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        The UPA government is teetering on the brink. But there is very little to fear that it will keel over as both the Congress and the Left are politically smart enough to realise that they are still far from being ready for an election. That is why both the protagonists keep on giving the other a long rope. At the moment of writing, the Congress has offered to set up an expert group to examine all aspects of the contentious pact. This after the CPI-M's voice box Sitaram Yechury had wanted a mechanism to thoroughly examine the Hyde Act, the American domestic law that permits civil nuclear cooperation with India. But India, at least on paper, is fully committed to the deal, and the Left parties are thoroughly opposed to anything that has something to do with the US. With such a hardened stance, the idea to set up an expert group (these euphemisms are indeed galling) is no more than a maladroit stratagem to see the both the parties climb down without any apparent loss of face. The two parties are unimaginatively buying time to ensure a climb down that does not involve a serious loss of face.

        Aside from the merits and the demerits thereof of the nuclear deal, the internal standoff shows up the inconvenient underbelly of governments that rise from alliances of convenience. The UPA government is certainly a minority one and has survived solely on the ventilator support of the Left. The latter, ideologically intransigent as they are, do not want any kind of nexus with the US. Howsoever absurd this stand maybe, this has been their fixation and represents their essential raison d'etre. Ergo, for the UPA, eking out a living on the Left's alms, to have gone ahead with a deal with America is morally infirm. The Left too is not any righteous high plane.

        Why should they have propped this government for so long knowing full well that it will certainly break bread with the US. Apart from the nuclear deal, the government and its various apparatus have entered into several pacts with Washington. So the question to ask is why is the Left, if it is so sincere to its quintessence (which is anti-Americanism), not raking those issues. Beyond the grandstanding, the whole impasse is not about nuclear deal but about the in-built untenability of regimes, which are backed by commitment-less outsiders. Those sailing the boat will dwell deeply before even thinking of rocking it. But not those who are not inside it.

        As it is, the Left certainly is overplaying its hand as it is trying to peddle influence that is not commensurate with the numerical strength it enjoys. So what we are witnessing is an ungainly and anomalous situation of tail wagging the body. It is also a bit too rich for the Communists to harp on the need for foreign policy being totally independent. The Left parties, which hitherto answered to their bidders in Russia (erstwhile), are now taking orders from China (for instance, the Communists don't want India to recognise independent Tibet as a separate entity. Successive heartless Chinese regimes are certainly mercilessly destroying the ancient and hoary seat of Dalai Lamas, but the Left loudspeakers here would amplify only the violence in Iraq and Afghanistan). Actually, the Hyde Act is not the problem. Left's Jekyll and Hyde act is.