Manmohan quotes Machiavelli during RS debate on nuke deal

New Delhi, Aug 17 (UNI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh -- facing harsh criticism not only from the combined Opposition but also supporters Left on the India-US nuclear deal -- took a chapter out of master strategician Machiavelli's noted work 'The Prince' to buttress his arguments in favour of the pact which has raised furore in Parliament on not less than four occasions in the past 13 months.

''It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, not more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things,'' pointed out Dr Singh who -- as initiator of economic liberalisation in India some 15 years ago as the country's Finance Minister in the P V Narasimha Rao regime -- is not new to such barbs as he was facing now.

''The reformer,'' the Prime Minister said -- while replying to a Short Duration Discussion on the issue in the Rajya Sabha and quoting further from 'The Prince' -- ''has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit from the new order...

''...This lukewarmness arising partly from the fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favour; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had the experience of it,'' said Dr Singh whose pathbreaking endeavours of the early 90s have by now entirely transformed the Indian economic scenario.

Quoting further from the famous Machiavellian work, the Prime Minister told the Opposition led by the Bharatiya Janata Party that: ''Thus it arises that on every opportunity for attacking the reformer, his opponents do so with the zeal of partisans, the others only defend him half-heartedly, so that between them he runs a great danger'' -- so aptly describing his own present position where he is seemingly caught in a cleft stick between the exigencies of managing a coalition regime which is supported from the outside by a critically vocal Left.

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