Sections of the BJP understood from the very outset that the Congress lacked the political courage to complete India’s unfinished nuclear agenda. Opportunistic as its opposition to the nuclear deal was, the BJP recognised that the Congress leadership would crack under sustained pressure.

The Congress’s reluctance to make bold on foreign policy has put more than India’s ties with the US at risk. The UPA was fortunate to inherit an extraordinary foreign policy legacy from the NDA government. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had done a lot of the hard work to end the nuclear dispute with the United States, negotiate purposefully with Pakistan on the Kashmir question, and find a way to resolve the boundary dispute with China.

The UPA government did pick up the ball and run; but has tripped itself at the goal post. As on the nuclear initiative with the US, so on the Kashmir negotiations with Pakistan, the UPA government abandoned the many opportunities that came its way during 2005-06 with Gen. Pervez Musharraf. The negotiations with China have made little progress in the last few years.

If the Congress does not have the conviction to complete the nuclear deal, so patently tilted in India’s favour, there is no hope in hell it will muster the gumption to proceed further with Pakistan and China on issues that necessarily involve territorial concessions.

To be sure, India will have to bear the short term diplomatic costs of the UPA government’s nuclear vacillations. Over the longer term, though, India should survive the UPA’s feckless foreign policy. After all, the US civil nuclear initiative was not a favour to the Congress but a recognition of India’s increasing weight in the international system.

... contd.