Rhetoric, atomised

Consider the American anti-deal lobby8217;s effort to chastise Dr ElBaradei. They berate him for going back on his principles of universality in nonproliferation, because he supports exception for India. Yet none of these wise folks would go out on a limb to recommend two things that would make the regime universal: ask the P-5 or the US categorically to give up nuclear weapons and ask the multilateral export control regimes like the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime to disband because they are restrictive-membership agreements. Indeed, they cannot even strongly demand that China 8212; which has about 1000 tonnes of stockpile 8212; give a verifiable undertaking that it is no longer producing fissile material.

The same disingenuous strategy is apparent in continuing the drum beat on how the deal will free up India8217;s indigenous uranium for bomb making. This, despite the very well-researched study by Ashley Tellis showing how and why this scenario is not supported by Indian behaviour six years after the Pokharan II tests and without even the carrot of the current deal. And the fact that India has sufficient uranium to build as large an arsenal as it might want to.

The spectre of greater Pakistan-China nuclear cooperation is raised by obfuscating the fact that their cooperation, since the 1980s, was the reason India was compelled to test. Or that their cooperation was publicly strengthened in a nuclear cooperation agreement in the summer of 2004 8212; one full year before the George Bush-Manmohan Singh agreement and one month before China became an avid supporter of the nonproliferation regime by joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The keepers of the nonproliferation regime have chosen not to publicise the fact that Sino-Pak nuclear cooperation agreement has no clauses that demand any change in Pakistani nuclear policy. China would highlight that transfers under this agreement would be under safeguards. But the critics of the US-India deal should know better 8212; there have been several instances in the past when Chinese technology supposedly intended for Chashma found its way into Khushab.

Let us now turn to the Indian critics of the deal. A favourite bogey raised is the loss of strategic autonomy. This is a subject that is sure to ignite the anti-imperialist fears among the vanguard of the proletariat and at least a flame of ultra-nationalism among the nuclear hawks.

However, signing on to any agreement with any country or group of countries WTO, UN Charter, IAEA means the loss of some strategic autonomy. Even the 1970s treaty with USSR bound India into not opposing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and into opposing the international action against Saddam Hussain when he invaded Kuwait. The perceived oil-dependence on the Arab states tied India in knots without even a formal accord 8212; India did not protest at the secretive Iran-Pakistan nuclear pact, did not protest at Saudi money radicalising Indian Muslim youth, and was forced to publicly deny the growing convergence of interest with Israel while working with it for years on counter-terrorism issues. The signature on the UN Charter has recently forced India and all other UN members to comply with UNSC Resolution 1540. If we take the strategic autonomy argument to its logical conclusion, there would be no international agreements and in this idyllic state 8212; where there is no international politics of course 8212; India would not have to make any difficult choices!

More to the point, before the advent of the US-India deal, India supposedly was free to build as many bombs as it wanted or needed, was free to deal with Iran in any way it thought fit, and was free to build as many nuclear reactors and as much nuclear fuel as it cared to. Yet facts seemed to point to other realities. Even under the ultra-patriotic regime of the NDA, India did not put all or even most of its un-safeguarded reactors to produce weapons-grade plutonium. It did not require Iran to prove its friendly credentials by giving up on Pakistan. It did not accept the premise that buying oil from Iran at high price and allowing it to come through Pakistan would ensure cheap and steady supply of energy. India did not build as many reactors as are needed, nor did its existing reactors produce more than 3 per cent of its energy requirements 8212; even though there was no Big Brother IAEA or the US constraining it. In other words, critics need to show why the 8220;free8221; India did no better than what a supposedly constrained India might be forced to do by the evil US plan.

The writer is director, South Asia programme at the Centre for International Trade and Security, University of Georgia, US