Govt may negotiate with IAEA, not finish deal: Yechury

Q: Let’s now look at the consequence that I believe are inherent in the positions that have been adopted. First there is the view that after the government has started talks with the IAEA and reached an outcome that atleast the government believes is acceptable in India’s interest. If at that point, you put pressure on the government to backoff, you have substantially raised the cost of backing out. Not only will the embarrassment for the government be greater but the international humiliation could be greater as well?

A: No, I don’t think so because the point at issue is that our opposition to this deal is now well known and the government is aware of it. It also knows the fact that there were assurances the Prime Minister himself gave to the Parliament, which have not been met. They are telling us, let us go ahead with the IAEA to ensure if that is done. But when they come back they say that these assurances are not being met, then where is the humiliation.

Q: But there is a problem because they will only come back to you after their negotiators have told the IAEA we think that we have a document that is acceptable. Now we are going back to our government for verification. At that point, if the government then turns around regardless whether it is under political compulsion from you or not and says, sorry boys we can’t accept what we have verbally agreed to, then the humiliation is greater?

A: That is only one option. There is another option, the negotiators can come back to the government and say this is as much as we can get, nothing further and then the government can say that we are not getting any further.

Q: But the government is convinced that the negotiators will succeed. You are the one who is doubtful; I am convinced that the negotiators will have the document that they can live with?

A: Let us see, I don’t think so.

Q: Let me quote to you a member of the UPA Left Committee speaking to the Indian Express on 17^th November, the morning after the meeting that determined this new position. He says “Once we have completed formal negotiation with the IAEA, we cannot tell the IAEA that we will not sign it” then he says that “It will be a matter of national prestige”. You have raised the cost of backing off by giving them this leeway to go one step further?

A: I don’t think we have raised the cost. It is that particular person who said it, he is raising this.

Q: But that person is the government?

A: Yes, could be but they are raising it, we are not the one’s who are raising these stakes. They are raising it and they wanted to go. So we say go. But we say you cannot proceed further because what you have quoted to me also says that once we have agreed to an agreement; but that agreement will come when you put your initials on.

Q: You are being a bit technical on it.

A: So are you.

Q: But when you said that you, the Left, may not have raised the stakes. It is possible that the government in accepting the offer has raised the stakes itself?

A: No, I do not think either has because the point is that, what you are quoting is absolutely correct, if they have agreed with the IAEA then they come back here and then they renegotiate on that, then there is an embarrassment. But the point at issue here is that there is no agreement.

Q: It all depends upon the last words spoken by the negotiators in Vienna before they return to the government. The negotiators have to say to the IAEA “ We aren’t fully happy but we are going away with the best that we could get and we aren’t fully happy”. Problem is suppose the negotiators smile and say “thanks boys we have got a deal now, we have just want a confirmation from Delhi then there is a problem?

A: The fact is that they will say that we need confirmation from Delhi is in itself an admission of the fact that we have not got the entire thing that we want.

Q: Let’s leave that consequence for later on and there is the second consequence, which may be even a bigger consequence. Not only have you raised the level and embarrassment for the government if they back out. But paradoxically, you may have reduced the risks, the government runs of defying the Left. Previously if they have gone to the IAEA to start talks, when you were disapproving, there was a real possibility that the IAEA would have said the government coming no longer represents the Indian people and therefore no longer have the capacity to make commitments on their behalf.

Now when the government goes to start talks with the IAEA, they are doing so with your approval. Their bonafides are not in question. So the IAEA will happily negotiate with them. The risk would only come at the point when initialing happens and I put at you that not only is that a substantially reduced risk but there is every possibility that the IAEA wouldn’t balk at the initialing itself. You know and I know that the American government has specifically given an assurance to the Indian government that if you go thus far the IAEA will initial with you. So have you perhaps without realizing it reduced the risk the government runs of defying you?

A: Risk is a risk. There is nothing called the degree of risk. Because what were the options? That you had the deal and no government. You had the government and no deal or you had neither the government nor the deal. 

Q: That is the one that worried the current government that they may lose the government and not get the deal now because you have reduced the risk, they may lose the government but they could end up securing the deal. That’s why you made things easier.

A: But I firmly believe that the government’s interest is in securing themselves and not the deal. If they no longer are going to be in the government, what will they do with the deal?

Q: They may have decided that the deal is more important than fourteen months in office?

A: In which case, the government definitely needs to go if the deal is more important than being in government and from India’s point of view.

Q: India’s point is a question of who sees India’s point and who is interpreting, it is quite possible that supporters of the deal in the government may say at all cost we want the deal, even if the government goes. The nightmare was if the government went and the deal get it happened, your reducing the risk has made it possible for the government to secure the deal but sacrifice itself that is the change you have made possible.

A: The moment it sacrifices itself, it sacrifices a deal as well.

Q: Not necessarily once you are through with IAEA, it is an autopilot. America does the rest.

A: But you have to come back here for your cabinet approval. Where would there be a cabinet? By the time it goes through American Congress and comes back, you are in election mode, no government, no caretaker government is going to approve it.

Q: Once it goes through the US Congress and gets the final okay from US Congress, it is a done deal, the next government can sign it.

A: By the time all this happens this government here will be off. Elections will be there; maybe a new government will come.

Q: But the deal will be through.

A: The deal can be through even with the new government in India, if they want it.

Q: The difference is that if they had waited for the new government, the Bush government would have gone and in fact the capacity to pass it through the US Congress would have ended. Now the only thing is that you may have to wait for a new government to sign it but the deal would have passed Congress, passed NSG, passed IAEA, that is what you have made possible.

A: No way, the moment they come back here for the initialization, if at that point of time we say no, the moment they defy that, they betray this understanding. They have to betray this understanding, if they betray this understanding, they will have to pay the political price.

Q: Of withdraw of support.

A: Also the political price for betraying.

Q: They won’t fall immediately, there will be a ten-day period before the President-during that ten days they will have vote, during that ten days they will have initialed once they have initialed they are through the NSG. Once they through with the NSG the deal is through.

A: Politics cannot happen through the slate of hand. They have made a public commitment that at that point of time when at the time of before initialization they will come to the committee and they also reiterated that the committee is findings will be taken into the account before government proceeds.

Q: You have said that this might be an honourable exit for the government, I would put it to you that it could end up being an honourable exit for the Left behind the disguise of only permitting one stage, you may actually have permitted the whole thing to go through, the only hinge is, has the government got the guts to defy you?

A: It is not the question of guts. It is again the question of a political trust. They have given this trust not to us alone, to the people, to the country. They have said that we will come back here.

Q: Sounds like introducing morality into what was straightaway just a simple political equation?

A: There is political morality that is what politics all about.

Q: Politics is about grabbing an opportunity, the question is you have given one; will the government grab it?

A: No, I do not think they can.