Politics is nothing without power play. The display of Prime Ministerial authority by Mr. Singh has transformed many of his foes into admirers. The people of India do not want their Prime Minister to be someone who can be dictated to or bullied. They want their Prime Minister to lead, to give to the nation a direction. By deciding to stand firm on the Indo-US nuclear deal, despite threats from the Left, the Prime Minister made it clear that he would not compromise on an issue that he thought was vital to India’s development. He did not allow any kind of ideological bombardment or petty electoral calculation to dislodge him from what he thought was good for India. The cloud of political uncertainty that had enveloped New Delhi when Mr. Singh had left for Japan did not stop world leaders from talking to him as the leader of India.

Today politics appears like a scurrilous page three, with Amar Singh sounding the dominant notes. A man known more for his association with film stars suddenly seems to be determining the fate of a country. There is something unreal about the scripts all around. The Left, including Raja, Bardhan, Brinda and Prakash Karat sound like cassette tapes. They repeat a rhetoric that seems alien and defeated. The Right seems equally flummoxed. Standing in between, giving support to the Congress, are some of the seediest characters on stage. There is realism about the haggle that only politicians relish. There is also a hypocrisy that we need to understand.

Something about the performance leaves one incredulous. What was opera now looks like a farce, but it is a farce which works, Manmohan Singh waxes idealistic, but the sudden presence of Amar Singh makes one wonder if two different scripts have got mixed up. What is even more perplexing is that those who were key factors have been suddenly displaced and transformed into impotent critics. The Left faces an impotence which it cannot grasp. It failed to understand that the business of business is business. The wisdom of Karat understands property as theft. It failed to grasp till too late that possession is nine points of the law.

The gossip of power overwhelms the logic of nuclear energy. Electoral logic has the same power as a magic formula which makes the Manmohan detergent feel whiter. Nuclear power seems a serious as a VLCC advertisement. Amar Singh goes on TV to spout nothings which make defence experts seem redundant. The ordinariness of the risk of atomic power seems eerie. This is absurd drama at its best. One must give it to the Left that they at least tried to be serious. What we are facing is a moment of innovation is institutional politics. The nuclear deal is too important an issue to be left solely to scientists or politicians. Nuclear power demands timelines and visions of a different order. Is it not lime that NGOs, gender groups and human rights activists ask that the nuclear issue be part of a referendum because it not only determines the fate of a party but the future of a society.