Nuclear Deal - India Ratifies Parkinson's Law

 

 

By Niranjan Ramakrishnan

25 July, 2008
Countercurrents.org

"A nuclear reactor is so vastly expensive and complicated that people cannot understand it, so they assume that those working on it understand it. Even those with strong opinions might withhold them for fear of being shown to be insufficiently informed. On the other hand, everyone understands a bicycle shed (or thinks they do), so building one can result in endless discussions: everyone involved wants to add his touch and show that he is there"

--Parkinson's Law of Triviality (from Parkinson's Law, 1955)

The fellow was standing on his 25th floor balcony contemplating the evening sky, when he heard someone shout, "Hey Banta Singh, your daughter Jeeto has committed suicide!". In his grief he jumped from the balcony. When he passed the 20th floor it occurred to him his daughter was not called Jeeto. As he passed the 15th, he remembered he had no daughters. And as he passed the 10th he recalled his name was not Banta Singh!

--An Indian Joke

When he published it in 1915, Albert Einstein had formulated his Theory of General Relativity entirely in his imagination. It was not until four years later, in 1919, that it would be verified empirically. Few of us can aspire to such a distinction, but wouldn't it have been enough of a thrill to be there at least when the experiment confirmed Einstein's theory?

If you were paying attention, you might have had a similar opportunity recently.

If Einstein's prediction was verified by Sir Arthur Eddington and his colleagues as they viewed the 1919 solar eclipse from faraway Principe in West Africa, the unerring insight the Law of Triviality was to be laid bare in the lower house of the Indian Parliament, a continent away and a half-century later. I can tell my grandchildren I saw it happen!

But let us begin at the beginning.

Earlier this week, the Indian Parliament had a two-day debate on whether the government should pursue the nuclear deal with the United States. The proceedings, shown live, turned out to be gripping television. Whether or not you followed politics, you couldn't help getting caught up in the drama of the Lok Sabha debate, with its stirring speeches, constant interruptions, inspired heckling, a Speaker by turns bemused and amused, himself a fugitive from his party, vainly trying to bring order to his assembly. There were accusations of MP's being kidnapped, charges of open bribery and, a couple of hours before the end, a dramatic display in Parliament of a valise with bundles of 1000 rupee bills (10 million rupees in raw cash) by three oppositon MPs claiming the government side had given them the money to get them to abstain. Many of the speeches were outstanding, some moving, one in particular was rollicking. The pace never flagged. The bar for entertainment in India has been set high, and Bollywood will have to work its heart out to regain its position. Even the President of India reportedly canceled all appointments to sit in front of her TV.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, whose speech was supposed to conclude the debate (called 'replying to the debate') could not speak amidst the noise and interruption following the rupee bundle demonstration. He had instead to enter his speech into the record and sit down. Then they voted, and what was expected to be a squeak-through victory for Mr. Singh's government turned out to be a 19-vote margin after all. But the governing alliance had been turned inside out. Those who were supporting it had turned opponents. New allies had taken their place.

And though the government had won, it had really won a vote of confidence in its continuation, not specifically the nuclear deal, for there had been little to no discussion of that subject. The Left Parties were opposed to the American connection, the largest opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seemed to have only one grouse, namely that the Congress rather than it had engineered the agreement. As to the government, you could have gathered from its speeches that the nuclear deal was the lone and final key the country had to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

But the government could claim that Parliament had approved the nuclear deal (a weaker claim than Bush's saying Congress authorized the Iraq War, but Indians are fast learners), They lost no time in doing so. And the Bush administration, eager to see this move forward, welcomed the victory and urged Godspeed, a sentiment gleefully reciprocated by the enlivened Congress party. The nuclear lobbies in both countries are salivating at the prospect of a radiant path paved with profits. Or perhaps, a path to profits paved with radiation, except the subject never came up.

Those who watched it even marveled at the high level of participation (house full) and the level of the debate, some speaking in English, others in Hindi. It was a proud moment for all Indians, parliamentary democracy at its best (the bags of money notwithstanding), etc. etc. Unlike the staid debates on C-SPAN, one member talking to an empty chamber as the person in the chair tries not to nod off, this was vigorous and enthusiastic.

It was only later, after all the excitement settled down, that you remembered that there wasn't much said about nuclear energy, its need and its dangers, the wisdom of depending on foreign nuclear fuel (why is it any better than depending on foreign oil?) So riveting was the debate that we forgot what it was for.

To my recollection, there was not one sentence spoken by anyone, for or against the government, on the matter of nuclear waste and what India planned to do with it. It is a problem that has not been solved by any country. No one mentioned that nuclear waste stays on for thousands of years.

Very little was said about why other countries are not jumping on nuclear energy. One minister (Pranab Mukherjee, who gave an otherwise sober speech) theorized that neither America or Russia was building nuclear plants because 'they were floating on oil'. America imports 70% of its oil, and Mukherjee is India's foreign minister.

There was virtually no discussion of what role nuclear energy should play in the overall plan. France (and its high reliance on nuclear energy) was mentioned by a few speakers on the government side. The French challenge of dealing with a huge amount of radioactive spent fuel was never mentioned.

There was much talk of 2030 and 2050 -- how much of the country's energy would be nuclear by that time. What's more, the agreement's proponents argued that this was actually their way of avoiding global warming! What was the plan all these years before Bush's visit opened this line of thought? Not asked, not answered.

In all the discussion, the one name that never came up was that of Mahatma Gandhi. When Henry Ford wrote to him asking what possible objection Gandhi could have if he ( Ford) were to entire towns or villages, Gandhi answered Ford with an simple question: Who would control the switch? Through all their mock outrage, sarcasm hot and cold, paternal disdain, that and other essential questions never occurred to India's Parliamentarians during their two-day gabfest. Whatever the truth about their other alleged crimes of bribery and intimidation, it can be truly said that in the matter of nuclear energy and its impact on India, they remain wholly innocent.

As does the country the debate was supposed to educate.

Niranjan Ramakrishnan is a writer living on the West Coast. He can be reached at njn_2003@yahoo.com.

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The Return Ticket

 
 

A licensed host has to ensure his invitees leave the UK in time

SANJAY SURI

Licensed To Invite A new immigration proposal says a person abroad can be invited by a British citizen only if he has the licence to do so. It will be the responsibility of the licensed host to ensure his guests return before their visa expires If the guests don't return, the host will have to pay a hefty fine and even face imprisonment The new law will mostly impact those who aren't rich enough to stay in hotels. Group visas for tourists will continue. *** Ever keen to create new classes and categories, the British are now setting up yet another class: Licensed to Invite, to add to the "Sirs" and the "Members of the British Empire" and what not. The new category does not come with a title, but it's surely got a talking point: "Guess what, I've won a licence to invite my brother from India." As the Home Office put it, "People will have to become licensed to sponsor family members to visit from abroad under the proposed changes to the visa system." A proposal so far, but who will oppose it? Not the Conservative party, for which immigration rules can never be strong enough. Not perhaps the Liberal Democrats either, ahead of an election where every party's nightmare is to be seen as 'soft on immigration'. The proposal will have to go through Parliament, and that may happen quietly. Under the law, the secretary of state has authority to make rules on immigration. These rules will not require amendments to primary legislation unless, theoretically, the opposition were to demand it. Changes in basic law are usually such that they draw long debates, unlike those in rules, because they come in the nature of nuts and bolts of a law in place. So, Britain looks set to have now an upper strata of licensed hosts. Not everyone will want that privilege, though. "Sponsors will have a duty to ensure that their visitors leave before their visa runs out," the government proposal says. "If sponsors fail in their duties, they face a ban on bringing anyone else over, penalties of up to £#5,000, or a jail sentence." Arriving, therefore, is the visitor's privilege; his departure the host's duty. And if the visitor does not leave in time, his host could be in jail, the sentence expected to be severe. "This is completely unfair," says Habib Rahman, chief executive of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI). "How can an adult person be responsible for the conduct of another adult person? A host can't become a jailer, he can't be responsible for the movements of someone else." The move is set to target Indians since they are the largest minority in Britain. More than 1.5 million Indians live in the UK. In 2006, more than 2,12,000 Indian visitors came to London. And between them, the Greater London Authority found, they spent more than Japanese tourists. Britain earns £85 billion from tourists every year. The new rules will not apply directly to the 'pure' tourist, once the British High Commission in India has determined they are well-heeled enough to leave, and to leave plenty of pounds behind them. For tourists, there will in fact be additional group visas available. But the tourist from India often doubles up as a friend and family visitor, given close links. Thus far, a letter was all that was needed from a host in the UK. Such invitations will now get clouded over by doubt and suspicion—once you become a licence-holding Indian in Britain, that is. "These days you cannot trust your own husband or wife," says Harish Patel, a Wembley plumber. "How can I trust my family members who live in India, when I've been living here for 30 years? We will have to think hard before sponsoring anybody.Up to now, it was ok. But taking a chance of going to jail, no baba." Adds Preeti Pandya, a landlady, "What will be the fun of having my sisters and their children over if I'm always thinking that if one of them doesn't go back in time, I will go to jail." Southall, the little Punjab of London The British government, however, doesn't care much for people like Patel, because they don't spend as much as the rich and professionals who stay in hotels—and usually return. Britain is estimated to have a population of 5,00,000 to a million illegal immigrants (or 'undocumented migrants') who arrived in innumerable ways, as family visitors, and then didn't make the trip back. And among these, too, the majority are almost certainly Indians. Other than the India of Tata and Infosys professionals, there exists an India—particularly in Gujarat and Punjab—scrambling for Britain, anyhow securing the most basic jobs. More than 90 per cent of legally settled Indians in Britain are from these two states, and family visits sponsored by the settled can be an inviting means for informal addition to the migrant population. Border and immigration minister Liam Byrne placed the particular Indian concern behind a language smokescreen. Through a process of consultation on the new rules, he said, "I travelled around the UK listening to people, and led my own delegation of community leaders and businessmen to India to review first hand some of the issues in one of our most important overseas markets." British politicians have long been hard in action, soft on language. The new rules will seek to block one of the last visible gaps for illegal arrivals. The riskier route of people smuggling, through many countries in many ways, will always be open. But there too, X-rays of arriving crates and containers (with suspected migrants in them) and closer inspection of coastlines and international trains has tightened protective nets. Few can challenge those measures, but the proposed rules on family visits can become legally controversial. "This kind of move will need to be tested in a court of law, because it is against natural justice," says Rahman. "People will find their ways of migrating. But for that you cannot create a punitive society, and begin to punish people against natural justice." The UK government might well find itself having to defend this move before the European court. The EU is debating its own unified law on illegal immigrants that would provide for tracing, imprisoning and deporting illegal migrants already there. British courts do protect illegal migrants who have been there long enough, certainly for as long as 14 years, or even 10. But that places illegally settled migrants in another kind of spot—they must legally prove that they are illegal, and for as long as they claim. The crate route offers no entry stamps, and overstayers have often shed their passports, making evidence of continued overstaying difficult. But if you break the law, it still pays to continue to break it for long enough.

 

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Get ready for Mayawati to replace Manmohan

 A deal-breaker for India
By M K Bhadrakumar

History never ceases to surprise. What began as the "Great Middle East" strategy in the minds of a neo-conservative Connecticut Yankee from Texas may end up in the democratization of India. Yes, paradoxically, the legacy of the George W Bush era for South Asia may turn out to be that the 60-year old democratization process in India took a quantum leap.

In a colonial bungalow on a leafy street in central Delhi on Sunday afternoon, a group of political leaders gathered. What is unfolding is indeed a historical process, and like when forces of history begin to unfold them, old dykes are bound to give away. Indians are holding breath. What lies ahead is how torrential the flow becomes as it gathers speed. Indian politics is never going to be the same again.

Curiously, it all began with the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement between the Bush administration and the coalition known as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) which rules in Delhi - known somewhat aptly in India as "the deal". Now, the deal is highly likely to unravel, primarily for the reason that transparency was lacking in its negotiation.

The US-India nuclear deal would provide India with access to American civilian nuclear technology in exchange for nuclear-armed India agreeing to oversight by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency.

Given the deal's far-reaching consequences, and considering that such a strategic direction to India's foreign and security policy didn't even figure as part of the so-called Common Minimum Program that formed the basis of the present coalition government in Delhi, the UPA ought to have felt a greater need than ever for public accountability while embarking on such an initiative.

But exactly the contrary happened. An extraordinary veil of secrecy was maintained by the UPA, so much so that the Indian public came to depend on information that trickled in from time to time from US discourses on the Internet. The UPA went back on assurances to the Indian parliament, where the majority opinion consistently voiced reservations over the deal right from the outset, that it wouldn't hustle such an important initiative through.

Instead, the government blatantly resorted to manipulative methods of dissimulation and doublespeak to sidestep parliament. The latest Delhi grapevine is that the government has been bribing members of parliament to come on board the deal and that the going rate of purchase of loyalty is US$6.25 million per member. Surely, that is corruption on an epic scale for even a notoriously corrupt country like India, which Transparency International places at somewhere near the bottom of the pit in the world community.

The Congress party-led UPA faces a no confidence debate in parliament on Tuesday. This follows the withdrawal of support to the government by its left-wing allies in protest against the deal with the US. If the government loses the vote, early elections are likely - they are currently scheduled for May next year - and the deal could be abandoned.

The Bush administration will be watching closely the efficacy of pushing such a controversial deal through against robust opinion in a democratic society. It sets an important precedent. Two crucial tests lie ahead in Central Europe - deployment of the components of the US missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Ukraine's membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization - where the majority opinion is manifestly against deal-making with the US, but the Bush administration is pressing ahead regardless.

The brashness with which US officials kept pressing the UPA to conclude the deal has badly exposed the Indian government's claim that it is all about India's energy security. By now, it is fairly well substantiated that the deal which was projected as in India's favor benefits Washington immeasurably.

Business deals to the tune of $100 million are expected to follow by way of selling nuclear reactors to India; there is a pronounced non-proliferation agenda in the deal in so far as Delhi virtually surrenders its right to have nuclear tests and agrees to monitoring of its nuclear program, including fissile material production in perpetuity; the deal envisages that Indian foreign policy will be congruent to US global strategies, especially on acute problem areas such as Iran; the deal enables the US to selectively waive its embargo on dual-use technology to India, which, in turn, enables the American military-industrial complex to enter the huge Indian market as an arms supplier; and places India incrementally as an ally in the US's Asian strategies against Russia and China, or at the very least ensures against a future Russia-China-India entente cordiale.

From the Indian point of view, of course, it is crystal clear that the raison d'etre of the deal is its burning ambition to become a "great power". Clearly, even if India implements the deal in its entirety in a full-throttled way - which seldom happens, given the high rate of waste, inefficiency and corruption - nuclear energy, which presently meets 3% of India's power needs, may account for 7% of estimated needs in a 15-20 year timeframe, though the cost per unit of power production will be significantly higher for nuclear energy. And, indeed, India has far from exhausted its potential to tap other conventional methods of power production, such as coal or hydo-electric power, and is yet to take a serious look at other renewable forms, such as solar or wind energy.

There are acolytes of the deal nonetheless in India. The unabashedly pro-US leadership in India, especially Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, sees it as "locking in" India as a strategic partner of the US, with the all-round benefits that it is expected to bring for the country in its passage through the coming decades.

Ideologically speaking, they are convinced that India is a "natural ally" of the US. They envisage that the deal makes the India-US "strategic partnership" virtually irreversible. That is, the deal forms an integral part of a wholesome agenda. For the Indian strategic community, the deal finally opens up the door to US military technology, especially the fascinating US missile defense system, which promises the only means whereby India could hope to neutralize China's strategic capability. Indian strategists visualize that even as Delhi begins to cope with the immense challenge of coming to terms with China's phenomenal rise, it needs US support and protection.

For corporate India, especially a handful of powerful business houses, the deal signifies a gravy train that will run on for decades to come. (The US-India Business Council estimates there could be anywhere up to $ 150 billion worth of business generated by the deal.) Conceivably, for the ruling Congress party, which is highly experienced in government, that makes sound pork-barrel politics of unprecedented proportions.

For the great Indian middle class, which is enamored of everything connected with "Amrika", the deal provides the key to a dream world in which Indians could indulge in consumerism and happily live ever after as Americans do. (Bush's rating is the highest anywhere in the world among the Indian middle class.) Surprisingly, even sections of the Indian intelligentsia, including much of the English-speaking media, suspend all disbelief and root for the deal - some even putting forth such exotic arguments that if Delhi doesn't clinch the deal after Manmohan having given word to Bush, India's international standing will suffer and the world community will not take India seriously. But, then, there has been a pervasive US penetration of Indian media organizations and think-tanks in recent years.

Thus, a sharp polarization is taking place in Indian opinion, spearheaded on the one hand by the government led by Manmohan, a former World Bank official, and a range of opinion that opposes the deal tooth and nail, which includes political parties, the scientific community and sections of the Indian intelligentsia.

This split will surface in the vote in parliament on Tuesday. The opposition has threatened it will vote out the government and thereby scotch the deal. The government is determined that it will do its damndest to see that doesn't happen. It is canvassing the support of even three members of parliament who are serving jail terms on murder charges. It is leaving nothing to chance. The establishment apparatus is working overtime, arm-twisting the reluctant or undecided to fall in line.

The silver lining is that against this unseemly backdrop of wheeling and dealing, a massive realignment of political forces has also ensued, which now seems poised to leap far beyond the deal controversy and profoundly remake India's political landscape. The deal holds the potential of becoming a defining moment in India's political economy. India's left parties, which staunchly oppose the deal, have taken the initiative of reaching out to like-minded political forces. And these forces include an important segment of India's political spectrum representing the dispossessed and humiliated and historically oppressed sections of Hindu society - known as "dalits" and "backward classes" - and alienated Muslims which are numerically large and have lately begun asserting their rights and prerogative for social and political accommodation in India's highly stratified "democratic" system.

The significance of Sunday's gathering in Delhi is that it is for the first time that in such a pronounced way, the forces of radical change in Indian politics are reaching out to each other and creating a critical mass of awakening. All indications are that beyond the deal controversy, a coalition of political forces is emerging. There is bound to be high drama, as the main "dalit" party, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) , which hitherto has substantial influence in India's populous northern province (Uttar Pradesh), where it is the ruling party already, is now poised to enter national politics, thanks to an alliance with the left parties. There is already talk that the proposed alliance will be inclined to project the BSP's charismatic leader, Kumari Mayawati, as India's future prime minister.

The very thought of Mayawati wearing the mantle of prime ministership has fired up public imagination. The Indian urban middle class was hitherto cocksure that the country would never allow such an "outrageous" thing to happen. Its favorite ploy has always been to co-opt and assimilate promising dalit leaders by corrupting them.

Ironically, the staunch middle class supporters of the deal have been stunned into silence. Even if "Amrika" is fascinating, even if the strategic cooperation will enable Delhi to stare eyeball-to-eyeball at Beijing, even if it brings such goodies as fanciful weapon systems for the armed forces, even if it provides for mind-boggling levels of kickbacks and political sleaze - still, nonetheless is it worthwhile if it may open the way for a lowly dalit agitator to become India's prime minister? This is the question that has haunted proponents of the deal in the secret attics of their minds for the past 48 hours.

Indians seldom discuss their caste prejudices. They prefer to pretend they are above caste prejudices. Therefore, the present dilemma of the political elite and the ruling class over Mayawati is acute. Her rise cannot be blocked as it will be in perfect accordance with democratic principles. She will only assume power on the basis of a popular mandate in a democratic election. But, still, even then, something militates in the mind of the ruling elite. The heart of the matter is that they loathe and dread the prospect. The rightly apprehend that once the dispossessed sections of Indian society capture political power in Delhi, that could turn out to be the beginning of the end of the 60-year established political order in independent India.

The mainstream political parties - Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party - are extremely nervous that they stand to lose heavily if the forces of radical change gain political ascendancy and encroach into the center stage of Indian politics. In fact, the BSP's passage to power as a national party lies through the graveyards of both the Congress and the BJP.

For India's medium- and long-term development as a modern democratic state, it is imperative that the BSP moves into the mainstream of national politics. Social and political oppression of the dalits is a continuing blight on India's stature as a modern, civilized country. What is democracy worth if people cannot walk the streets on account of their lowly caste or drink water from a village well or can have no access to the due process of law because they have been "untouchables" for millennia?

The sad reality is that Indian democracy has given a wide berth to those hundreds of millions of Indians. Simply put, there hasn't been sufficient enough change through the past 60 years that representative rule ought to have provided.

Ironically, the India-US nuclear deal is becoming the harbinger of change in the country, but for a most unexpected reason. The deal will have served a great purpose if it logically leads to the rise of Mayawati as Manmohan's worthy successor. The political initiative taken by the Indian left to reach out to the BSP is of historical significance. It comes as a wind of change that promises to clear away accumulated debris. The class struggle in Indian conditions cannot be envisaged without addressing the social and political oppression that goes on in the name of caste in Hindu society.

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India's Nuclear Deal - What's In It For Us?

 
Chandan Mitra

16 Jul 2008, 0000 hrs IST,

Does India need a civilian nuclear energy agreement with the US? Is this the best deal we could have got? Why is the Bush administration trying so hard to push India into signing this deal? Has the prime minister gone about it in the best possible way? Are we bartering away our nuclear sovereignty in the process, thereby endangering our goal to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent? These are some of the key questions that needed to be satisfactorily answered in the context of the ongoing controversy that has snowballed to a point where it threatens the stability of the Manmohan Singh government. Unfortunately, the political rhetoric that is flying thick and fast for the last one year and more has obfuscated the core issues involved. Enough has been spoken and written about the need to secure India's energy needs, especially in view of rising oil prices and India's near-total dependence on imports. Sceptics, on the other hand, have argued that even after investing billions of dollars to set up new reactors, nuclear power will contribute just about 7 per cent of the country's energy requirements by 2020. But even if it is conceded that India needs every extra megawatt of energy that can be generated, whatever the source, the question still remains whether the Indo-US nuclear deal in its present form is the best that we could have bargained for. On balance, it appears that the deal is good for everybody else, apart from India. First, we will end up putting huge sums into the coffers of foreign manufacturers of nuclear reactors — mainly French, Russian and American. Second, the estimated cost per unit of nuclear energy will be prohibitively high compared to coal, gas and even crude. Can India afford power at such a high cost when alternative sources have not been exhausted? Without getting into the nuclear sovereignty issue, it can be asserted that the additional energy to be generated through uranium-based reactors will be of dubious benefit. It is often argued that the US administration has been exerting pressure on the Indian establishment because President George W Bush, reeling under unfavourable popularity ratings, wants to exhibit it as his one great foreign policy success. This is utterly fallacious: most Americans have not even heard of this deal, given their proverbial insularity and self-obsession. Further, the Republicans are hardly expected to make this an issue in the November presidential election. Interestingly, most western powers have been vigorously pushing for the deal, although with greater sophistication than the sledgehammer tactics characteristically employed by Americans. Diplomacy, after all, is not based on altruism. Surely, they are not falling over one another out of love or compassion for India. Apart from the business potential, the deal is being driven in western capitals by the motive of firmly roping India into the non-proliferation regime. India has an unblemished record here, but there are concerns about the future in view of the volatility of the Asian theatre. Since India cannot officially be admitted into the NPT, the deal has attempted to manoeuvre us into a situation where New Delhi becomes a de facto signatory to the NPT, just as we will be conferred the dubious distinction of being a de facto nuclear weapons state once we sign the deal. Following the disclosure of the text of the IAEA safeguards agreement, it is abundantly clear that, while international inspection and safeguards shall be imposed permanently on our reactors, the exemptions remain doubtful. It is widely known that for all practical purposes no further testing shall be permitted. The government has repeatedly highlighted the "walk out" clause to claim that India can test whenever it wants and even if the US imposes sanctions, we can still negotiate with other countries in the Nuclear Suppliers Group to maintain uninterrupted uranium imports. This is complete hogwash. Can anybody in his right mind believe that the US will patronisingly oversee the supply of fissile material by other countries even after India conducts another nuclear test? It would be more honest to admit that the Indo-US nuclear deal is a three-in-one document comprising a civilian energy cooperation agreement with the US, de facto NPT and de facto CTBT. A discussion on the merits and demerits of the deal would be meaningful only if we begin from this premise instead of deluding ourselves into believing that, possessed by a burning desire to help India, the US wants to hand out a "give-give" agreement with us and that nothing will change as far as our military nuclear programme is concerned. Whichever way you look at the deal, honestly or deceitfully, it is a huge political albatross. Manmohan Singh has been forced to risk his government's fate and enter into a questionable alliance with a party not known for scrupulous adherence to norms of probity in public life. When the prime minister first challenged the Left to pull out last September, it was perhaps the best moment for the Congress to go for an early election buoyed by high growth, manageable inflation and opposition incoherence. Today, all three factors are ranged unfavourably against the ruling party. Manmohan Singh has never claimed to be a master strategist, but others in his party are known for their political acumen and manipulative skills. However, they got cold feet last year and now the Congress is set to pay a price for their vacillation. In politics, as in other spheres of life, you win only if you dare; defeat is inevitable if you dither and delay. (The writer is a member of the Rajya Sabha)

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The more sex we get, the more we want

Christina Patterson: 
Bedroom farce, on stage, page or double-page spread, is, for the most part,numbingly banal

Saturday, 12 July 2008


"Sex," says the 17-year-old narrator of The Catcher in the Rye, "is something I really don't understand." Well, mate, nor do I. I only know (yes, I'm afraid I do know) that the arms of someone you don't even like – who your head, and your friends, tell you is a total shit – can feel like your natural home on this planet.


And that it's perfectly possible – drearily commonplace, in fact – to feel that a fleeting muscular contraction involving neurotransmitters, endorphins and the sure knowledge that you're king or queen of the universe, is well worth swapping for your marriage, your family, and your pride.

Whatever the Victorians, or Ann Widdecombe, or the smug marrieds on both sides of the political spectrum may say, it was ever thus. From Catullus to Chaucer to Shakespeare to those men of God, Donne and Herbert, right through to that bespectacled owl for whom sexual intercourse famously began "too late", poetry has celebrated the lips, and breasts, and buttocks, and charms of women – and men – who are not their wives. As poet and playwright John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester in The Libertine, the ever-versatile Johnny Depp reminded us that the sexual pirates of 17th-century London were just as adventurous as those in the Caribbean. He was starring with John Malkovich, whose sexually voracious Vicomte de Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses will remain, for many of us, a (rather sexily) sinister but enduring image of aristocratic, decadent, pre-revolution France.

Restoration comedy bristles with brittle asides from loose ladies and rich rakes apparently set on triathlons of sexual licentiousness in plots which served as a kind of 17th-century precursor to sudoku. The tradition continued, in drama, and in life. At my mother's local theatre in Guildford the other day, I saw a play by Dion Boucicault, an Irish playwright hailed by Richard Eyre as "a Victorian Andrew Lloyd Webber", and the writer who inspired Oscar Wilde. The play, London Assurance, was written at about the time that the Brontës were dreaming up role models for future prime ministers. Lacking the wit of a Wilde, or the passion of a governess, it was, alas, merely a reminder that bedroom farce, on stage, page or in a double-page spread in a red-top, is, for the most part, numbingly, grindingly banal.

"I married him," announces a Lady Spanker at one point, "for my freedom and he married me for protection." If this was a mild subversion of the historical sexual status quo, but one not that uncommon in Western aristocracies of the past millennium, it was a relatively pithy statement of the kind of pragmatism in affairs of the heart, and genitals, that has generally prevailed. Not always able to match the biblical ideal of a man and woman joined exclusively, and monogamously, for ever and ever and ever, men, and even the odd woman, have made "arrangements". The most common, of course, has been that indispensable marital accessory, a blind eye, but some have been more complicated. H G Wells, Katherine Mansfield and Vera Brittain, according to a new book on literary love lives between the wars, are just some of the writers whose domestic, and extra-marital, lives were constructed to provide maximum freedom and minimum fuss. Not, perhaps, for the lovers squeezed into the tiny gaps in these busy, busy lives, or for the children, but you can't make a nice libertarian omelette without breaking a few little eggs.

In this lovely, liberal world, a world of kings and princes and lords and sometimes poets, cakes were eaten and retained, and laundry that was already scattered around public parks could not be seized and washed. And if your love life was alluded to in the Daily Courant or the London Gazette, who cared? You were red-blooded, goddammit, you were lusty. You had more important things to worry about than a glimpsed tryst with Emma, or Kate or Nell. Publish? Well, why not? As Wellington famously wrote on the blackmail note he returned to his lover, the courtesan Harriette Wilson, "Publish and be damned!"

That, of course, was an ice-age ago, when the market value of a private life was more on a par with poetry and less on a par with a Damien Hirst. Sex, like chocolate, and Kettle Chips,is a kind of drug – and so, unfortunately, is the media coverage of the sex lives of so-called celebs. The more we get, the more we want. It's a terrible shame, but that's the way the chocolate-chip cookie of the zeitgeist crumbles. Your love of a stripy uniform, or a Chelsea strip, or a juicy orange, allied with a nice whip, or garter, or noose, may or may not be an indication of a damaged childhood, an ability to do a job, or a lively sense of humour. And it may or may not matter.

But if you have any claims to fame, or fortune, or public office, and any sex life beyond the constraints of a 1950s-constructed norm, a sense of humour is precisely what you're going to need, in spades. We have, it seems, made our bed – or basement, or sand dune, or desk at the Admiralty Arch – and now, in the full glare of the media, and the internet, and YouTube and, of course, our children, we're just going to have to lie in it.

The Nuclear Deal And Democracy

 

 

By Suvrat Raju

10 July, 2008
Countercurrents.org

While much has been written about the Indo-US nuclear deal, a central question remains unasked: "Why is the deal important enough to precipitate a crisis in the government?".

The answer that the proponents of the deal provide –- that the deal is essential for energy security –- is, evidently, simple minded. According to figures provided by Anil Kakodkar –- the chairperson of the Department of Atomic Energy –- the deal will increase India's installed energy capacity by 2.5% by 2020 (1). While the Prime Minister may be perspicacious, this stretches the bounds of sagacity; simply put, governments do not risk self sacrifice for small gains in energy production, 12 years in the future. When one compounds this insignificant gain with the considerable uncertainty that the deal will actually clear the American congress before September, the energy security argument becomes completely untenable.

Indeed, the very desperation of the government to pass this deal indicates, more clearly than anything else, that the deal is not just about energy. While it is clear that the deal is about a larger strategic relationship with the US, this begs the question; most aspects of this relationship, including closer military and economic ties seem to be independent of the deal. So, what is the fuss about?

This question is answered candidly in the American strategic discourse. An alliance with the US entails an essential prerequisite: the government should be in a position to fulfill American demands, irrespective of domestic political considerations. Although, this is deeply undemocratic, this makes sense. Imagine the horror of American legislators if they were to help India obtain a seat in the security council only to find the Indian government arguing against American interference in Venezuela!

Incidentally, this doctrine applies to any bilateral relationship involving the US. During the Iraq war, Rumsfeld dismissed France and Germany as belonging to `old' Europe. As Chomsky pointed out (2), the countries of `new' Europe –- like Italy or Spain –- were those that supported Washington in spite of strong domestic opposition.

Viewed from this perspective, India has behaved well in recent years. Ashley Tellis, an influential advisor to the US government, arguing for the deal in a testimony to the US House of representatives approvingly noted at least 10 instances –- including India's vote against Iran, its support for the war in Afghanistan and its endorsement of American positions on climate change, missile defense and chemical weapons -- where the Indian government acted against domestic opposition and long held policies to support the US.(3)

On the other hand, the existence of an independent democratic discourse in India is a matter of great concern for the US. Ashton Carter, a member of the Clinton administration, lamented to the US senate that the fact that India was a democracy meant that "no government in Delhi can ... commit it to a broad set of actions in support of U.S. Interests" before pointing out that India's "... stubborn adherence to independent positions regarding the world order, economic development, and nuclear security" created a serious hazard for Indo-US strategic ties.(4)

These testimonies merely articulate what is public knowledge. Washington expects compliance from its allies. If India is to be a trusted ally it cannot protest loudly against the oppression of Palestinians, organize developing countries in defense of Iran or repudiate iniquitous conditions laid down by the WTO; it must support the US in diplomatic forums and provide logistical support for US military operations in Asia. Furthermore, and this is critical for American policy makers, this support cannot be contingent on the vagaries of Indian politics. Hence, while the Indian elite is quite willing to accede to these demands, it must first convince the US that its house is in order. It must tame the complexities of Indian democracy so that it can deliver on what it promises. The importance of this cannot be overstated.

In this context, the nuclear deal provides a high profile test case. The passage of the deal, although materially insignificant, is an extremely important matter of principle. If domestic political considerations cause the government to balk, that sets a terrible example and leaves India –- in the words of Ronen Sen –- with "zero credibility".(5) The consequent loss of trust that this will engender in Washington will damage ties with the US for years to come.

In any case, Indian ruling classes have been impatient with democratic dissent since it creates difficulties in their attempts to ram through an elite agenda. As Chidambaram put it (6), "Indian ... democracy has often paralyzed decision making ... this approach must change." After the deal was stalled last year, Manmohan Singh wondered whether a "single party state" would be preferable!(7)

India's newly empowered elite now finds that this frustrating political process threatens its global aspirations. This has brought together powerful interests ranging from India Inc. to NRI lobby in an attempt to remove roadblocks to the deal. These forces are strong enough to impel the government to risk its own survival.

The message, conveyed to the G8, was that India is ruled by a government that is willing to make (in the words of Nicholas Burns, the American negotiator for the nuclear deal), "courageous decisions" (8) -- and bulldoze domestic dissent -- if this is demanded by Washington or Brussels!

This is bad news for Indian democracy. The Indian system, despite its tremendous iniquities and imperfections is based on the notion that governments privilege their survival over all else. The idea that a government may imperil its own existence to fulfill commitments made to a foreign government is antithetical to the idea of democracy. The recent baffling actions of the Manmohan Singh government must be understood as a worrying loss of democratic space.

----------------
References
----------------

(1)The Hindu, 31 October, 2007 and "Energy for India in the coming decades", Anil Kakodkar,
http://www.dae.gov.in/iaea/ak-paris0305.doc

(2)Znet, 31 October, 2003

(3)Testimony by Ashley J. Tellis before the House Committee on International Relations, November 16, 2005

(4)Ashton Carter, Testimony Testimony before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, November 2, 2005.

(5)Rediff, Aug 20, 2007: http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/aug/20inter.htm

(6)Convocation Address, IIM Ahmedabad, March 31, 2007 http://financeminister.gov.in/public_speeches/pdf/2007.
3.31%20Convocation%20Address,%20IIM,%20Ahmedabad.pdf

(7)Inaugural Address to the 4th International Conference on Federalism, November 5, 2007

(8)The Hindu, March 1, 2008

Suvrat Raju is a physicist and an activist. He just completed his PhD at Harvard.

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It's The Oil, Stupid!

By Noam Chomsky

10 July, 2008
Khaleej Times

The deal just taking shape between Iraq's Oil Ministry and four Western oil companies raises critical questions about the nature of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq — questions that should certainly be addressed by presidential candidates and seriously discussed in the United States, and of course in occupied Iraq, where it appears that the population has little if any role in determining the future of their country.

Negotiations are under way for Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners decades ago in the Iraq Petroleum Company, now joined by Chevron and other smaller oil companies — to renew the oil concession they lost to nationalisation during the years when the oil producers took over their own resources. The no-bid contracts, apparently written by the oil corporations with the help of U.S. officials, prevailed over offers from more than 40 other companies, including companies in China, India and Russia.

"There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract," Andrew E. Kramer wrote in The New York Times.

Kramer's reference to "suspicion" is an understatement. Furthermore, it is highly likely that the military occupation has taken the initiative in restoring the hated Iraq Petroleum Company, which, as Seamus Milne writes in the London Guardian, was imposed under British rule to "dine off Iraq's wealth in a famously exploitative deal."

Later reports speak of delays in the bidding. Much is happening in secrecy, and it would be no surprise if new scandals emerge.

The demand could hardly be more intense. Iraq contains perhaps the second largest oil reserves in the world, which are, furthermore, very cheap to extract: no permafrost or tar sands or deep sea drilling. For US planners, it is imperative that Iraq remain under U.S. control, to the extent possible, as an obedient client state that will also house major U.S. military bases, right at the heart of the world's major energy reserves.

That these were the primary goals of the invasion was always clear enough through the haze of successive pretexts: weapons of mass destruction, Saddam's links with Al-Qaeda, democracy promotion and the war against terrorism, which, as predicted, sharply increased as a result of the invasion.

Last November, the guiding concerns were made explicit when President Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki signed a "Declaration of Principles," ignoring the U.S. Congress and Iraqi parliament, and the populations of the two countries.

The Declaration left open the possibility of an indefinite long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq that would presumably include the huge air bases now being built around the country, and the "embassy" in Baghdad, a city within a city, unlike any embassy in the world. These are not being constructed to be abandoned.

The Declaration also had a remarkably brazen statement about exploiting the resources of Iraq. It said that the economy of Iraq, which means its oil resources, must be open to foreign investment, "especially American investments." That comes close to a pronouncement that we invaded you so that we can control your country and have privileged access to your resources.

The seriousness of this commitment was underscored in January, when President Bush issued a "signing statement" declaring that he would reject any congressional legislation that restricted funding "to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq" or "to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq."

Extensive resort to "signing statements" to expand executive power is yet another Bush innovation, condemned by the American Bar Association as "contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers." To no avail.

Not surprisingly, the Declaration aroused immediate objections in Iraq, among others from Iraqi unions, which survive even under the harsh anti-labour laws that Saddam instituted and the occupation preserves.

In Washington propaganda, the spoiler to US domination in Iraq is Iran. U.S. problems in Iraq are blamed on Iran. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sees a simple solution: "foreign forces" and "foreign arms" should be withdrawn from Iraq — Iran's, not ours.

The confrontation over Iran's nuclear programme heightens the tensions. The Bush administration's "regime change" policy toward Iran comes with ominous threats of force (there Bush is joined by both US presidential candidates). The policy also is reported to include terrorism within Iran — again legitimate, for the world rulers. A majority of the American people favours diplomacy and oppose the use of force. But public opinion is largely irrelevant to policy formation, not just in this case.

An irony is that Iraq is turning into a US-Iranian condominium. The Maliki government is the sector of Iraqi society most supported by Iran. The so-called Iraqi army — just another militia — is largely based on the Badr brigade, which was trained in Iran, and fought on the Iranian side during the Iran-Iraq war.

Nir Rosen, one of the most astute and knowledgeable correspondents in the region, observes that the main target of the US-Maliki military operations, Moktada Al Sadr, is disliked by Iran as well: He's independent and has popular support, therefore dangerous.

Iran "clearly supported Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi government against what they described as 'illegal armed groups' (of Moktada's Mahdi army) in the recent conflict in Basra," Rosen writes, "which is not surprising given that their main proxy in Iraq, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council dominates the Iraqi state and is Maliki's main backer."

"There is no proxy war in Iraq," Rosen concludes, "because the U.S. and Iran share the same proxy."

Teheran is presumably pleased to see the United States institute and sustain a government in Iraq that's receptive to their influence. For the Iraqi people, however, that government continues to be a disaster, very likely with worse to come.

In Foreign Affairs, Steven Simon points out that current US counterinsurgency strategy is "stoking the three forces that have traditionally threatened the stability of Middle Eastern states: tribalism, warlordism and sectarianism." The outcome might be "a strong, centralised state ruled by a military junta that would resemble" Saddam's regime.

If Washington achieves its goals, then its actions are justified. Reactions are quite different when Vladimir Putin succeeds in pacifying Chechnya, to an extent well beyond what Gen. David Petraeus has achieved in Iraq. But that is THEM, and this is US. Criteria are therefore entirely different.

In the US, the Democrats are silenced now because of the supposed success of the US military surge in Iraq. Their silence reflects the fact that there are no principled criticisms of the war. In this way of regarding the world, if you're achieving your goals, the war and occupation are justified. The sweetheart oil deals come with the territory.

In fact, the whole invasion is a war crime — indeed the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes in that it encompasses all the evil that follows, in the terms of the Nuremberg judgment. This is among the topics that can't be discussed, in the presidential campaign or elsewhere. Why are we in Iraq? What do we owe Iraqis for destroying their country? The majority of the American people favour US withdrawal from Iraq. Do their voices matter?