The India-U.S. joint statement came under attack on Thursday from the Left parties. They charged that India continued to give more concessions compared to what the United States offered and felt

the announcement of the U.S. India Global Democracy Initiative to strengthen democracies in Third World countries must be viewed with scepticism. The Left said the previous Vajpayee Government had also joined the "community of democracies" floated by the Clinton administration.

"The United States is hardly the exemplar of upholding democracy around the world. Such a bilateral initiative displays the anxiety of India to align with the United States at a time when the superpower has become notorious for its unilateralist and anti-democratic activities. Instead of the bilateral global democracy initiative, it would have been better if the joint statement had confined itself stating that only through the United Nations can democratic practices be strengthened," the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said.

As regards terrorism, the party said it would have been better had the Government realised that an important aspect of global terrorism was the use of State terrorism and the gross violation of national sovereignty which in turn spawned fundamentalism and terrorism. Iraq, it said, was a glaring example of how imperialist aggression and State terrorism had resulted in an upsurge of terrorist violence not seen before within Iraq and now affected European capitals such as Madrid and London.

Referring to the agreement on nuclear cooperation, it said the United Progressive Alliance Government should not continue the "undemocratic practice" followed by the previous National Democratic Alliance through the Strobe Talbott-Jaswant Singh secret negotiations on security and foreign policy issues.

Questioning the manner in which the Manmohan Singh Government arrived at a deal with the United States, it said: "It was incumbent on the Government to place their views and proposals for discussion with all the parties concerned before deciding on the course of action."

The CPI(M) said it had opposed the nuclear weaponisation programme of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Government and had argued that India should have an independent nuclear policy.

India had always opposed the discriminatory policies of the nuclear haves and was committed to nuclear disarmament and making the world free of nuclear weapons with the Rajiv Gandhi plan being the last major initiative.

"The BJP-led Government had begun the journey of accepting junior partnership of the United States in return for a de facto recognition as a nuclear weapon state without acquiring a legitimate position in the nuclear club. The current agreement marks an end to India's nuclear disarmament policy," it said.

Fears about restrictions

The party said there were apprehensions that with the intangible promises made by the U.S., restrictions would be imposed hampering the pursuit of an independent nuclear technology policy for peaceful purposes. There were also questions whether research activities to overcome reliance on import of nuclear fuel would be curbed. It also said that the U.S. made no clear commitment about India's permanent membership in the Security Council.

Echoing similar views, the Communist Party of India's central secretariat said the U.S. had neither supported India's claim to UN Security Council membership nor recognised it as a nuclear weapons power but merely as a "state with advanced nuclear technology." It said the move to open its civilian facilities for inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and other aspects was a "unilateral reversal of India's earlier nuclear policy without any prior discussion in Parliament, the UPA or with the Left whereas the U.S. will have to seek agreement from its Congress."

`Pro-U.S. shift'

The CPI said it strongly believed that the joint statement was a continuation of the pro-U.S. shift in India's foreign policy that was initiated by the Vajpayee regime and was carried forward by the June 28 India-U.S. Defence Framework which the entire Left had severely criticised.