In My View

India proving dear for the USA

The USA cannot be blamed for the present stalemate on the nuclear issue in its negotiations with India. The way the erstwhile BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had unabashedly courted Washington after the Pokhran II blasts of 1998, in public and private, must have given the American policy mavens an idea that India could be bought cheap.

“Show them the superpower pedestal and throw in good measure some tough talk on mutual interest in eradicating Islamist terrorism, and India would come knocking on the doors of various beltway insiders seeking to join the party,” they must have calculated.

When the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government came into power, they must have laughed in private with all the homilies about following an “independent foreign policy” and aims of “multipolarity,” for they knew that line with the bait and the hook had been sunk and someone will bite. Didn’t they reel in the lot the earlier time around when the neo-liberal economic policies were introduced in a sub-continental sized country without even a reference to the Union Cabinet?

Then, as now, they had their clapper boys amongst the mainstream media who consider that this is a generation of Indians (especially the moderately English educated urban youth) are more rooted in “European Enlightenment!” This is a generation that was tired of ponderous diplomacy of India of the yore and incessantly searched for the “new,” after of course depositing all dissension towards their grand “Enlightened” design into the dustbin of history as ‘Cold War relics.’

So on 18 July, 2005, the US president, George W. Bush – with Dr Manmohan Singh in tow - pronounced the platitudes of presidential speech writers about shared dreams of the India and the USA, vocal sections of India dreamt of such things like a de facto “Nuclear Weapon State (NWS)” status and cutting edge nuclear technology collaborations. Again in 2 March, 2006, they expressed apoplectic joy at such convergence of US and Indian interest.

Excepting, there was no convergence. The country’s nuclear deal with the USA provides it the latitude to emerge on the nuclear mainstream in terms of smoother commerce and technology access, while the USA would like to lock down the nuclear barn door after putting inside it. The extrinsic and intrinsic nature of the two goals thus define the yawning difference of perception about the deal.

It is even more ironic that it took the USA negotiators almost seven years – if one accounts for the 12 round of negotiations that the former Union minister, Jaswant Singh held with then deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott – that when India talks of fundamental issues they are not a ‘negotiating tactic’ but national ‘realities.’ On Tuesday, a senior Indian official briefed the Hindu that Dr Singh had to tell the visiting Undersecretary of State, Nicholas Burns, that nuclear fuel ‘reprocessing rights’ and ‘supply guarantees’ are of fundamental nature and not nuances that can be finessed. Not surprisingly, the Bush administration would now end up with egg on its face for not informing the US Congress that India wanted the former. And that the deal was a little more than a slam dunk!

Perhaps, this is also the time when the Indian side would need to take a deep breath and go back being ponderous a little. What have been the gains till now of this exercise that has continued for so long?

(1) It has clearly exemplified to the world that India was an acceptable nuclear power. Even the US – the most monopolistic of nuclear powers - considers that the country’s nuclear advancement cannot be contained.

(2) India is also a responsible nuclear power in line with the current non-proliferation regimes that fall well short of the nuclear disarmament goals. As Raminder Singh Jassal, the country’s deputy chief of mission in Washington told an audience at arch conservative American think tank, the Heritage Foundation in end May, “India follows an NPT plus commitment.”

(3) The stalemate has also signalled to the world that India will not accept any deal even in this unipolar world that goes against the core of its national interest. The Chinese, especially, must have taken note of this fact. They have been pioneers of the approach.

(4) Finally, unlike what Arun Shourie and Jaswant Singh believed, most of India does not take mercantilist approach in its worldview of first joining the club and then shutting the doors behind it. For, India’s case could be a precedent in terms of setting a standard for international conduct, seeking fair play.

Considering that the Bush administration will become lame duck by the end of this year, these gains can be counted as tangible returns of the Indo-US nuclear dialogue. The two governments now have a solid foundation on which to build an equitable structure that does not seek to short circuit the global push for a democratic world system. Whether the the US policymakers are able to grasp the opportunity to redeem themselves, is a reality that world will intently watch.

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