Atomic lethargy

That the Department of Atomic Energy DAE was unhappy about separating its civilian and military programmes was evident when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W. Bush signed the nuclear deal last July. Since then the DAE has found it difficult to come up, either quickly or credibly, with a separation plan that holds the key to ending India8217;s anomalous status in the global nuclear order. The failure of the latest round of consultations between Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran and US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns last week has been blamed on DAE8217;s reluctance to put its fast breeder programme on the civilian list.

Forget the Americans for a moment. Indian public has a right to know the nature of the breeder programme 8212; is it civilian or military? The DAE apparently wants it both ways: a peaceful facility with future military options. It is this twisted logic, backed by decades of political self-deception, that has landed India in a nuclear mess. It neither has a successful civilian nuclear power programme nor a purposeful weapons programme. Sanctimonious rhetoric over the decades from the Indian political leadership that the nation8217;s nuclear programme was entirely for peaceful purposes resulted in a mixed mandate for the DAE and the loss of operational clarity. Separating civilian and military programmes and making them both efficient has been a long-neglected national need. After claiming the lion8217;s share of the nation8217;s R038;D money for nearly six decades, the DAE today produces barely 3000 MW of power. On the strategic front, instead of building the necessary plutonium production reactors, the DAE has got into the bad habit of using its civilian programme for military needs.

Why is the DAE, once a shining example of scientific internationalism under its founder Homi Bhabha, now so opposed to external engagement? Sanctions against the DAE since the nuclear test of May 1974 have steadily forced it into the dark corner of scientific isolationism. Manmohan Singh, however, cannot let the DAE8217;s fear of natural light undermine the historic nuclear accord with the US. The DAE8217;s concerns about intellectual property relating to fast breeder reactors are not impossible to negotiate with the Bush administration and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The PM, however, must make it clear to the DAE that he would not allow individual prejudices of a particular department come in the way of pursuing the national interest. After all the government is more than the sum of its parts.