ROUND THE WORLD

New Delhi, 4 April 2006

 Hop, Step & Jump

 Indo-US Nuclear agreement

By Dr. Chintamani Mahapatra

School of International Studies, JNU

The Indo-US nuclear deal is making global spotlight. Even as the Bush Administration and the Manmohan Singh Government are together braving emerging hurdles first to get it approved by the US Congress and then by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the obstacles are popping up one after another.

The jubilation with which the deal was first announced in July last, the smoothness with which President Bush managed to finalize an agreement in March this year and the optimism with which the Indian and American officials viewed it, created an impression that the deal was done as soon as it was conceived.

But the domestic opposition to the deal in India and the United States has made it imperative that the two Governments need to be sportive and hop, step and jump successfully before they would be able to implement civilian nuclear cooperation between the two countries.

The arguments paraded by Indian and American antagonists before President George Bush’s visit to India have taken a newer colour now. The earlier objections to Indo-US civilian nuclear cooperation did not cut much ice with either Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or President George Bush. And the March agreement went through. In fact, after the announcement of the agreement, several opponents switched sides and hailed it as a great achievement, because some of the sticking points were cleared by the last minute intervention of President Bush.

The current protestations in India and the US are made to influence the debate in the US Congress, which needs to amend the 1954 Atomic Energy Act to enable the White House to implement the agreement. The Indian and the US officials are slightly jittery about it since any major modification in the proposed piece of legislation may require re-negotiations and that, in turn, may scuttle or indefinitely delay the whole exercise.

On the Indian side, the major concern is based on an interpretation that the US is indirectly pressurizing India to sign the  Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). On the surface, it is clear that the Bush Administration would be the last to push a treaty, which it itself opposes. The CTBT was President Bill Clinton’s political baby, which was unacceptable to the US Senate. Will the Congressmen and Senators ask India to sign the CTBT? How can the Senators press India to sign a treaty rejected by the Senate?

However, some US legislators may call for putting conditions on indefinitely banning Indian nuclear tests into the nuclear agreement. It is worth recalling that 1998 Indian tests were cited as one of the causes for rejecting CTBT by some Senators. But such proposals would be first resisted by the Bush Administration, since the US nuclear tests are considered necessary now for developing new nuclear weapons.

Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran has said in Washington during his recent visit that India has voluntarily declared a moratorium and it understands that the US law would not permit nuclear cooperation with a country that would conduct a nuclear test. If this statement was correctly reported by the media, it would mean that India would not be averse to such a conditionality. Probably a better response would have been to suggest that India would support a new CTBT that would be non-discriminatory and would be truly comprehensive to include test through computer simulation as well.

In the United States, the critics are pressing for putting conditions on India to indefinitely abjure further nuclear tests and stop production of fissile materials. Former President Jimmy Carter has joined ranks with the opponents of the Indo-US nuclear deal. He has argued that the deal without incorporating conditions on halting fissile material production would send wrong messages to countries like Japan, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, and other potential nuclear weapon powers. He has pointed out that all the Big Nuclear Five have voluntarily stopped producing nuclear fissile material.

President Carter’s argument is serious flawed. First of all, neither of the countries mentioned above is likely to base its response on the Indian nuclear policy. If the action-reaction argument were correct, Japan would, for instance, have gone nuclear soon after China went nuclear. With the solitary exception of Pakistan, no other country tested its nuclear capability by exploding nuclear devices after India tested in 1998.

Carter mentions about halting fissile material by the nuclear Big Five. But it has been the result of voluntary steps rather than the outcome of an international agreement. Had there been a verifiable, non-discriminatory Fissile material Cut-off Treaty, India surely would have joined the effort as a signatory. As part of the current nuclear agreement with the US, India does pledge to support such an effort.

All these concerns and arguments about the CTBT, NPT and FMCT are actually flawed and unsound. Those would have been valid, if the Indo-US nuclear agreement would have aimed at promoting proliferation in India. The deal is not about nuclear weapons, but about energy cooperation. In any case, as the US officials have repeatedly maintained, it would enhance the cause of non-proliferation by bringing above 65 percent of Indian nuclear reactors under international safeguards.

In addition, this is a step to adjust the non-proliferation regimes with certain de facto developments, which cannot be rolled back. That India is a nuclear weapon power is a fact of life. That India is a responsible, democratic nuclear weapon power is also a widely accepted reality. How to rope in such a new nuclear weapon power to jointly promote the cause of WMD proliferation is a contemporary necessity that has attracted the attention of the Bush Administration.

Those American experts and analysts who are comparing the cases of Iran, North Korea, Pakistan with India are doing a disservice to the cause of nuclear non-proliferation and obstructing improvement in Indo-US relations. India is not theocratic country like Iran. It is not a Communist totalitarian country like North Korea. Nor is it a military dictatorship like Pakistan.

India is unique and different. In any case, the present nuclear deal with the US is in no way going to enhance Indian nuclear weapon capability. To the contrary, it may restrict and restrain Indian weapon programme. The truth lies somewhere in between fears among some Indians of losing sovereignty and apprehension in certain American quarters of giving a “free” hand to India on the nuclear question. Clearly, Bush and Singh have to hop, step and jump to overcome the hurdles. ---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)