Column

Public discourse in this country has assumed an aggressive tone of late. Whether it is road rage or cricket, aggression and violence are seen as the first reaction.

Politics used to have a few rules, as did the media — the strictest journalist standards of fairness, balance and non-editorialising applied. Now it is the latest gladiatorial game in town, with two sides pitted against each other as combatants, trying to stare each other down.

Consider recent commentory on the Indo-US nuclear deal — it’s all about blinking first, warning of dire consequences and other similar belligerent comments. Sitaram Yechury had once warned that the Left was not only about barking but also biting, and they have bit, sharply too. The BJP must be seething to have ceded the Opposition space to the Left.

Naturally, after having achieved what they set out for, the Left parties must be exulting at their victory. From their point of view, the good guys won and the bad guys not only lost but also humiliatingly. The deal, that bete noire of the leftists, is dead (for the time being), its proponents without any face to show and the UPA government is now ripe to be blackmailed.

Already some of the leftists are talking of other issues that they want to take up, like inflation and, no doubt, the tactics will be the same as the ones used in the deal battle. The Quixotic heroes, Karat and Yechury, should now be preparing for other windmills to tackle.

This is however not merely a triumph of the Left parties. True, 59 or so MPs can and did do an enormous amount of muscle-flexing with a government which would simply collapse without their support. But even this powerful block could not have pulled it off on its own.

What eventually helped them was the widespread Left presence in critical areas of decision and opinion making which began humming like a well-oiled machine just when it was required. Manmohan Singh and his team of negotiators managed to come up with a finely tuned agreement that met the concerns of the Bush administration, satisfied the Indian scientific establishment (at least on the face of it), pleased the International Atomic Energy Agency, but Singh had not reckoned with the Left element in his own government, in his party, among the intelligentsia (including the media) and most of all, in close proximity to his own boss Sonia Gandhi.

It was, after all, Gandhi who pulled the plug finally and made it clear that the government would survive. The UPA was not a one-issue government, it was made clear; translated, it meant that the deal could be sacrificed, no matter what it entailed in terms of losing face with the US and internationally. This after all had been the party line till the other day, so a volte face must have come as a shock to Singh.

The crucial weak link was the Congress party, which has always been a broad church of opinions, but with a pronounced left tilt which shows up at critical moments. The party may be forging ahead with a liberalisation agenda, but all of Manmohan Singh’s initiatives have come about amidst the deep suspicion and hostility of his own party colleagues.

He faced opposition in 1991, when he presented the first reforms budget, but was fully backed by Narasimha Rao; he has got the total support of Sonia Gandhi since he became Prime Minister, but this time round, after standing by him, she has stepped back.

Like her mother-in-law and grandfather-in-law, Sonia Gandhi too appears to have a strong socialistic streak and has many an advisor from what could be called the Patrician Left — upper class denizens who profess a bent towards the masses and disdain the forces of private capital.

Jawaharlal Nehru was deeply influenced by Fabian socialists, his daughter was surrounded by her leftist kitchen cabinet. Son Rajiv stayed away from them but who knows what would have eventually happened? Most of Sonia’s initiatives and recommendations to the government have been populist; it is easy to infer that she is not impressed by the reforms process.

That culture of leftism has continued in our academia, media and other intellectual bastions. Many government appointments were made after the UPA was formed. Newspaper commentators tend to lean left-wards too. They are the chorus to the Left’s orchestration.

For them, like for Karat and his colleagues, Manmohan Singh is enemy number one — naturally, the deal he produced, after supping with the devil, the US, was simply not acceptable. Some of Singh’s own partymen were happy to let the Left do their job. The allies, afraid of the political crisis that could bring about an election, went along. Sonia Gandhi was left with little choice in the end, the noise was simply too much.

It’s not going to stop here, of course. After having tasted blood, the Left conglomerate will now work towards getting other UPA initiatives stopped or even reversed. The tail will start wagging the dog, because this tail is a long and powerful one.

Email: sidharth01@dnaindia.net