In Washington last week, all my old liberal friends and arms controllers, who had campaigned for months against the Bush administration’s nuclear deal with India, were conceding defeat. They just did not have enough votes to block it.

They acknowledged grudgingly that many Congressmen and women who disagreed fundamentally with Bush’s nuclear deal were not willing to be seen to be opposing India. They were bitter that the administration had argued with some effectiveness that reneging on the deal now would have a devastating effect on the relationship with India.

The administration had also insisted that walking back from the deal would turn out to be worse than not having done the deal at all. The Congressmen, even the most sceptical ones, it is said, will hold their nose and vote for the deal.

For most of my interlocutors around the world, Mittal’s Arcelor bid and the Bush administration’s successful mobilisation of support to the nuclear deal are part of the same story — the rise of India.

But in India, few are willing to see them as part of the same story. Even as Mittal and other leading Indian businessmen take on the world with great relish, the brahminical political establishment in the capital is mourning amidst one of India’s greatest successes — the nuclear deal with America that has made big strides in the US Congress this week.

Both the left and the right are concerned that India is kow-towing to the United States. The BJP, which proclaimed the US as India’s “natural ally”, is having second thoughts. The communists, of course, are more consistent. They have accused every government since 1991 of selling out to the United States. It would be surprising if there is anything left to sell by now.

... contd.