Nuclear nihilism

On the face of it, the communists, who find themselves on the defensive over their disastrous handling of the Nandigram developments, appear ready to cut the government some slack on the negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency. From the perspective of India’s national interest, however, they have only moved from irrational posturing to a set of unreasonable demands. The Left remains recalcitrant in demanding the right to scrutinise and veto the safeguards agreement with the IAEA and has re-affirmed that the nuclear deal should not be “operationalised”.

The linkage that the Left had established between the IAEA talks and operationalisation of the civil nuclear initiative should never have been accepted by the government. After all, the safeguards agreement is by no means the last step in the implementation of this initiative. India will need the endorsement of the 45-nation NSG and the US Congress before the world can participate in the nation’s nuclear power programme. Nor is there anything special about IAEA safeguards. As a founding member of the IAEA, India had consistently supported the proposition that international cooperation in civilian nuclear energy should not be misused for weapons purposes. As a consequence, the reactors that India built in collaboration with the US, Canada and Russia over the years are all under IAEA safeguards. India’s planned agreement with the IAEA is only an extension of this tradition and a consequence of the planned separation of the nation’s civilian and military nuclear facilities. Neither the separation nor the safeguards agreement with the IAEA will kick in until the international community lifts all restrictions on civilian nuclear cooperation with India, which have been in place for more than 30 years.

The problem is Left dissimulation in blocking India’s long-awaited nuclear liberation. If its objections were technical, all the benchmarks it laid down last year have been met by the government in its negotiations with Washington. If the argument is about foreign policy, the Congress cannot hope to cure the Communists of their ideological paranoia. India’s scientists, security establishment and the public at large have had enough of the UPA coalition’s unending games with the nation’s nuclear future, as an open letter carried in today’s newspaper testifies. That the Left has no regard for national interest is not the issue, the real question is whether the Congress leadership has the political will to do what is right by the nation and move decisively towards the implementation of the civil nuclear initiative.