The Indian-American community leaders and activists, who lobbied feverishly last year to push through the enabling legislation to facilitate the US-India civilian nuclear deal in the US Congress, are not just deeply disappointed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has thrown in the towel in lieu of political expediency--they feel betrayed and misled.
Swadesh Chatterjee, coordinator of the US-India Friendship Council--the umbrella organization of community groups--that was formed exclusively to lobby on behalf of the deal in Congress, told rediff.com, "Disappointment is an understatement."
"I was very sad when I heard that," he said when he received the news that the Manmohan Singh government in the wake of the fierce opposition from its Leftist allies who threatened to withdraw from the coalition government, had opted to shelve the deal rather than take the risk of going for a election, nearly two years before its term expired.
Chatterjee said, "This is really sad. I really expected Soniaji and Manmohan Singh to stand up and fight no matter what."
Quoting Mamohan Singh, he said, "I know it's not the end of the world, but it's definitely a tremendous setback. I do respect the democratic process, but if we cannot take a decision, which is good for the national interests of the country, what is it all about? That's not democracy! Democracy doesn't mean you don't look at the national interest and what is good for the people of India."
"I don't know how a country like India can sustain 10 percent growth rates without energy and that's the national interest I am talking about," he added.
Chatterjee said, "I've been in this country for over 30 years, and for the first time, we really moved mountains. The community never became as unified as we did behind this deal and put a force together to get the Hyde Act through when the legislation initially looked as if it had no chance at all and the Administration's proposal was virtually dead on arrival."
"We put everything on hold--career on hold, family on hold--and used all of our time and effort and money for this cause and we cashed all the chips we had for over 25 years--whatever we had developed with all of the politicians and policymakers--and now this terrible disappointment."
"What President Bush did is like what Nixon did about China," he added.
Chatterjee reiterated that he agreed with Prime Minister Singh that "he's absolutely right, it's not the end of the world. But, on the other hand, it really pulls the US-India relations back. The momentum that we created is not easy to come by always."
Ranvir Trehan and Armeane Choksi, two of the activists who worked closely with Chatterjee in organising fund-raisers for lawmakers and working with US business and industry to lobby Congress on the deal, also expressed similar sentiments and said they felt utterly let down by the Indian politicians.
Trehan, a high-tech entrepreneur and philanthropist, said, "Every party and MP should dig deep and answer the question if this is or not in the country's long-term interest. It is the same question we have posed to every US lawmaker."
"If the answer appears to be no, then the doubt should be as clearly articulated as the case has been laid out by those that have assiduously worked on it for the past two years--maybe even much longer," he said.
Trehan said, "Those that are taking India forward should not be hijacking this deal. In that the BJP has a responsible role as well, just not to be the loyal opposition. I am pained and disappointed but the cause of US-India relations is far larger and I will work on issues again if need be."
"Maybe I am naïve, (But) I think there is some hope still," he said.
Choksi, the founder of a hedge fund called Hudson Fairfax Group, said, "We are all very disillusioned, disappointed and demoralized. The wind has been taken out of our sails. In all this I ask myself, who wins and who loses."
"Clearly the Communist Party wins. They have shown that they have a lot of political muscle. China also wins. China was never a fan of this nuclear agreement or close US-India strategic relationships and they must be delighted. And, obviously, Pakistan wins because India was in the process of developing a very special arrangement with the US that Pakistan also wanted but could not get."
Choksi said, "On the losing side, there is clearly the Congress Party that took a very bold and courageous step, only to back down at the last minute, and there is India itself, the US and the world as a whole, which would have benefited tremendously from stronger and tighter US-India relationships, which this agreement symbolized."
Republican Party stalwart, Narender Reddy of Georgia, who was a delegate to the 2004 GOP Convention and is a big-time fund-raiser for the party in his state, voicing his frustration of the prime minister putting the deal in cold storage, said. "Sometimes I wonder if India's worst enemy is functioning from within the country."
"Hundreds of NRIs, like me, worked on this deal for more than a year to see it through Congress and we all spent our political goodwill to see the deal approved by a huge majority in Congress despite strong lobbying groups working against it here in the US."
Reddy said, "We are all aware, how much the Chinese and Pakistani governments worked to see the deal fail here. Unfortunately, the Chinese government which failed here in the US to block the agreement, succeeded through their puppet communist leaders in India to block it."
Another activist, who didn't want to be named, was very bitter that the Indian government and its officials here had "misled us," by urging the community to get mobilized and to lobby the US lawmakers to support the deal.
Meanwhile, the US-India Political Action Committee announced that it was mobilizing an emergency delegation of Indian-American business and community leaders from across the country,to travel to India to urge the government not to give up on the deal.
Sanjay Puri, the chairman of USINPAC, said, "The deal ushered in a new strategic relationship between the US and India, and there is too much at stake for both countries and the rest of the world to walk away from this critically important relationship."
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