament. Let the BJP shed its pseudo-nationalist 
pretension and expose 
along with the Congress its shared subservience to imperialism. Genuine 
communists, democrats 
and patriots must close ranks and intensify the battle against imperialism and 
its desi collaborators in 
the face of all odds. The people of India will never forgive the imperialist 
collaborators who 
are mortgaging the country to obtain certificates of good conduct from American 
Presidents. 
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