India-US deal on track

Both nations have obligations and long-term benefits that will accrue from the realisation of the nuclear deal; but the characterisation of the deal to domestic constituencies needs to be accurate., says C Uday Bhaskar

India-US relations are back in the news for a variety of reasons, the more visible being the visit of the nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz, to Chennai in early July. Exaggerated fears about radiation hazards have been expressed by some quarters in India as also a deep seated concern that this visit by the Nimitz is the thin end of the wedge as far as the India-US strategic partnership is concerned.

Earlier, in end-June, the CIA released a set of papers pertaining to the 1962 Sino-Indian war that drew attention to the Pandit Nehru-Zhou en Lai interaction in the run-up to the war and the manner in which the Chinese premier had outwitted and deceived his Indian counterpart. And, on June 28, in a speech to the US-India Business Council in Washington DC, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged India to abandon its non-aligned orientation and join the US as part of a concert of democracies. Predictably, the Indian government rejected the Rice exhortation and, as such, reiterated the abiding relevance of the non-aligned ideology.

However notwithstanding this sharp divergence of world views, a realpolitik assessment would suggest that the India-US bilateral relationship is becoming more robust, and this is reflected in the increasing political and economic content that provides the basic foundation to the post May 1998 phase in India-US ties. The strategic and security complementarity is still tenuous, and it is unlikely that this will receive any great fillip till the civilian nuclear agreement of July 2005 is successfully concluded.

The 123 agreement that marks the formal document between the two sides is in the final stages of negotiation and the gaps are yet to be closed. While the last round of talks in Delhi in June remained inconclusive, more recent statements are cause for cautious optimism. In her June 28 speech, Rice noted, “The key that unlocks so much of our potential is our partnership: the fact that as partners, democratic partners, we can do much that is good in the world. And one of the keys to our partnership is the US-India Civil Nuclear Initiative. I know that there are many in this room who have worked very hard with us to support the overwhelming, bipartisan passage of the Hyde Act—and I want to thank you for the role that you’ve played. This is a huge step forward. We’re not quite there yet. But with will and determination and more hard work to do, I am certain that we will reach final agreement and be in a position to complete this deal by the end of the year.”

Coming from the US secretary of state, the assurance that the deal would be finalised by yearend is an indicator that the political will first noted in July 2005 still exists at the highest levels within the Washington Beltway. To complement the US assertion, an equally definitive statement was made by the principal Indian interlocutor, S Jaishankar (currently Indian High Commissioner to Singapore who till recently was the Ministry of External Affairs official dealing with the Americas division), also in Washington DC. Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment Conference on Nuclear Non-Proliferation in end June, he unambiguously outlined the Indian position.

Of the historic July 2005 agreement, he noted, “The understanding focuses exclusively on civilian nuclear energy cooperation. On the Indian side, there is no expectation that the agreement would contribute to its weapons programme. We must be equally clear that this is not an arms control agreement. Suggestions have been made that US negotiators could have demanded tougher conditions, including a moratorium on fissile material production. In that situation, there would have been no agreement. Actually, for a number of years, US negotiators were doing precisely that—with a somewhat conspicuous lack of success. India’s strategic programme is clearly outside the purview of the Indo-US understanding. Any attempts to intrude into that domain or determine externally what India regards as its national prerogative would obviously undermine the basis of the agreement. The central elements of the understanding were publicly declared and provide the basis for implementing the understanding. But, extreme and one-sided interpretations of commitments cannot reasonably become a yardstick for judgement.”

This reiteration of the Indian view is both timely and significant and clears many cobwebs that have accreted on both sides in the last two years. July 2005 is indeed historic, and both President George W Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh displayed rare political courage in challenging the deeply held orthodoxy on the nuclear issue in both countries. The passage of the Hyde Act in end 2006 has enabled the US president to move ahead. It is important that the spirit and true intent of July 2005 not be sullied or misrepresented.

Both nations have obligations and long-term benefits that will accrue from the realisation of this ‘deal’, but the characterisation to domestic constituencies should be accurate. July 2005 is not about bringing India into the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a disadvantaged member through devious means, nor is it a blank cheque for India to enhance its strategic programme. Paradoxically, while this is not stated explicitly, bringing India into the global nuclear loop will strengthen the ability of the international community to address the proliferation challenges that lurk in the 21st century.

If this objective assessment remains the lodestar, India–US ties will grow in a mutually beneficial manner, even though India will still remain ‘un-aligned’. This should also assuage any unwarranted Chinese fears about India and its relations with the West, which go back to the 1950s, as the declassified CIA papers remind us. India has always marched to its own drummer and this will be an abiding feature of the elephant.