In My View - Thursday-Wednesday

Nuclear Non Sequitor

In the days ahead, India would decide whether to go ahead with the final 123 Agreement as enabled by the United States-India Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Act (Hyde Act) mostly on the basis whether its scientific community considers removal of technological restrictions on the country will open new vistas for them. For the Hyde Act, as enacted, has far more intrusive provisions than could pass the muster of the normally cloistered Indian nuclear science establishment.

Many of the provisions of the Act would even find it hard to pass the expansive litmus test of Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh’s “national interest.” Some may find it ironic that he needed to especially call the Atomic Energy Commission Chairman and the country’s nuclear czar, Dr Anil Kakodkar, and reassure that he would not be left out of the loop when the final piece fell in place.

Consider what the Minister for External Affairs, Pranab Mukherjee, said in Parliament about the situation after enactment of the Act, “Keeping that in mind, the enactment of waivers from certain provisions of the US Atomic Energy Act, which allows the United States to cooperate with India in civilian nuclear energy despite our not accepting full scope safeguards and despite maintaining a strategic programme, is significant.”

Of note, is added emphasis of his on the bipartisan support the Indo-US deal has been able to garner in Washington. Indian negotiators would know the huge hurdles the American nuclear non proliferation ayatollahs can put up to keep the world free of nuclear weapons excepting that of the United States of America. Some of them like George Perkovich showed their hand when North Korea supposedly exploded a nuclear device.

Without pointing at the gross violation of the spirit of the Non proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT) in the way the N-5 (five Nuclear Weapon states as mandated by the NPT) flouted Art VI and continued unabated with their nuclear weapons programmes. Instead, Perkovich and Co did not focus at this major failure of the global regime but advocated tightening of measures by which the divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ can be deepened. Same restrictive regime being prescribed would have been applicable had India not decided to expand its nuclear energy programme by virtue of internationally accessed nuclear reactor technology.

But even after ignoring that India is effectively signing on to this same globally unequal treaty by acceding to the US bilateral nuclear regimen – after turning on its head its legacy of independent positions on nuclear issues – the Indian scientific chiefs could look at the Act as a panacea for their years of seclusion as they practiced ‘self reliance.’ In these times of globalisation, where India is prone to celebrate low technology commercial successes with years of neglect of Indian science education at the basic level coming home to roost, the paltry scientific talent, unable to cope with the challenge posed by the restrictive regimes are falling to lures away from the challenges.

Apparently, the enabling Act for the 123 Agreement creates roadblocks even for an independent nuclear research. Because it seeks to deny equipment and technology for Uranium enrichment; reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel; and production of heavy water. This would not create an environment of open access as the Indian scientific community so dearly desire. India, in their turn, cannot even try to wrangle deals out of the other members of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group as the USA, the primary promoter of the India specific exceptions, would be barred from encouraging them to consider export of such equipment.

Sec 107 of the Act directs the president of the USA to implement end-use monitoring programme “to supplement the IAEA safeguards regime to ensure that U.S. exports of nuclear materials and technology to India are dedicated only to India’s civilian program. The program would be directed at ensuring that the identified recipients of the nuclear technology are authorised to receive it, and that it is only used for peaceful, safeguarded nuclear activities. It would also ensure that the assurances and conditions attached to the licenses for export of such materials to India are being complied with. This will provide confidence that U.S. actions under this cooperation agreement will be in compliance with NPT Article I, which requires the United States not to assist in any way any non-nuclear weapon State to manufacture nuclear weapons.”

The above provision explodes a few myths the Indo-US proponents had been propagating since its birth in 2005: that there would be no intrusive inspections – bilateral or multilateral - of the Indian nuclear programme aimed at restricting its scope; it also clearly states through the provisions that the USA has no intention of considering an unofficial ‘nuclear weapon state.’ A logic that this kind of a provision exists in the realm of a US-China nuclear co-operation is facetious as the latter is a nuclear weapon state.

In this light, the normally cloistered nuclear science and space scientific community needs to de a public cost-benefit analyses for the Indian public to accept this deal.

Pinaki Bhattacharya is a Special Correspondent with the Mathrubhumi (Kerala). He writes on Strategic Security issues. He can be contacted at pinaki63@dataone.in