If the lack of a sophisticated worldview has always been a communist failing, their apparent determination to humiliate the PM in front of the international community is new and tragic. At stake is not just the PM’s personal prestige but also the very question of India’s interests. It is the Left’s failure to appreciate the value of ending India’s nuclear isolation that is driving the communists off the political cliff. While the Left’s arguments against a strategic alliance with the United States deserve a hearing, their attempts to link India’s nuclear liberation with American “imperialism” have been simply outlandish. Worse still, the communists seem either unwilling or unable to understand the political context and the technical structure of the nuclear initiative. This is a consequence of putting ideological correctness above the mastery of laborious detail. The Left argument that the deal will be on “auto-pilot”, once India approaches the IAEA, and therefore they must block it now is simplistic beyond belief. The 35 nations on the IAEA board of governors and the 45 members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group are not just waiting to genuflect before Washington. Such sceptics as China and Pakistan and many other doubters remain to be persuaded.

Meanwhile, the PM has made an offer to face a thorough parliamentary debate after the negotiations with the IAEA and the NSG and before the Indo-US deal is implemented. Rejecting this sensible proposal and acting in haste, the communists might repent at leisure when they find themselves out of sync with not just the rest of the political class (with the exception of their sworn enemy, the BJP) but broader centrist opinion in the country as well. This is not the first time, however, that the communists have rushed down an adventurist course, only to recant later.