NSG Waiver and Indo-US Nuclear Deal

Was it an Indian achievement? Has it catapulted India into the P-5 league? Will India become powerful and prosperous now? Will India be empowered to eradicate its chronic poverty after the NSG waiver and the Nuclear Deal with the USA? These issues need to be discussed dispassionately because these potentially epoch-making events are enveloped in a good deal of ambiguity and confusion in spite of prolonged debate and negotiations.

“For the first time”, says a senior official, “we have brought the international system to a point where it suits us. India has entered the nuclear mainstream.” The government has reasons to be effusive because, for the first time, India found the USA backing it to the hilt and President Bush personally cajoled all the lesser and smaller states like Austria, New Zealand, Ireland and Switzerland to make it a unani-mous vote for a very special consideration shown to India. Internationally, for all intents and purposes, it was a United State’s initiative, and not an Indian achievement. Is it also obvious, then, that the waiver achieves the US objective more than the Indian goals?

Domestically, the Indo-US deal kicked up a good deal of political dust and the usually modest, academic Prime Minister Manmohan Singh changed colours, emerging as a wheeling-dealing politician who used all kinds of tactics and temptations to win a vote of confidence on the Nuclear Deal issue, abandoning his Communist-led Left allies and embracing Mulayam-Amar Singh-led Samajwadi Party, till then a sworn enemy of Manmohan-Sonia-led Congress, the leading constituent of the UPA government. According to a journalist, “he has earned his place in history as the leader who wears two crowns—unshackling India at home through economic reforms and liberating it abroad from nuclear apartheid”, though he has lost the high moral ground that he occupied in these times of plummeting standards of public life.

No doubt, the NSG waiver and Indo-US civil nuclear agreement have brought India and the USA closer than ever and India is now on the thresh-hold of a new foreign policy paradigm. The era of Nehru and Indira Gandhi when India pursued an independent foreign policy in times of great risks, as in 1971 Bangladesh war or UK-France-Israel attack on Egypt, is about to end.

Yet, a deal is as good as one makes it. If Indian politicians and diplomats show grit and national commitment, the USA, a weakening superpower, facing economic confusion and overstretched in its militarist engagement in Asia, can also be made to bend favourably to Indian interests. Currently, however, the US interest in India is more political than commercial because the USA is not in the forefront of nuclear reactor technology and is not building nuclear power stations domestically, while India’s priority is to go on a buying spree and make good its energy deficit.

The above point, however, was underscored by the attitude of Democrat-dominated US Senate. The Senate was inclined to ‘‘get this done’’ only after ‘‘modifications’’. New Delhi’s announcements about self-imposed morato-rium on nuclear tests appeared to have had no impact on the US Senate. Senators, unwilling to wave aside the charges of non-proliferation hardliners, continued to remain stringent and skeptic about India’s being a non-signatory to NPT.

President Bush kept trying to convince the Senate on the questions of fuel guarantees written into the deal as merely a political commitment, though India believes them legally binding under international law. Who was correct? Bush’s chief negotiator, William Burns, beat about the bush [no pun intended] to keep Delhi calm but finally conceded that US has made no more than “political commitments” and the “Indians do understand that our actions will be guided by US law’’.

Burns said Congress should okay the deal at once since currently India had a political leadership that was agreeable to US Administration’s terms and immediate passage would offer a level playing field to US businesses, which would otherwise be disadvantaged if other countries took advantage of the NSG clearance and penetrate Indian market in advance.

While India maintains a sovereign right to test, US can call off the deal should India test without mitigating reasons, appears to be the basis of the deal.

Much will depend on how soon India begins to feel and act like a great political power and increase its negotiability internationally. The USA is clearly looking in India an ally who would demonstrate its power and capacity to stabilise Asia so that the USA is free to make its foray far afield into the sphere of Russian influence in Asia and keep a watch over overly ambitious China. The USA befriended China when both of them were anti-Russia but now China is perceived as a rival in Asia, if not in the rest of the world.

At present, India’s negotiability is limited to its big business offer to the USA. “The Indian government has provided the US with a strong Letter of Intent, stating its intention to purchase reactors with at least 10,000 MW worth of new power generation capacity from US firms. India has committed to devoting at least two sites to US firms”, said William Burns, US undersecretary for political affairs, and emphasized that “International competition will, inevitably, be intense and we want to avoid exposing US firms to any unnecessary delays”.

Burns also disclosed that India would stick to the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage. This is an internationally recognised convention and it is a prerequisite for the participation of foreign nuclear firms in India. This is an extraordinary concession to the US Nuclear Reactor firms who have failed to get a single order to build reactors within their own country. What it means is that if a Union Carbide-like Bhopal tragedy or Chernobyl-like nuclear plant explosive disaster occurs, it will be the Indian government and not the US reactor builder who will bear liability for loss of life and property resulting from the US builder’s fault or failure to take safety measures.

When terms are so easy, both Indian and foreign nuclear energy providers will make a bee-line to New Delhi in the hope of raking up the 100 billion dollar bonanza that the nuclear deal is dangling before the carpetbaggers.

Russia, as a dependable friend during the Soviet and cold war days, under Putin’s leadership, is nostalgic about the old glory as superpower. Recent action in Georgia has brought Russia face to face with the USA as claimant to influence over Asia. Economically, because of unlimited oil reserves and traditionally firm technological base and closer ties with China, Russia will not like India to become a source of strength to the USA in its initiatives in Asia. Russia is helping Iran build nuclear station; so is China helping Pakistan build plutonium reactors and more nuclear bombs. China is also encouraging North Korea to keep nagging USA on its nuclear deal. China is also constantly increasing its influence over Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma and its naval presence in the Indian Ocean. Australia openly prefers China to India and has refused to sell uranium to India, while it is selling it to Russia and China.

Are Indian diplomats capable of outwitting China without offending it? India’s diplomatic record in its immediate and larger neighbourhood is very poor. If Indian diplomats think that they can walk carefree holding Uncle Sam’s finger, they are mistaken. The USA never lends strength free of cost and is capable of twisting arm of its allies.

India’s new world environment as the sixth power is full of challenges and responsibilities: pulls from the neighbourhood, expectations on non-proliferation and Iran’s nuclear quest are just three amongst many others. Domestically, India faces debilitating institutional and political strains that impede its march.

Confusion still prevails and is likely to persist even after the deal has been signed, because the question whether India will be able to purchase nuclear technology from NSG countries on its own terms will remain unanswered.

The first concrete consequence of the NSG Waiver, however, is Indo-French civil nuclear deal signed in Paris during Indian PM’s visit on his way back from Washington.