India: Nuclear pact causes deep rift
India's Prime Minister is digging in this week to face political challenges over a high-stakes nuclear deal with the US that could destroy his fragile government.
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Oil and gas imports currently fuel two-thirds of India's energy supply, placing – in the words of Singh – an "unbearable burden" on Asia's fourth-largest economy.
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The communists do not buy this argument. Their objection is ideological, born of a fear that the deal will allow the US to dominate India.
"They don't even want India to have a strategic relationship with the US," says Mr. Rangarajan.
In particular – and perhaps with an eye on India's sizable Muslim vote – the communists say they are concerned that the US may come to control India's relationship with countries such as Iraq and Iran.
A marriage of political convenience
Meanwhile, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is normally the communists' bitter rival, is using concerns about India's nuclear security to unite with the left against Singh's government. This is despite the fact that the BJP supported an alliance with the US before it lost power in 2004.
The BJP argues that the deal will compromise India's nuclear-weapons program. Though the Indian government has said it has not given up the right to conduct nuclear tests and the new deal leaves some studied ambiguity on this question, under US law, the deal could be annulled if India does so. In the event of a test, the US will also be able to demand that India return all nuclear technology and fuel.
The irony is that American critics of the deal see it as excessively soft on India, potentially allowing it to continue building its nuclear-weapons program while refusing to sign the NPT.
"India has always stood against the NPT, and now the US is changing the NPT architecture solely and exclusively for the benefit of India – if that's not a gain for India, what is?" asks B.G. Verghese, a political analyst at New Delhi's Centre for Policy Research.
Mr. Verghese says that for the government to either delay or withdraw from the deal would constitute a major international embarrassment.
"If India backs down, who is ever going to take it seriously again?" he says. "Asking the prime minister to delay on this is like asking him to commit suicide so that he can talk afterwards."
Analysts believe that one way out of the standoff may be for the government and its communist allies to set up a panel of experts to scrutinize the deal in the hope that it would resolve their differences.
Neither side, after all, wants this row to end in elections. For the communists, the 2004 election in which Singh came to power gave them their best performance ever. They do not want a weakened Congress party to lose votes to the BJP. And neither side wants to send India to the polls on an issue that, as Rangarajan says, "is not an issue for most Indians."
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The pact: What critics say
The India-US nuclear deal aims to end American sanctions on nuclear trade with India and give it access to nuclear fuel and equipment.
•Many in the international community say the pact would subvert existing nonproliferation treaties that don't recognize India as a member of the nuclear club.
•Right-wing Indian critics say the deal will hurt India's nuclear security by limiting nuclear trade and prohibiting further weapons testing.
•India's communists are critical of India's friendship with Washington. They say the deal will give the US influence over Indian foreign policy, particularly toward the Middle East.
