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| Yes, but with riders | | India can’t afford to reject the final deal | |
As usual the professional pessimists who were forecasting that the Indo-US Nuclear Cooperation Bill would slip into the next Congress and the Democratic seizure of the control over the two Houses of Congress would make the passage of the bill more difficult have been proved woefully wrong.
The bill passed by an 85-12 majority demonstrates that 60 per cent of the Democrats voted for it. There were also predictions that the long interval after the passage of the bill in the House had enabled the nonproliferation ayatollahs to mobilise opposition to the bill. That perception also proved completely wrong. This bill is only the second major hurdle to be crossed. Next step is to have a joint bill agreed to in a conference between the House and the Senate.
India and the US have to negotiate and sign a specific bilateral agreement called 123 Agreement. The present enactment is of relevance to the US President and Administration. Only the provisions of the 123 Agreement will be binding on India. Therefore, care should be taken to ensure that there are no objectionable clauses in that agreement.
Simultaneously India has to negotiate India-specific safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. This safeguard agreement will not be the same as prescribed for non-weapon states. At the same time it is not reasonable to expect that it will be identical with the safeguards agreements applicable to nuclear weapon powers of the nonproliferation treaty. It will probably be very close to it.
India has also to lobby hard with a few nations who still have reservations about modifying Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines to enable India to have nuclear cooperation with all 45 NSG members.
The Indo-US nuclear cooperation agreement passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate is only an enabling provision. The US initiated the technology denial regime against India following India’s 1974 Pokhran I nuclear test. This was enacted in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act. Subsequently other technology denial regimes such as Australia group, Missile Technology Control regime and Wassenaar arrangement were linked to the basic technology denial in the nuclear nonproliferation legislation.
Initially, all US allies joined this technology denial regime network through respective administrative declarations. Subsequently after the end of the Cold War, many former Warsaw Pact countries, Russia and China, also joined this technology denial regime.
Therefore, this enactment has far more significance than as enabling legislation to permit Indo-US nuclear cooperation. In fact, this enactment gives a green signal to all other powers that are in this technology denial regime network that from now on India is no longer to be subjected to technology apartheid and they can now deal with India on high technology. This is the main benefit out of this enactment.
China, which has a number of admirers in this country for its so-called anti-imperialist stand, is the latest member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group established by the US. Therefore, India has no option but to deal with the US and remove the foundation stone of technology apartheid in the US Nuclear Nonproliferation legislation. If India had to pay special attention to its relationship with the US, it is because other industrialised countries — not only its European allies and Japan but even Russia and China — have accepted the US leadership in imposing technology apartheid on India.
While the US Ambassador assures us that all India’s concerns will be addressed when the House of Representatives and the Senate meet in a conference to evolve a consensus bill, there are possibilities that not all clauses considered objectionable by India may be removed from the joint draft. Out of the objectionable clauses there are two categories — one binding on the US Administration and another expressing the views and desired objectives of the two Houses but not binding on the US President.
Already, the White House has issued a statement informing Congress that foreign policy is an exclusive prerogative of the President in the US constitution and therefore the President was not bound by non-binding clauses. Yet in any bargain one side cannot expect hundred per cent satisfaction. Therefore, India has to be prepared for a few clauses not to its satisfaction appearing in the final enactment.
Do we reject the enactment on that ground and call off further negotiations with the US, IAEA and NSG? Some would advocate it. But that would be the worst blunder on the part of this country. The unacceptable clauses relate to direct nuclear cooperation between the US and India. When China negotiated a similar nuclear cooperation agreement with the US, it also found similar objectionable clauses in the agreement. Such clauses occur in the Australia-China uranium agreement too. The Chinese took them in their stride and went ahead with further negotiations.
After the nuclear technology denial for China was lifted through such agreement they got their reactors not from the US but from Canada, France and Russia. These countries do not have any legislation authorising technology denial to other countries — only administrative declarations as members of various groups, founded by the US.
In their dealings with other countries there are no objectionable clauses analogous to the ones the US Congress imposes. Therefore, going ahead with the US to removed international technology denial provisions is absolutely essential. India should follow the Chinese example and go ahead and complete the 123 Agreement, IAEA safeguards and NSG negotiations. Once having freed itself of technology apartheid it is up to its choice from which source it would get is reactors and nuclear technology.
An analogy is available in India launching its liberalisation process and joining the globalisation process. Though India was not satisfied with the World Trade agreement. India’s liberalisation was an intermediate step and has not hurt India’s interests. Those who advocate rejection of Indo-US deal are of the view that there are only two alternatives available. Either to accept the US deal with unacceptable clauses or to continue to be condemned to live under technology apartheid.
There is a third strategy available. To go along with the US till we get free of the technology denial regime and thereafter to interact with other industrial nations for access to high technology. It is quite possible under such circumstances that the US will be compelled to liberalise its stand further.
There are reports about China offering Pakistan large-scale civil nuclear cooperation. India should not find itself in a position that it foregoes high technology cooperation with industrialized nations because it finds some clauses in the US enabling legislation unacceptable and in the process enables Pakistan to overtake India in nuclear energy production.
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