Don't succumb to US pressure, Left tells Centre

Left parties on Thursday asked the government to consider the 'grave consequences' of US 'pressures' to change India's policy direction on various fronts before operationalising the Indo-US nuclear deal.

"These instances of reconfirmation of the concerns expressed by us on the grave consequences to India's sovereignty by this deal must be considered in right earnest by the UPA government before it proceeds to operationalise it," Communist Party of India-Marxist Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said.

Quoting the statements of US Ambassador David Mulford and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher about rushing up the operationalisation of the 123 agreement, both Yechury and the CPI asked the government not to succumb to American 'pressures' and put the deal on hold.

Observing that Boucher wanted India not to overlook the political timetable and asked the government to come clean on Iran, Yechury said this was precisely what the Left has been saying all along.

'It is such arm twisting of India to change the direction of its policy that will increase as the nuclear deal anchored within the Hyde Act gets implemented,' the CPI-M leader said in an editorial in the forthcoming issue of People's Democracy.

'Such pressures will not be confined to foreign policy positions alone. It will extend to vital areas such as defence cooperation, security and intelligence collaboration etc,' Yechury said.

In a statement, the CPI Central Secretariat said, 'those in India who defend 123 agreement should now understand the impact of Hyde Act and US efforts to drag India into its global strategy.'

Yechury said the Left-UPA Committee set up to consider Left objections and make evaluations on these aspects was already at work.

'The UPA must stick to the common understanding arrived at with Left parties that the Committee's findings will be taken into account before the government proceeds to operationalise this deal,' he said in the editorial titled Nuclear Deal - Larger Gameplan Unveiled.

On Mulford's statement that US was engaging with India in various fields like defence, space research, counter-terrorism, health and education, he said this was 'nothing but a blueprint' for the emerging strategic alliance.      

'It is precisely the implications and the consequences of such a strategic alliance with US imperialism in the present juncture of world politics that the CPI-M has been opposing as being disastrous for our sovereignty and independent foreign policy,' Yechury said.

'The Hyde Act graphically details the changes in India's independent foreign policy that need to be made to be congruent with US foreign policy positions,' he said.      

Maintaining that the 'neo-liberal' economic reform agenda had led to a growing hiatus between the 'shining' and 'suffering' India, he said the gap has accentuated precisely due to these reforms and the government's withdrawal from its social obligations.

Quoting the US envoy as suggesting commercial use of water or imposition of user charges on it, the CPI-M leader said such steps recommended by Mulford would 'mount greater misery' on the already groaning millions of Indians who are not even empowered to access even the existing meagre civic facilities.