Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said even if the Government of India staked its survival for the sake of the India-United States civilian nuclear deal and took on its Left coalition partners vehemently opposed to the agreement, it was no guarantee that the deal would ultimately be consummated.
Singhvi, who is visiting the US on a trip wholly sponsored by the US-India Business Alliance, which is headed by Indian American entrepreneur Sanjay Puri, who also heads the US-India Political Action Committee, asserted, "Let me put it bluntly. We may even be prepared to stake the continuance or the survival of the government on a matter or principle".
"But then will the sacrifice of the government get you the deal? If the sacrifice of a government doesn't get you the deal, then you are in fact inviting death without martyrdom," he said.
In his address on the Indian perspectives on the deal at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, Singhvi then asked rhetorically, "So why then have death if you don't even have martyrdom."
Thus, he argued, "It is important to realise the realistic confluence of this issue. It's no point being gung-ho on just one side. We want the deal, but ultimately it has to come out of a consensus. So it's not a question of being gung-ho about the Left".
"If there is going to be no deal because of opposition within the coalition and equally if there's going to be no deal if there's no government, then what are you doing? You are just making a gesture or a point in futility," he explained.
Singhvi said, "The point is that a coalition is as much a part of the government and decision-making as the main government. It is as much a part of democracy".
When asked by rediff.com as to why the Indian government doesn't level with the Bush administration and acknowledge the deal has been shelved because 'the Left has assured death without martyrdom if the government consummates the deal', Singhvi said, "Obviously, there can be no deal without a government in place, and therefore this whole idea of challenging somebody doesn't get you the deal. Therefore, it's a futile approach".
But Singhvi reiterated, "We have not given up. We do not accept that this is the end of the road. Theoretically, we have about 10-12 months, which is not a small time; it's about one-fifth of the government's tenure".
"Now, I am not saying that this is the co-terminus with the tenure of the time period - the time-line - for the US government. But, as far as the Indian government is concerned, we have 10-12 months left; we have therefore not given up".
The articulate mouthpiece of the Congress acknowledged, "We would like to do well within the time period, which will allow the administration that started it to finalise it. But the ultimate answer is the exigency of democracy; it's as simple as that. There is no other answer".
"There is no way; there is no magic button. There is no forced compulsion or coercion, which is available to do something in a democracy," he said.
Singhvi argued that, "In the ultimate analysis, it is good even for the proponents of the deal to respect the spirit of their democracy - for the proponents and the propellers of that deal, for the durability and the longevity of the deal itself, whenever it happens, to have it by a broad-based consensus".
"It's no point doing something by ramming it down in a hurry and having ex-post facto withdrawals and attacks on it," he added.
Meanwhile, he argued strongly that the failure to consummate the deal would not jeopardise overall US-India relations, saying, "It's very, very important to emphasise that India-US relations are multi-dimensional, multi-layered, multi-faceted. The Indo-US nuclear deal was neither the beginning and nor is it going to be the end of that".
Singhvi said, "The transformation in Indo-US relations generally is almost miraculous in the last few years. It's as if the two countries are making up for lost time. There has never in the history of Indo-US relations been a flurry of activity turning into a flood of activity on so many fronts".
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