FROM THE TELEGRAPH OF 8 AUGUST 2006
Making heavy
weather
After a year and
a half of courtship, President George W Bush came to Delhi and signed an
agreement with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 1 March. Under it, India
promised to divide its nuclear reactors into civil and military ones and to put
the former under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA). It promised not to carry out nuclear tests, and to abide by all the
restrictions applicable under the Missile Technology Control regime and
controls on proliferation of nuclear technology that the five nuclear powers have
agreed to apply to themselves. In return, the US undertook to supply nuclear
fuel to the Tarapur power plant, to cooperate with India on civil nuclear
technology, and to persuade other nuclear powers to change the international
control regimes and accommodate India. While they were at it, the two leaders
also agreed to initiate or enhance cooperation in ten other areas such as rural
education, AIDS and prevention of terrorism.
The Nuclear
Non-proliferation Treaty requires its signatories to place all their reactors
under IAEA’s surveillance, and in effect, not to use any of the spent fuel for
making nuclear bombs. The basic concession India got under the Indo-US
agreement is that India can keep some reactors outside the IAEA discipline. It
can keep the bombs it has made; whether it can make any more is left
unspecified, but it cannot explode any more.
The two bills in
Congress enshrining the agreement contain some additional restrictions which
have caused concern in India. But the passage of legislation broadly embodying
the agreement is pretty certain, and so therefore is US commitment. The Indian
constitution does not require inter-state agreements to be approved by
Parliament. So the agreement is more or less in place. But it is at the centre
of a political hurricane; the Indian government has been under vicious attacks
from political enemies, partners and in the media.
All parties in
this debate behave as if Manmohan Singh is the sole initiator or perpetrator of
this agreement. It suits the opposition to have a real and present culprit. And
the government, which considers the agreement to be a great achievement, is
happy to take all the blame. But the truth is that Manmohan Singh has only
concluded a process that was started by the previous government.
This agreement
has been in the making for seven years. Soon after India’s nuclear ceremony in
1998, Jaswant Singh began his serial conversations with Nelson Strobridge
Talbott III – known to all as Strobe Talbott – and tried to persuade him that
the Indian bombs were a reality and that the US should adjust itself to it. This
argument did not carry weight with the Clinton regime. But even before he was
elected, George Bush had identified a potential ally in India. Once he became
President, Jaswant Singh’s efforts bore fruit. The first was the Joint
Statement of Bush and Vajpayee in November 2001. After two years of
negotiation, it led to the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP) agreed in
January 2004. They included cooperation in civilian nuclear energy, civilian
space programmes and missile defence; what India promised in return was that it
would institute effective export controls on nuclear material and technology, and
that it would not use technology it was to get from the US to advance its
nuclear weapons programme. NSSP foreshadowed the Bush-Manmohan Singh agreement
of March this year.
Jaswant Singh
and Atal Bihari Vajpayee could beat their chests today and take credit for this
agreement. But the current BJP party line is mindless opposition, so these
otherwise sane leaders have to disown their own achievements and attack
Manmohan Singh for following in their footsteps. The DNA government could not get
NSSP translated into concrete changes in US law and policy. For one thing,
Vajpayee unwisely brought in Yashwant Sinha as foreign minister; the momentum
in Indo-US relations was lost as a result. For another, persuading US
legislators was a different game from negotiations with the administration.
Emollient, Anglophone Manmohan Singh has played it better; the March agreement
is on the way to being embodied in legislation by US Congress.
Of course, it
cannot be proved that the March agreement is one that the BJP potentates would
have signed. And no one but a government flunkey would argue that it is the
best that could be achieved. The merits of the agreement can be discussed
endlessly, for no agreement can be proved to be both ideal and feasible. It is
the result of a bargain between two countries – it is bound to be a compromise
that serves the interests of neither completely.
And for that
reason, I do not think it is clever of the government to engage with the
opposition on the merits of the agreement. The agreement does place constraints
on the government’s future freedom of manoeuvre. There is no way to counter an
opponent who asserts, however intemperately, that the government has sold out
the interests of the country.
The Prime
Minister has not been voluble or vehement in its defence; sometimes he has even
sounded as if he was part of the opposition. Maybe he senses that the
government cannot win the argument on points. But a Prime Minister cannot sign
such an important agreement and then distance himself from it. He has not only
to defend it, but he has also to find the most favourable vantage point from
which to do so.
A nuclear
reconciliation agreement is an advance, but not one worth laying down one’s life
for. It takes on significance only as part of a broader vision. However imperfect,
however unclear, such a vision was embodied in NSSP. It was spelt out in even
bigger letters when George Bush told the PM that the US would help India become
a major world power in the twenty-first century. What did he mean? What would
the US do for India? Manmohan Singh should have striven to put content into
that promise, and used it to persuade his countrymen to accept a radical change
in foreign policy.
Admittedly, a
man of caution would think twice before shouting India-Amrika bhai bhai. First,
the US unseated Saddam Hussein, a friend of India, and occupied Iraq. Now it is
backing the mass killings and destruction Israel has unleashed upon Lebanon.
But as Manmohan Singh must know from long experience, a Prime Minister must
take decisions on balance of considerations; he cannot afford to have sensitive
morals. If he thinks an alliance with the US is in national interest, he must
embrace it with all its consequences; and he must defend and glorify it with
all the eloquence at his command.
A Prime Minister
does not always have a strong grip on the government. But he has unlimited
access to public eyes and ears; what he says can have far-reaching influence if
he knows how to spin words, weave stories and carry people with him. In a
sense, words are all he has; and coming from him, words could change the world.
And changing the world is the business leaders are in; there are any number of
mediocrities around to run it.
