Click to play videoIn the early hours of Friday, the US Senate overwhelmingly endorsed the US-India civilian nuclear co-operation agreement plan allowing the United States to sell civilian nuclear fuel and technology to India.
The Bill was passed in the Senate by a thumping majority and the bipartisan support it received in the Senate has come as a shot in the arm for both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has stood firm on his commitment to see the deal through, as well as US President George W Bush, who had been on weak footing ever since Democrats took control of the US Congress in the recent mid-term elections.
Welcoming the Senate vote, Indian leaders, however, add a word of caution that New Delhi will not accept anything outside the purview of what was originally agreed to in the July agreement between Bush and Singh.
So, has India entered the nuclear mainstream?
This was the question addressed by an elite panel on CNN-IBN's Prime Time show Face The Nation. CNN-IBN’s Sagarika Ghose moderated the discussion, which had the participation of former scientific advisor to the defence minister and Chairman C-Step, Professor V S Arunachalam, former foreign secretary Shashank, CPI-M leader Nilotpal Basu and Acting Director, South Asia Studies Programme, John's Hopkins University Washington DC Studio, Walter Anderson.
Sagarika Ghose: The US Senate has approved the Bush administration's nuclear agreement with India with a thumping majority. It rejected all amendments, which India would have opposed. Has America effectively by this deal ended nuclear apartheid and accepted India as a responsible nuclear weapon state?
Walter Anderson: The objective of the Bush administration is reflected in the two summits between the President and the Prime Minister indicating that the US wanted to move in that direction. The Bill, which was passed by the Senate overwhelmingly on Friday is a reflection of the effort to have a normal relationship with India regarding nuclear issues. However, the deal is specifically limited to civilian nuclear reactors. I think it’s important to make that distinction.
Sagarika Ghose: There is an apprehension here in India that what is being sold as increasing nuclear energy supplies in India is actually being publicised as containment of nuclear proliferation in the US. So, is there a doublespeak within this deal?
Walter Anderson: I don’t think so. The US in this deal will supply India with nuclear reactors, nuclear fuel and India in turn will place its nuclear reactors under IAEA safeguards, which in my view is an advancement of the an Non-Proliferation clause. And I think the feeling in India that this is overly intrusive is not accurate. I think the issues that most concern India are the annual reviews that are built into the legislation now. That’s a normal part of Congressional legislation and it’s really not unique, unusual and not an intrusive matter.
Sagarika Ghose: So, the three factors that Indians are worried about is: end use verification, the annual verification and the denial of certain technologies like Uranium enrichment and Plutonium re-processing remain significant concerns or not?
Walter Anderson: Well, those are concerns and they haven’t been worked out. Some of those issues were amendments that were added to the legislation. This has to be worked out in the Conference Committee. It is a complicated process. The Conference Committee, which will reconcile the two versions of the Bill, one in the House of Representatives and the House of Senate will probably meet either at the end of this weekend or early December.
My guess is that they will work out and those issues will come up. The administration clearly does not want language in the legislation, which would find significant opposition.
On Friday there were some major amendments that would qualify for the term, killer amendments. And all of those amendments that would have undermined the deal went down to a very significant defeat. The major one was India stopping fissile fuel production as a condition for receiving any nuclear assistance form United States and that was defeated.
Sagarika Ghose: Nilotpal Basu, as Mr Anderson mentioned, the killer amendments, the military co-operation with Iran, Security Council condemnation of India’s ’98 tests, the Bill for certification of India, have been defeated. What are your concerns about the Bill?
Nilotpal Basu: All those nine points on which the Honourable Prime Minister, representing the collective will of the people of India, gave solemn assurance that if these nine concerns are not addressed in the final form in which the bill will be passed by the American law making process, then the deal will not be through. The nine version are there in both the versions of the Congress and the Senate. Now, we have to see whether in the reconciliation process, when the President exercises his executive powers, whether those will be removed.
Sagarika Ghose: Mr Shankar, Manmohan Singh has staked his personal reputation on this deal. Is this a personal triumph for him? Has he carried the deal through like a true economist that he is?
Shashank: There is no doubt that he has brought about a sea change in the relationship between the US and India. However, it would be too much to say that he has succeeded completely. This is because the process of the Congress is still going on and this is the most crucial period where the two governments will have to satisfy the Congressional leaders, that not only should they reconcile but should also bring the final reconciliation of the Congress in line with the Indo-US agreement.
Sagarika Ghose: It has a psychological effect to it. Isn’t it? It signals India’s arrival in the Capitol Hill.
Shashank: Well that is true because it is for the first time India related issues have been given so much importance in the Congress. The Vietnam related resolution wasn’t approved by the House.
Sagarika Ghose: Mr Arunachalam, do you agree with the American Ambassador to India that this is a historic deal, the most important treaty between India and the US?
Arunachalam: There is no doubt that after the Green Revolution, this is going to be the most important contribution in co-operation between the two countries. The nuclear deal not just opens with US but also Russia.
Sagarika Ghose: Does it also privatise the domain of nuclear reactors. With the technology now available, could private players now enter into creating reactors?
Arunachalam: It’s time they get into this because if the nuclear power has got to make any sense, I think we have to set up at least 14 to 16 nuclear power stations that means about 32,000 MW. And I don’t think we should pressurise the Government to do this, the private parties have now come of age. If they can be steel maker for the world, they can also be the nuclear power maker.
Sagarika Ghose: Nilotpal Basu, you have had a problem with what Arunachalam was saying. He was saying his view is a pipe dream.
Nilotpal Basu: Absolutely. Earlier also we had decided to have a greater augmentation of our nuclear power facility. But we couldn’t do that because of lack of resources.
Sagarika Ghose: But an economy growing at 8 per cent per year needs as much energy as it can get.
Nilotpal Basu: There can be no two opinion on that but what was holding you back was the financial recourses and I think nobody in the right frame of mind would try to build on an energy programme where you will have to depend on outside sources, both for your feedstock as well as technology. And the versions on which the Bills were passed in the Congress and Senate indicates that you still don’t have access to full nuclear…
Sagarika Ghose: But his is not the final version. They will still decide on the final version.
Nilotpal Basu: The euphoria that you are sharing with the Americans may be premature.
Sagarika Ghose: I want to read out some interesting facts to you. Even during the Cold War, USSR was India’s ally but the US was India’s largest trading partner. By the end of the Cold War, over a million Indians lived in the US. The vast majority of Fortune US firms are in India, a million jobs have been outsourced from the US and the US is India’s largest foreign investor. India is effectively a US ally so is this deal simply not the basis of the relationship, but the cherry on the cake.
Nilotpal Basu: I think you are over emphasising that fact. We are not saying we should not have friendly relationship with the US. But if you’re trying to elevate your relationship to the level of strategic partnership, you are creating a difficult situation for yourself.
Sagarika Ghose: That’s a worry Shashank. Isn’t it? Does the US have allies or it just needs camp followers.
Shashank: US may need camp followers but India cannot be a camp follower. India is developing strategic partnership with several countries including US. The process in going on, it’s not yet over. So when we talk of nuclear energy, that’s a strategic partnership.
Nilotpal Basu: I will just remind of the statement made by Henry Kissinger earlier that those who are adversarial to US are in difficulty but who are befriending them are making a fatal relationship.
Sagarika Ghose: There is an agreement that after 9/11, the US capacity to act for the global good may be severely hampered but the reality is the India and US is a people to people relationship.
Nilotpal Basu: There are only creating instability in the world.
Arunachalam: I’m totally lost. Mr Basu should realise that excepting Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran, no country is self-sufficient in energy. Neither Japan nor Korea, India, South Africa or even Brazil. And to say that we have to become self-reliant, there is a world of difference between self-reliance and self-sufficiency. And if I depend only on coal, the only resource that I have will be the greatest polluter of my country.
Sagarika Ghose: The Indian Atomic Energy Commission had in fact considered a proposal, turn-key basis nuclear reactors, where countries could come build a reactor and go. And all we would bet is electricity. Such is the hunger.
Nilotpal Basu: If Mr Arunachalam would agree with me that Americans were going to transfer some of the clean coal technology that they have actually developed, I would be much happier. But unfortunately that is not happening.
Shashank: I would say nuclear energy is required for the energy mix. But we need to go in for clean coal technology.
Arunachalam: Clean coal technology does not work even in the US.
What if we have to get into new technologies. Nuclear power is the only one and the first. We also need to get into photovoltaic, solar and biogas technologies. Today, we are producing 130 GW but our country is going to need 350 GW in just 15 years. We have to give something to the people of this country.
Final verdict of the sms poll: 70 per cent say 'yes' while 30 per cent say 'no'.
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