A Red Scare In Delhi

But that won't happen unless Singh can keep the left onboard. In August 2006, after a debate in Parliament, the communists listed nine specific concerns with the agreement, including securing a guaranteed supply of nuclear fuel. Singh promised the communists he'd address the issues, and the prime minister duly raised them during a meeting this past June in Berlin with Bush, who helped resolve them. By September of this year, Singh had worked out a new version of the deal, which had been specifically crafted to meet many of the left's objections. Yet the left still dug in its heels, and it gradually became clear that any deal worked out with George Bush's America would not fly with Karat.

Fed up with the opposition, the normally soft-spoken Singh dared the left to bolt last August, saying, "If they want to withdraw support, so be it." Not to be outdone, Karat threatened "heavy political consequences" if Singh rammed through the deal. In October, Karat upped the ante, saying the real problem with the deal was not the technical issues but the U.S. design to "encircle" China.

Singh's coalition, which has been struggling in the polls, was in no mood to face early elections and began to waver. The prime minister, feeling betrayed, reportedly threatened to resign. Karat stayed on the offensive, and speaking at a party gathering on the 90th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, he vowed, "We shall not rest until strategic ties with the U.S. are snapped." Karat's opposition may have been more than ideological. "They [the communists] thought the P.M. in a fit of anger would resign," says one senior Indian government official. "They were trying a coup."

The purported coup failed and the prime minister decided to stand firm. But his stance has cost him personally. "He's tired, worn down and depressed," says the senior government official. "This has taken a lot of his energy." Singh also feels let down by his week-kneed allies and his boss, Gandhi, who never provided energetic support for the deal. "Her support has not been vigorous," says Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president of the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research, pointing out that Gandhi never engaged in the kind of behind-the-scenes arm-twisting necessary to solidify support. Many analysts think that's because her paramount aim is to keep the Congress Party in power at all costs, paving the way for her 37-year-old son, Rahul, to take over the reins of the party and government. To make that happen, says the senior government official, she needs to keep the left happy, since Congress and the BJP have roughly equal weight in Parliament and the regional parties tend to drift from side to side.

Ironically, Karat's communists are today in a weaker position than they acknowledge. Analysts predict they would lose seats in a new election: Karat's national standing has plummeted as a result of his obstructionism. And the party's longtime power base in West Bengal has recently been eviscerated by a series of stupid and violent blunders there. After the party's unquestioning support for militant trade unions sent the economy there into a tailspin, local CPI-M leaders embarked on a Chinese-style reform drive in 2000, including the establishment of special economic zones that would cut red tape, slash taxes and offer breaks from the state's worker-friendly labor laws. This lured in a bevy of corporations but also led to massive protests by subsistence farmers who refused to sell the land on which the SEZs were to be established.

The government responded with overwhelming force last March, sending armed thugs and police to attack villagers in Nandigram who were protesting plans to build a chemical complex there. Fourteen people were killed and more than 160 injured. Although the local government scrapped the project, unrest continued to simmer. Earlier this month armed CPI-M cadres again raided Nandigram, killing six more people, raping several women and displacing nearly 5,000 people through intimidation and arson. Adding oil to the fire, the local communist leaders then seemed to endorse the violence, calling it "morally and legally" justified. Nationwide protests followed. This time even sympathetic intellectuals began to condemn the CPI-M in print.