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Journalism of Courage
With barely a month to go before the visit of US President George W. Bush to India, prospects of successfully taking forward the July 18 Indo-US agreement on nuclear cooperation seem have receded further with the latest broadside of Secretary to the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Dr Anil Kakodkar. In an interview to The Indian Express (‘The fast breeder programmme just cannot be put on the civilian list’, February 8), he has argued against the inclusion of the fast breeder reactor (FBR) as a civilian facility. He said that this “will not be in our strategic interest”, both for long-term energy security and for maintaining nuclear-weapons capabilities. He added that it would push India “into another import trap”, constantly dependent on imported enriched uranium.
The essence of his argument is: “Both, from the point of view of maintaining long-term energy security and for maintaining the minimum credible deterrent (as defined by the nuclear doctrine) the fast breeder programme just cannot be put on the civilian list. This would amount to getting shackled and India certainly cannot compromise one for the other.”
Let us examine Kakodkar’s concerns.
“India falling into another import trap.” There is nothing in the agreement that requires India to import anything. It merely makes such imports, currently impossible, possible. It is entirely up to India to make a determination of what and how much it wants to import. Unless Kakodkar can establish why this must happen, and do so by citing specific provisions of either the agreement or the consequences of listing the FBR as civilian, there will be no substance to his argument of import dependency. If that is the case, keeping or not keeping the FBR programme in the civilian list will have no bearing on the role of imports.
“Maintaining long-term energy security.” It is not clear how listing the FBR will have a bearing on “maintaining long-term energy security”. IAEA safeguards have no bearing on the direction or progress of any peaceful nuclear programme that a country may choose to follow. It is high time Kakodkar is asked to specify precisely the manner in which listing FBR as a civilian programme will compromise India’s “long-term energy security”. Does he mean that IAEA will stop, control or derail India’s FBR programme? If so, how? Under which article of the safeguards agreement that will have to be negotiated between India and IAEA if the FBR is listed as civilian? Unless one discusses this in specific detail, it is easy to indulge in hyperbole and doomsday predictions.
S.K. Jain, chairman and managing director of Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam Ltd (Bhavini), a new company of the DAE formed to handle fast breeder reactors, seems to have found a reason why this may be so. According to Jain, “Any facility under safeguards amounts to slowing down as even movement of material from one place to another within the premises also will be delayed. Any move in this direction of putting the fast breeder programme under safeguards will slow down our progress considerably. Every movement of material will require calling of inspectors.” He is correct in saying that IAEA inspectors’ presence may be necessary when safeguarded fissile material is removed from the reactor.
However, that requires only that India inform IAEA in advance of the move so that they can send an inspector. It does not mean that the IAEA can dictate when and if the move can be made. IAEA cannot and does not dictate to anyone what and how things must be done. It must only be informed in advance. The procedures for such notifications are clearly laid out in subsidiary arrangements concerning the implementation of the safeguards procedures covering the safeguarded items that have to negotiated between India and the IAEA. Decisions like removing fissile material from reactors in substantial quantities are not taken on an impulse. They are planned well in advance and the subsidiary agreements can be negotiated to take into account such transfers. Therefore there is no substance to the charge that IAEA inspections will “dampen the progress”. Here again either Jain or DAE must be made to be list specific actions of the IAEA, and the articles under which it will be done, which will slow down their programmes. In short, there is little substance to their expressed fear that listing the FBR as a civilian facility subject to IAEA safeguards will affect the FBR programme or “long-term energy security”.
We finally come to the charge that putting the FBR in the civilian list will affect “maintaining the minimum credible deterrent (as defined by the nuclear doctrine)”. This is serious. What constitutes “minimum deterrence” falls within the purview of the political and military constituents of government. The Indian minimum deterrence is based on the premise that “any nuclear attack on India and its forces shall result in punitive retaliation with nuclear weapons to inflict damage unacceptable to the aggressor”. It requires India to maintain a sufficient, survivable, operationally prepared nuclear force to enforce its doctrine of deterrence.
DAE simply has to ensure the availability of sufficient fissile materials to build such a force level. Unless the DAE can establish that such an assured supply of fissile material will not be available without the FBR, it cannot maintain the strategic need for the FBR not to be declared civilian. If that indeed is the case, then given that the FBR will not be operational till 2010 and given further that its commissioning will consume a substantial portion of the unsafeguarded fissile material in India’s current stock, the inescapable conclusion will be that India will not have minimum deterrence till much later than 2010. One doubts if DAE would be able to establish any such linkage especially with a current estimated inventory of more than 8000 kg of unsafeguarded fissile material usable for strategic purposes, enough for more than 1000 explosive devices!
Therefore, the political establishment must require the DAE to explain why it feels that the FBR is essential for providing fissile material for India’s minimum deterrence and how this cannot be met by keeping four or more pressurised heavy water reactors out of the civilian list instead of the FBR.
Incidentally, like many others, Kakodkar takes refuge under the statement that as per the July 18 agreement “this determination (of what goes on which list, civilian or military) has to be made by the Indians… (for) India’s strategic interests will have to be decided by India and not by others.” This is true. But if it os taken to its extreme, as seems to be the strategy of DAE, nothing need be declared as civilian. If that indeed is the advice given by DAE then both the department and India can forego any chance of any relaxation of the international nuclear commerce in favour of India. That would leave us just where we were to begin with.
G. Balachandran specialises in nuclear and export control issues
