India-US N-deal: positive augury

The nuclear deal, which is likely to be affirmed by the full US House of Representatives and the Senate, is the visible catalyst that will acknowledge and admit India into the global comity, says C Uday Bhaskar

The recent pattern of voting in the relevant committees of the two wings of the US legislature—the House of Representatives and the Senate—on the bill approving civilian nuclear cooperation between the US and India augurs very positively for the fruition of the landmark July 18, 2005, Bush-Manmohan Singh agreement. The House International Relations Committee (HIRC) voted in favour of the proposed amendments to existing US law by 37 to 5, while the Senate Committee gave it a ringing endorsement of 16 versus 2.

The next step will be for the full House and Senate to vote on the reconciled bill, and, on current evidence, it would be reasonable to expect a similar endorsement from the entire spectrum of the US Congress. This will enable the US president to proceed on the other multiple tracks that include negotiations with the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group and consult with the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding the technical agreements that India will be entering into. In short, the agreements arrived at between India and the US will be underway—making slow but definitive progress.
The overwhelming support accorded to the spirit of the Bush-Singh agreements belies the many anxieties and concerns expressed over the last year, in both democratic countries about the perceived hurdles and pitfalls. In the US, the concern was about the purported damage this bill will cause to the global nuclear non-proliferation regime, symbolised by the NPT, of which India is not a signatory, and that such a radical Bush initiative tantamounts to the legitimisation of India's post-1998 nuclear weapons status. This was expressed most vociferously by non-proliferation zealots and former Clinton administration officials. In India, the anxiety was about fetters being placed on the domestic nuclear programme and a deeper inchoate fear about Delhi's autonomy in foreign policy being mortgaged.

In many ways, the fears on both sides are exaggerated and the numbers tally indicates that while the US legislature, as a whole, might have some institutional concerns about its own authority being trampled by the White House, when push comes to shove, there are no two views about the need for better and deeper relations between the US and India. The Bush-Singh agreements have been evolved painstakingly through consensus by officials on both sides to nurture and advance their respective national interests. That is the bottomline, and this was reflected most succinctly by the legislation's prime sponsor in the Senate Committee, Republican Senator chairperson Richard Lugar of Indiana who observed that the agreement with nuclear-armed India "is the most important strategic diplomatic initiative undertaken by President George W Bush”.
While the nuclear deal has received high octane attention in the US, India and globally, it merits repetition that the US-India agreement has a much wider scope and the nuclear aspect is the critical but symbolic part. The underpinning of this radical re-casting of the till recently troubled and estranged relationship between the world's oldest and largest democracies is more sweeping. It is being driven by the emerging contours of globalisation, and the very nature of the strategic DNA of the international systemic.
The conceptual framework of the new international strategic systemic is a balance of power status quo among the six major powers, with appropriate accommodation of competing interests and heightened national sensitivities on specific issues. The US, EU and China represent the three major nodes as of now; Russia, Japan and India, at a different level, complete the dynamic hexagon. Their challenge will be to sustain domestic growth in the backdrop of globalisation even while dealing with the security concerns that would have been earlier deemed low exigency—the failing state, terrorism, religious radicalism, global warming, pandemics et al.

The improved texture of the US-India relationship will enable their people to position themselves in the most enabling manner, and the nuclear deal is, in many ways, the visible catalyst that will acknowledge and admit India into the global comity.