India under world spotlight

All the world's been a stage in India these past few days, the great powers colliding in unforeseen ways and reaffirming their interest in the unfolding Indian story.

Actually, part of the story will be unfolding even as this article summons ink to paper, with India's Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee talking to his counterparts in Washington about the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Question is, what is he going to tell US President George W. Bush, whom the Indians have persuaded with much difficulty to give him time for a cup of tea.

Certainly, rarely in the history of the free world has the big power been in the news for telling a country which has neither signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty nor intends to do so, that it's okay, we're going to tear up the treaty in shreds just for you, give you all the nuclear power you want, while you get to still keep your nuclear arsenal on the side.

What is even more definite is that the recipient country has never behaved like India is doing right now : indicating willingness to walk up the garden path, but unwilling to tie the knot, for fear that it will be rapped on the knuckles by its ideological guardians, that is the Left partners who support it in power.

This, then, will be the abiding memory of the Congress government when history chalks up the pros and cons: A government that was afraid of its own shadow, a party that baulked when it was offered the chance to play the great game.

This week, then, is the moment of truth for India. What will Pranab Mukherjee tell George W. Bush? Will he tell him that India isn't ready, not just yet for the affliction of greatness? That the Left parties, whom the Congress needs to stay alive, believe the Americans are the leper's touch and have therefore forbidden the Congress to break bread with them?

Thank you sir, but no thank you, we want your money and your foreign direct investment but we don't want the nuclear deal, or not just yet.

And so Pranab Mukherjee will return home to tally up the numbers and run the government. In the alphabet soup of electoral politics, none knows better than Mukherjee, 49 out of 100 actually amounts to zero. It's only when you cross the Rubicon and get to the magic figure, 51, that life begins to look up.

Mukherjee as the Congress party's chief strategist, in charge of more than two dozen groups in charge of processing government policy - from civil aviation to whether horrifying pictures such as the skull and bones should be displayed on cigarette packs - also knows that the election bells have begun to toll.

Last month's budget was none other than a call to arms by the government to go forth and multiply the votes.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the equivalent of a safety net, which guarantees a minimum of 100 days of unskilled labour to every adult in the country (right now in 330 districts, to be extended to all 590 districts in the country by April 1) is being promoted by none other than Rahul Gandhi and his band of young members of Parliament as the Congress party's gift to India.

Another variation

Meanwhile, another variation of the great game flourishes anew at home, as the Chinese government takes pot shots at New Delhi for allowing the Dalai Lama (who has been living in India since he fled Tibet in 1959) to speak out in criticism of the continuing repressive measures employed by the Chinese in Tibet.

While Delhi has always maintained that the Dalai Lama is an honoured guest, in keeping with public sentiment that holds him in high esteem, it has forbidden the Tibetans from indulging in any political activities.

So while Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was extolling India's control over the Dalai Lama, India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was meeting US Speaker Nancy Pelosi and telling her that India considered him the "personification of non-violence".

In one swoop, the Indian prime minister had not only reaffirmed the high regard India places in the Buddhist leader, but also indicated that he was akin to the great Mahatma Gandhi, in whose hands the instrument of "satyagraha" or "non-violence" was so subtly sharpened that it overthrew the British empire.

Pelosi went on to meet the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, his home in exile in the Himalayan foothills, in a blaze of publicity.

American, Indian and Tibetan flags lined the narrow road as her convoy sped from Kangra airport to Dharamsala, a nightmare come true for those who believe that the Tibetan troubles are inspired by the Americans and their cat's paw in this old-new great game, India.

This, then, is the basic Left grouse against growing empathy between India and the US. Not only is the great Indian market a vast green field for the growing capitalist enterprise, but American policies are going to be employed by India against traditional friends, like China.

Better not to allow yourself to be tempted by such fruits like the nuclear deal, when the slope's so slippery anyway.

Just look what happened to Adam in the garden of Eden.

Jyoti Malhotra is the Diplomatic Editor of The Telegraph newspaper, India.