But unlike Rao, Manmohan Singh did not have to face a hostile international environment. All the world’s leading powers, except China, had lent political support to India’s full-fledged entry into the nuclear club.

For three months now, what stood between India and its long-standing national objectives was a simple negotiation of a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Informal consultations with the IAEA in recent months had apparently indicated a viable understanding was within reach.

The Bush Administration was all geared up to get the IAEA approval as well as the endorsement of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group by December. Although the US Congress would have taken a while to vote on it, the Russians and French were all set to announce civilian nuclear cooperation with India — during Manmohan Singh’s visit to Moscow next month and the French President Sarkozy’s trip to New Delhi in January.

It is at this very moment that Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh have snatched a political defeat from the jaws of victory. The CPM leader Prakash Karat’s objections to the deal in the final phase of its implementation have been interpreted in many ways. He was merely sticking to his own ideology, rigid and outdated as it might be.

In the end it was a political test for the Congress. Was it was ready to put national interest above political expediency? After their initial bravado, Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh were not even willing to take the test. They have called in sick.

... contd.