Indian gov’t nearly toppled over nuclear deal with U.S.

India’s government barely survived a confidence vote in Parliament on July 22 after the ruling coalition was thrown into turmoil over opposition to its planned nuclear deal with the United States. The close vote of 275 to 256 followed two days of bitter debate, strikes and demonstrations.

The atmosphere was so hectic that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was unable to finish his closing speech. Some lawmakers from opposition parties said they had been offered bribes of as much as $750,000 each if they would abstain from the confidence vote. Eleven members of parliament did abstain.

India and the United States had issued a joint declaration in the summer of 2005 promising close cooperation on India’s civilian nuclear program.

The Indian National Congress is the largest party in the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the most vocal supporter of civilian nuclear cooperation with the United States. Congress has argued that the deal is important to India’s economic growth and energy independence.

India’s many large leftist parties, however, have almost all unanimously decried the measure as a ceding of India’s sovereignty to U.S. imperialism. Most of the left-leaning parties are very critical of a clause in the agreement that forces India to verifiably separate its civilian and nuclear military programs and to place its civilian nuclear facilities under the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguards in exchange for full civil nuclear energy cooperation and trade with the U.S. Some of the leftist parties have also articulated environmental concerns regarding the development of a nuclear energy program.

The Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI), one of the main non-parliamentary communist parties that have criticized the deal, recently stated, “After the dismantling of the socialist camp, the Indian bourgeoisie made no secret of its desperation to develop closeness with U.S. imperialism, even by offering a plethora of concessions and concurring, overtly or covertly, with many of its nefarious moves.”

The Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India–Marxist both withdrew their parliamentary support from the UPA government in protest of the nuclear deal. The Revolutionary Socialist Party and Forward Bloc announced they were withdrawing their support as well. The four parties have 59 seats between them.

The Communist Party of India–Maoist called a one-day strike in opposition to the nuclear deal. The strike was observed in parts of Jharkhand, Orissa, Bengal and Bihar states. The CPI-Maoist was formed in 2004 by the merger of several parties that for the past 40 years have been leading an armed struggle to overthrow the bourgeois Indian state.

SUCI organized a mass protest march in Kolkata. SUCI activist Amitava Chatterjee stated during the rally, “We consider this deal absolutely anti-people and pro-imperialist. It has been signed or is going to be signed in the interest of the corporate houses, corporate finance of both USA and India. We strongly believe that this agreement has nothing to do with nuclear power as such for electrification or something like that. It is purely a military pact aimed at consolidating the relationship between America, the greatest superpower, with India the junior partner who aspires to be the next superpower in Asia.”

While UPA’s survival of the confidence vote makes it likely that the joint nuclear deal will move forward for now, the Congress Party and its allies may face strong competition in the upcoming elections from its former leftist allies at the same time that the non-parliamentary parties intensify mass actions against the deal.