I quote your summing up line "The Indian Constitution which allows deals such as this, as well as international treaties and agreements to be reached without democratic consultation, needs an amendment to make public debate and referendums mandatory and pre-conditional. We need an approval from the Indian electorate before we agree to sign the agreement." Fine and a excellent suggestion, but are you prepared to make this suggestion a universal thing for all controversial issues in this country. If so are you prepared for a referendum on your activities in the states of gujarat, madhya pradesh, maharashtra and rajasthan, the states where the narmada flows and the states that are benefitted according to me, but according to you the places which has been hurt by the narmada project. Finally if you lose more than three referendrums, are you prepared to stop all your activities since that shows the people of this country do not support you. If not , my question is why not? Finally indian democracy is not matured enough to understand the issues at hand, it is more a ritual wherein the majority make a uninformed decision on the spur of the moment based on consideration of that moment rather than think of the past or the future. Given the present scenario it is not advisable to talk of referendrums.
