The Hindu Business Line : Time to move ahead

It is now time to leave behind the controversies over the nuclear deal and move on to confront the major issues facing the nation. All the objections to the deal have been exhaustively articulated and all the arguments in support of it have also been laid bare.

Political parties, experts, scientists and commentators on both sides of the fence should be taken to be equally patriotic with no finger pointed at any of them for being more or less so. Concerns voiced should be presumed to have sprung from good faith just as explanations offered reflected the genuine convictions of the persons concerned.

For, whatever holes there were to pick in the 123 Agreement and Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA , there can be no doubt that the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, the UPA and their allies, as also the Government, are putting their weight behind the deal only with the best interest of the nation and because they firmly believe that it is imperative not only for the country's energy security but also for ending the nuclear isolation.

Yes, Mr Abhishek Singhvi is dead right: The best should not be allowed to become the enemy of the better, and the better the enemy of the good, simply because there is no perfect solution to any situation in human affairs.

What does it all add up to? After the trust vote, what? One hardly recalls a past occasion when a trust vote had evoked so little enthusiasm. All parties, for their own respective reasons, are frightened of election, regardless of all the brave noises some of them are making. That apart, it should not be surprising if the political formations other than the Left were put off by the way the Government was being driven up the wall in the last couple of weeks. There might thus be a `sympathy vote' or abstention to give the Government a fresh lease of life.

Deal is a done thing

There is also another consideration why the present Government might last its term. Whatever its merits or demerits, the deal is a done thing in the sense that abrogating it or demanding renegotiation of its terms is fraught with perilous consequences for the strategic partnership between India and the US.

Indeed, it might even cause an irreparable rupture in the relations between the two countries, with India's credibility in the mud in the eyes of industrial nations. What was hitherto only nuclear isolation might end up in India being tacitly blackballed by the club of industrial countries.

So, voting the Government out is unlikely to bring about a radical shift in the approach to the deal by the successor. The lame duck Bush Administration will have no stomach for any proposal for reconsideration, and the new Administration, whether Democratic or Republican, will also be loath to revisit the contents of the deal, when it will have plenty of other important issues closer to the bone - withdrawal from Iraq, economy, Iran, oil crisis, turbulence in Wall Street - consuming its attention.

All signs, then, are that the Government will scrape through the vote of confidence. In which case, it is only to be expected that both Dr Manmohan Singh and Mr George W. Bush, at their respective ends, with some benign nudging of the Nuclear Supplies Group by the US, will put in their best efforts to complete all the formalities for operationalising the deal before any further hitches or hiccups crop up.

Will that be the nation's undoing? No, and this from one who had been consistently expressing his reservations ever since deal was mooted. India is too big a country and those at the helm of affairs, whether in the government of the day or in the financial, commercial and business sectors, are too sharp and alert to become victims of any blandishment or blackmail from outside.

We can safely depend on the mettle of India's scientific community to work the deal to India's best advantage. The three years of debate would also have put all on guard that Indian public opinion cannot be trifled with.

Let us, therefore, link arms and bend out energies to the most pressing task: Putting the economy back on the rails.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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