The big nuclear deal
The deal's US critics are more vocal than their Indian counterparts. They include significant sections of liberal opinion, such as that represented in The New York Times, which is alarmed at the agreement's likely impact on the global nuclear order. In India, the critics belong, barring a few exceptions, to the peace movement and the Left parties.
What does India stand to gain from the deal? Why did the US make a unique exception for India in agreeing to restore civilian nuclear commerce although India hasn't signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)? What is the deal's likely global impact?
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. The agreement does not cap India's nuclear arsenal. India will only offer 14 of the 22 power reactors in operation/under construction to the International Atomic Energy Agency for inspections to check that they aren't used to make weapons.
The other 8 reactors, two fast-breeders, and all dedicated military-nuclear facilities will remain out of the inspections regime. India can build any number of new facilities for military purposes too.
The power reactors exempted from inspections can annually produce 130 kg of plutonium-239 a year. This gives India the capacity to build 25 to 40 nuclear weapons a year, in addition to its existing stockpile, which is estimated at 100 to 200 bombs.
Such exemption is an achievement for India's nuclear policy-makers and managers of its nuclear program. They have made two nuclear-related concessions to the US. The safeguards will be in "perpetuity." India cannot take these reactors in and out of safeguards at will -- unlike the N-5 (the five NWSs recognised by the NPT).
India has also offered to permanently close down CIRUS (Canada-India Research Reactor-US) by 2010, although it can run for another 10 or 12 years.
Yet, these concessions are minor in relation to the short-term "gains" -- US embracing India as a strategic partner, accommodating it in the global nuclear order, and offering to sell to it nuclear material. The Bush administration would have found it virtually impossible to "sell" the deal to the US Congress in the absence of perpetual safeguards.
Although the July text talks of India acquiring the "same benefits and advantages" as the N-5, India won't get that treatment. (Only 11 of the hundreds of civilian facilities of the N-5 are inspected by the IAEA.)
CIRUS was a product of Canadian design and US donation of heavy water -- conditional upon an explicit Indian commitment that the reactor's products would be used exclusively for peaceful purposes, a promise flagrantly betrayed by the 1974 blast. It's convenient for India to close CIRUS down and put a lid on its embarrassing past. India can easily build a larger reactor -- at a price, of course.
Besides recognition as a de facto NWS, India got guarantees of fuel supply too. Mr Bush took the high-risk decision to exempt from safeguards the 14 MW fast-breeder test reactor (commissioned in 1985), and the 500 MW prototype fast-breeder (PFBR), under construction.
US negotiators had ruled this out. But Indian nuclear scientists campaigned against their inclusion -- and succeeded.
Indian negotiators played their cards well. But we must ask what was their game. At its core is a cynical agenda: namely, legitimising the most destructive weapons known to humanity by sealing a close India-US strategic partnership. For 30 years, Indian policy-makers have craved US recognition of India as a "responsible" and "trustworthy" power.
India's nuclear-weapons status was the main obstacle to US recognition. Others -- Non-Alignment, and pursuit of agendas like a New International Economic Order, fair trade and debt forgiveness -- were gradually removed. Now, the final obstacle to a US strategic embrace has vanished.
Washington's main motive is to co-opt an emerging power, gain entry into its sizable market, build a counterweight to China and Iran, and integrate India into its global scheme of things as a junior partner.
However, "strategic partnership" spells erosion of many independent options for India. It should embarrass any self-respecting nation to be recruited as a Superpower's junior partner and allow the erosion of its own policy autonomy.
But that's exactly what will happen. The Singh-Bush "Joint Statement" shows the US has extracted major economic and political concessions from India.
India is becoming complicit in US plans for Empire. Equally deplorable is India's sanctification of nuclear weapons. India is jettisoning a cause it championed for 60 years, to which Dr Manmohan Singh promised to return -- global nuclear disarmament. This will set a negative example and provoke a rethink in states that renounced nuclear weapons, like Germany, Japan, Sweden, Brazil and South Africa.
The deal will create resentment in Pakistan. This could intensify an arms race. China may try to scuttle the deal in the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG).
What of the deal's civilian part? The last thing India needs for energy security is nuclear power, which is twice as expensive as electricity from burning coal, and many times more hazardous.
All nuclear power plants can undergo catastrophic accidents like Chernobyl. They produce wastes that remain radioactive for thousands of years. Building nuclear plants is like building houses without toilets. Nuclear power will make India more dependent on imports.
The deal, then, is a bad bargain. It's likely to face opposition from the US Congress. America's Eastern Establishment press and many Congressmen are against it. This became evident in Mr Bush's meeting with 14 lawmakers. With his acceptance ratings at a historic low (34 percent), Mr Bush may not be able to win Congressional ratification.
But Indian policy-makers haven't considered this. They have no exit clause in case the agreement is rejected by Congress. They could rue this.