BY : Economic times


Even as the differences between the UPA and the Left over the Indo-US nuclear deal continue to simmer, the government has informed Parliament that the joint naval exercise by India, Japan, Australia, Singapore and the US, in the Bay of Bengal from September 4-9 “is in consonance with India’s foreign policy”.

The CPM polit bureau had described the move as being “harmful to India’s strategic interests” and the Left has announced two ‘jathas’ (processions) against the naval war games from September 4-8, coinciding with the exercise.

The government’s reply came in response to an unstarred question in the Rajya Sabha on whether a joint naval exercise had been planned between the five countries in September, and its implications on India’s foreign policy. “A joint naval exercise by the Indian Navy, with the navies of the USA, Australia, Singapore and Japan, is planned to be held in the Bay of Bengal during September. The conduct of the joint exercise is in consonance with India’s foreign policy,” Union defence minister A K Antony’s reply said.

Despite the stand-off between the UPA and the Left over the nuclear deal, which a CPM polit bureau statement of August 18 said needs to be seen “in the context of the wider implications of India being bound into a strategic alliance with the US”, the government has been steadfast in its decision to continue with the naval exercise.

During Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to India between August 21 and 23, both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Mr Abe welcomed the naval exercise in the joint statement put out by the two countries. After that, naval chief Admiral Suresh Mehta told the media that the “Malabar exercise” was on. Mr Mehta said the Indian Navy stood to gain from the war games which, he said, would be a “phenomenal experience”.

The government’s stand on the naval exercises is bound to reinforce the Left’s assessment that the strategic ties being forged with the US by the UPA government would compromise India’s “independent foreign policy”. In a statement on 13 July, the CPM polit bureau had said: “This (the naval exercise) is a step towards India being drawn into the already existing trilateral military co-operation between the US, Japan and Australia....the exercise is part of the implementation of the “New Framework for Defence Relationship” signed by the UPA government in July 2005.

Japan and Australia are close military allies of the United States. India is now moving to join their ranks.” The party’s apex decision making body, the central committee, had decided that the CPM would hit the streets over the issue of Indo-US strategic relations. “The CPM and the Left parties will conduct this joint campaign from September 4 to 8 all over the country coinciding with the two jathas which are taking place in the same period against the joint naval exercises,” it said.