Why should the Manmohan Singh government be defeated at the Motion of No Confidence...

Lately there has been a string of accusations from and against the current government in place in India. One cannot get into the depth of the situation without knowing the root cause of the issue, and what exactly triggered the events.

If we switch back about 10 months, George Bush has just lost its major ally in the Gulf war. Britain has started partial withdrawl of troops from Afghanistan, and the new Prime minister in chair Gordon Brown has vowed to the public in wake of the elections, to publish a time line for complete withdrawl of the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. In the absense of major forces of the world backing US in its so called Peace Mission, US has been cornered bye its own foreign policy.

Withdrawing the troops now, will gurantee George Bush junior a place in history next to his father, who also could not get a substantial victory in the last gulf war. Also the extremists- The Talibans and Mujahiddins, in the Iraq and Afghanistan would declare it as their victory, and may even bounce back to the power, which would prove to be a nightmare turn true for the entire west.

Facing these threats, the US administration has three options to consider. One to forget and bury the cold war memories, and seek alliance from Russia, which George Bush tried, but with no results. Second option was to seek alliance from People's Republic of China. This was strategically impossible, as China would never accept American leadership. Chinese are too ambitious, and they do not see any reason why they should join forces with USA. So the third and last option left with USA is to seek alliance from developing giants such as India, Mexico and South African nations.

The only way to lure India into an alliance is through military aids. India has troubled borders on all sides. Starting from Pakistan on North west, to Srilanka in South, Indian borders are expensive to maintain. Also the rapid development of industries, and increasing standard of living of Indian citizens, has created a massive gap between generation and demand of energy supplies.

So here comes the Indo-US nuclear deal, a rescue offer to India, to ease her energy defeceit. But like all the offers from US in the past, these deal also comes with a price tag. And the discussion starts for the price tag amongst all the political parties in India.

The general rule of business, is one of the dealing parties, in this case USA, is always more interested in closing the deal for it's own gains. The other party, in this case India, must use this opportunity as a strong bargaining power, and get the deal to the maximum benefit of it's own. The general public of India, was never explained the vices or virtues of these treaty, by the in-power Congress. The only thing people heard is it would ease the pressure on the energy sector of the country.

Having looked at what is in the base of the issue, let us drill down a bit further for the most disputed points of these treaty, and why the Parliamentary parties are disputed, and the left Parties even considered bringing the Motion of No-confidence in the parliament which would almost certainely force an early general election in India, if passed.

The first disputed point is regarding India's foreign policy. There is a mandatory clause in these treaty for Indian government to abide by the Hyde Act, which states that Indian foreign policy needs to be congruent to that of United States. This necessarily mean, India cannot criticise any of the US foreign policy. In recent times, India has lead the opposition to any sanctions on Iran, based on speculations that Iran is enriching its nuclear armery. India demanded UN inspectors to provide proof of the US accusation. India also has in past criticised the way US dealt the middle east crisis. If the treaty is signed, any of these steps would suffice for US to withdraw the fuel supply.

The next point is Military Arm sale. Under this treaty, India will have the luxury of joint excercise with US military, but the cost of which would be buying expensive arms from US. The major reason why Pakistan could not accelerate its development was, all the foreign aid that it received were wiped out buying arms and ammunition from USA. USA has a past of giving aid, which comes with the condition, that you buy ammunition from US at a premium price. It is just like giving out a voucher in place of cash from departmental store which sells the same product at unreasonably high prices as a token of gratitude. India has maintained its clause of technology transfer instead of just ammunition sale with Russia, which has enabled the Indian Military to maintain and produce cheaper ammunitions at the same standards. Signing this treaty, makes this advancements a part of history, and all the ammunition would have to have "made in usa" tag attached to it.

The treaty does not contain the same clause as the one signed by China, which allows China to prohibit USA to terminate the treaty based on any internal laws. This means, US congress can pass any new law which would make India's life miserable, and India would have to abide by it, or risk running out of the fuel bringing everything back to square one.

The treaty enables Washington to claim all the fuel supply it has provided to New Delhi, in case of termination. Though Washington would have to provide sufficient financial reimbursement for the fuel at the current market prices, it means India would not gain anything. Washington has a month's notice to reimburse, which provides enough time to force the market to collapse, bringing the prices cheaper to what India paid while procuring those fuel.

This is what I have thought reading numerous blogs online about the whole episode. If someone beg to differ, I would be more than happy to learn new facts.

Signing off now, and good luck India.