The deal is dead…or so he said…

As the Times of India puts in its article of about 12 hours ago, “The Nuclear deal is dead. Long live the nuclear deal.” The cat is finally out of the bag. The Government of India has surrendered to the blackmail of the Left. A Left, that supports the government “from outside.” What does that mean? you may wonder. It means that the Left parties in India hold a lot of power without any responsibility whatsoever. It means they can blackmail the government into accepting their stance without being answerable to anyone, not the Parliament, not the Press, and certainly not the voters. It may not be politically correct to say this, but the Government of India has been brought to its knees by a combination of blackmail, power politics and populism. And, as always, the Congress government has buckled, driven almost exclusively by the desire to stay in power as long as possible.

I am not exactly the greatest fan of the Congress, nor of its dynastic and sycophantic nature. To me, the withdrawal of deal is tantamount to betrayal. As an Indian, I think it is a serious loss of credibility. And if I were the President of any country in the world, I would ask myself just what guarantee I had that the Indian government would not backtrack on a commitment a few months later. An article on Reuters says that rather plainly. The government of India loses both the deal and its credibility by giving in to a Left that refuses to step out of the Cold War-era and into the 21st Century. A Left, that does nothing to contribute to the phenomenal economic growth that India has been witnessing for the last decade. In fact, the Left in India actively campaigns against liberalisation and loosening of governmental control on industry in the name of social justice.

And, while we are on the subject of the nuclear deal, this article in The Hindu caught my attention. It is established fact that a country whose military stays away from politics is freer than one ruled by a military junta. But, what about our esteemed scientists? With all due respect for the ex-chairpersons and ex-directors of the various scientific research institutions of this country, I think they would do well to shut up. Their job is to carry out scientific research and development. And they should stop with doing that. They do not understand either the politics or the economics of the proposed deal, and must thus keep their noses out of the affair. I may not be an authority in nuclear technology, but I certainly think I am qualified enough to discuss the politics of the deal. Just as I think our scientists are not qualified to do the same. All I say to them is this: advise the government by all means, but leave the final decision to the political decision-makers at the top. And stop pretending you know everything about everything simply because the issue is vaguely scientific.