In My View

1…2…3: Reading Tea Leaves

India concluded the peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States after a short, tough, and sweet interregnum of negotiations. The two countries finally found the text that could embody the commonalities of interests, while finessing the areas of contradictions between two positions in a highly nuanced document. As has been speculated in both countries, this would form the bedrock of future US-India relations in the times to come, as has been stated by the US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, who is not normally known for diplomatic prescience.

The text of the agreement was released last week, presumably after a cooling off period when the key political segments of the two countries were appraised of the deal. And the unrecorded sub text of the agreement appears more important than the language of pious cooperation that has been agreed between the two governments.

The three tasks the two countries had were onerous, fulfillment of which could not have been completely devoid of diplomatic theatre. They were (a) to resolve the issue of whether India was a nuclear weapon state within the purview of the Treaty of Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), thus exempting New Delhi from all kinds of punitive restrictions under US law, and by extension the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG); (b) to untie export of enrichment and reprocessing technology from the restrictions imposed upon it by the Hyde Act; and (c) unentangling the issue of cessation of nuclear cooperation and return of exported nuclear material to the USA, as sought by the Hyde Act, in the event of India exploding a nuclear device.

The first of those were resolved by shifting the emphasis on India’s nuclear status to a fulfillment of the provision of peaceful nuclear energy cooperation under the Art IV of the NPT. But considering that the country was not a signatory of the NPT, the burden of monitoring the Indian nuclear programme was thus shifted away from the multilateral nuclear regime, to the provisions of American laws like the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act and the Atomic Energy Act.

This is more so because India is the primary recipient of this agreement and does not have either the commensurate laws to regulate US nuclear activity nor the power to enforce such regulations. India’s status as a non-nuclear weapon state, now established by the new Indo-US deal makes the country particularly vulnerable to manipulations through interplay of American laws.

Hence, the agreement fulfills elements of the most important strategic consideration of Washington – that of creating the architecture of an alternative nuclear regime, which stretches beyond the current material and technology denial sub structure that the NPT upholds.

Problem of the West with the NPT and other attendant regulations has been their enforceability as they had been far too multilateral for its comfort. By creating an indicative parallel structure with an important hold-out country like India, Washington could now be the unilateral commissar of a nuclear realm, with New Delhi as its first entrant.

In case of nuclear fuel cycle-related transfers of technology and material, the agreement has effectively postponed taking a decision, seeking to add an amendment to the agreement at a later date. In case of dual use items it has upheld the paramountcy of national laws. Presumably, application of those laws would be guided by the precepts of the cooperation agreement. Similarly, by defining the parametres of the fuel cycle activity, the US is seeking to lay the foundations of an eventual, internationally mandated ceiling on fuel cycle-related activities.

Within the ambit of the agreement, India has sought to maintain that all monitoring mechanisms are governed by the multilateral, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). But New Delhi has significantly lost ground on Art 10 of the agreement by which it has had to accept that “if the IAEA decides that the application of IAEA safeguards is no longer possible, the supplier and recipient should consult and agree on appropriate verification measures,” as held in sub section 4 of the article.

The upshot of the agreement will be an increased engagement of India in the nuclear arena, thus setting the stage for a certain world order which addresses issues of global concern, as defined by the dominant forces of world politics, in a predetermined way. Nuclear politics may not be as divisive and sectarian as the confrontation with Islamist radicalism, but it still remains a tool of maintaining hegemonies and assertive policies.

This agreement that India has struck with the USA does not ameliorate any concerns that stem from internationalist interests of maintaining equity. At this stage some might argue that a bilateral agreement do not necessarily address such agenda as it caters to mutual interests of the two parties. This argument is patently wrong in this case as the nuclear cooperation agreement India has signed holds much wider ramifications. If the Indian elite thinks that they have stolen a march in the nuclear arena by signing this agreement, they should sober down their triumphalism with the attendant realisation that they have conceded far too much of ground on aspects of global power, to really begin the celebrations just yet.

Pinaki Bhattacharya, currently located in Kolkata, is a Special Correspondent with the Mathrubhum, Kerala. He writes on Strategic Security issues. He can be contacted at pinaki63@dataone.in. He is presently in Hawai’i, the USA at the East West Centre as a Student Fellow of the Asia Pacific Leadership Programme at the Centre.