The Indo-US nuclear deal has exposed our worst kept post-colonial secret – there is dyarchy in New Delhi with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi calling the shots and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh executing her designs, even at the cost of national security and sovereignty. Never before has Ms. Gandhi’s foreign origin posed such an overt threat; she said the deal was close to her heart without revealing why; delivered her overarching seal of approval at the Congress Parliamentary Party meet a day after Dr. Singh’s address to Parliament; and skipped the public arena once Washington unveiled the emasculating nature of the deal, leaving the government to cope with the political fallout.
What is most disturbing, however, is the manner in which domestic anxiety has degenerated into a government-opposition squabble. UPA’s denial of the US State Department’s claim that the deal stands “terminated” if India conducts a nuclear test is unconvincing. Instead of using this to scrap or rework the deal, which explicitly provides for “return of all materials, including reprocessed material covered by the agreement,” the UPA has opted to lie to its own people.
It is sadly evident that Ms. Gandhi is manipulating the UPA to subordinate India to the US-dominated world order. The nuclear deal strips India of nuclear autonomy and makes her a pawn in Washington’s contests with China and Iran. It targets India’s right to procure enriched uranium; reprocess fuel in fast-breeder reactors; and eventually switch to thorium as fissile material. The first two stages of our nuclear cycle are visibly under attack; informed sources say Ram Setu is intended to destroy our thorium sources.
Scientists like former President APJ Abdul Kalam believe thorium is the route to energy independence; our known reserves can generate 400,000 MW electricity annually for the next four centuries. India alone has the technological expertise for thorium-based reactors and a 300 MW reactor is under regulatory clearance. If launched in the Eleventh Plan, it may be ready within seven years. Thorium produces up to 10,000 times less long-lived radioactive waste than uranium or plutonium, sharply reducing radiation hazards. Where is the need for India to grovel before the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group for purchasing uranium?
A less known fact is that over a thousand Americans will enter India under the deal, and enjoy access to sensitive information regarding the quantum of our thorium and other natural resources. Hence it would be appropriate for Parliament to ask if there is any other unwritten component in the treaty. Indeed, barring Congress which negotiated the sellout, all political parties should unequivocally declare that future regimes will not be bound to secret clauses inked by regimes that cannot face their own people.
The Left’s anger cannot be trusted completely given its extreme reluctance to divorce the UPA, and Speaker Somnath Chatterjee’s refusal to allow discussion under Rule 184 which entails voting. It is heartening that the BJP has woken up to the seriousness of the threat to national sovereignty and decided to move a no-confidence motion against the government. While NDA and UNPA are obvious allies in this enterprise, minority-sensitive UPA allies like the Bahujan Samaj Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, DMK and even the Left will have no choice but to take an unambiguous stand on the issue.
Early national elections are now looming; the BJP must atone for previous sins and declare foreign-born naturalized citizens unfit for constitutional office. The BJP should also explain why its top leaders initially approved the deal after meeting the Prime Minister; Mr. Yashwant Sinha’s subsequent denunciation suggests internal revolt at this unilateralism. Worse, the leadership tried to help the UPA by giving an inadmissible notice about Parliament ratifying the deal, and seeking discussion under Rule 184 (rejected by the Speaker) only after in-house wrangling.
Former Atomic Energy Research Board chief A. Gopalakrishnan avers that Section 106 of the Hyde Act enjoins US to end nuclear cooperation if India conducts a nuclear test; Section 104(a)(3)(B) denies the President power to waive Section 129 of the US Atomic Energy Act which envisages similar termination. Hence, on testing, India has to return all materials including reprocessed material covered by the agreement. Dr Gopalakrishnan stresses that both the 123 agreement and the Hyde Act deny India assured nuclear fuel if Washington terminates or suspends the deal, which is known to negotiators in the PMO and Foreign Ministry. Australia’s linking uranium sales to India’s legal commitment to abandon nuclear testing validates this view.
Thus, if a nationalist government needs further tests, all reactors, materials, fuel stockpiles, reprocessed fuel, spares and technology will have to be returned to America (possibly without a refund!). In monetary terms, a direct investment of Rs. 250,000 crores in imported power reactors and Rs 800,000 crores in downstream industries relying on this power will go down the drain. No government could withstand such an economic shock.
It is pertinent that we could be blackmailed even for refusal to obey US diktat in areas impinging on our sovereignty and national dignity, which is why Iran’s nuclear programme has been smuggled into the deal. Former BARC director A.N. Prasad thinks the 123 agreement was a bogey to ‘fix’ the language of the deal. The controversial issue of testing was not directly mentioned, and the Indian government hid the fact that such areas of silence are governed by the Hyde and US Atomic Energy Acts.
The Hyde Act enjoins the US President to determine that India has provided America and the International Atomic Energy Agency with a credible plan to separate civil and military nuclear facilities, and that India and the IAEA have completed all legal steps required prior to signature of an agreement requiring application of IAEA safeguards in perpetuity. The US President has to report to Congress about India’s adherence to a strict non-proliferation regime; copies of the separation plan and agreements with IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers Group; and specific measures taken by India to actively participate in US and international efforts to dissuade, isolate and if necessary sanction and contain Iran.
Shamefully, UPA was willing to enter a treaty against a friendly sovereign country. I shudder to think if Ms. Gandhi would also insist on providingAmericamilitary bases to enforce ‘regime change’ in Teheran. The UPA has outlived its welcome; it must go.
The Pioneer, 21 August 2007