It continues: “The US is determined to hold on to two aims: One, to remain the only Super Power on earth, unchallenged and unchallengeable and two, to maintain an economic stranglehold on all countries, especially the developing ones and, most notably, India.”

The US’s record in winning trust is “abominable” it says. “It is doubtful whether it would have gone to the succour of even Britain when Hitler started World War II. It joined the conflict only when Japan attacked its Navy at Pearl Harbour. It made friends with the Shah of Iran when it needed him most. When he ceased to be of any use, he was unceremoniously dumped. When it suited its purpose, it gave Pakistan every assistance possible and it couldn’t care less if that hurt India, described as the single largest democracy in the world. When it suited its purpose again, Saddam Hussein was given full support in terms of arms and equipment. When it didn’t, the US turned against him in full fury and ultimately had him hanged. To keep the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, the US encouraged Pakistan to help set up the most reactionary forces in Islam, notably the Taliban and Al Qaida and gave liberal support to them.”

Poor Left

The Organiser editorial is on the ‘agony of the Left’. “But there is no sympathy for it”, it says, “because of the duplicitous role it has been playing for the last three years. Only that the prime minister’s blunt statement asking it to shut up or get out has made its position untenable”.

The editorial says that if the Left is serious about opposing the nuclear deal and US hegemony, it has no option but to withdraw support to the UPA government. “Now it does not even have the fig leaf of the prime minister’s confusing and misleading statement in Parliament on August 13, to postpone the painful decision. The PM’s idea was largely intended to cajole the Left. But within 24 hours of the prime minister’s statement the US State Department has made a clarification, which in a way snubbed and called the Manmohan bluff. For the Indian audience it came as a reality check.”

And Parliament?

Another article in the RSS mouthpiece raises the issue of parliamentary approval for international treaties. “Over the years our people have come to believe that the Constitution of India, 1950, is their protector and saviour. And Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, known as its father, is venerated by all. These very people of ours could be rudely shocked when told that if their prime minister gives away Arunachal Pradesh to China tomorrow in an agreement signed under the orders of his Indo-Italian boss, there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution to stop that act of treason. The Constituent Assembly simply forgot to lay down that an international agreement which the central executive wished to sign on behalf of the people of India must necessarily be first approved by the Parliament which represents them.”

That is why, it says, the UPA government is going ahead on the 123 agreement with the US. “The UPA’s defence is diabolically simple. Article 253 of our Constitution empowers

Parliament to make any law for implementing any treaty, agreement or covenant, but there’s no provision anywhere in probably the world’s longest Constitution that compels the central executive to make such a law. That is how, right from the cease-fire agreement over

Kashmir in 1948 till the Shimla Pact in 1972, the Congress government of the Nehru family sought an okay only from enemy Pakistan’s rulers rather than from their own citizens.”

Compiled by Varghese K. George