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INDIA/US: Risking Survival Govt to Honour Nuke Deal

Analysis by Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI, Oct 31 2007 (IPS) - Caving in to intense pressure from Washington and from domestic business and strategic lobbies, India’s Congress party-led coalition government is planning to push through the civilian nuclear cooperation deal with the United States in the teeth of strong political opposition.

After a great deal of vacillation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has decided to take the next step in completing the deal by approaching the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to negotiate a special inspections (safeguards) agreement, according to well-placed sources in his Congress party, who insisted on anonymity.

In doing so, Singh risks the collapse of his Congress-led United Progress Alliance (UPA) government, which is critically dependent on the support of the Left for a parliamentary majority. India’s Left parties, which hold 60 seats in the 543-strong Lower House of Parliament, oppose the nuclear agreement tooth and nail. (The Congress has 145 seats, and its UPA allies under 70.)

Singh’s decision comes amidst extraordinarily high-powered lobbying by U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Undersecretary of State R Nicholas Burns, and Ambassador to India David Mulford.

Equally significantly, former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger, and two influential former U.S. ambassadors to India, Frank Wisner and Robert Blackwill, have been in India urging the UPA to expedite the deal’s passage.

“Add to this the pressure exerted by the U.S.-India CEOs’ Forum meeting in Mumbai and the ‘Fortune’ Global Forum in New Delhi, and the picture is complete,” says Achin Vanaik, a political scientist specialising in international relations at Delhi University. “India has perhaps never before witnessed such concentrated heavy-handed lobbying on any issue.”

“However,” adds Vanaik, “it’s not as if Singh will be able to easily overcome the domestic hurdles the deal faces. To do that, he will need the help of the principal opposition group, the pro- Hindu, right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party. And that means entering a tricky political terrain, with all manner of bad compromises.”

Going by available indications, Singh intends to approach the IAEA in early December, immediately after the end of a brief Parliament session being convened between Nov. 15 and Dec. 7. The UPA government hopes that the IAEA will negotiate a unique safeguards agreement with India in record time.

Armed with this, India expects that the U.S. will get the deal approved by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers’ Group, which must make a special exception for India to its strict rules regulating nuclear commerce.

The deal could then be taken up for ratification by the U.S. Congress early next year, before the Republican and Democratic primaries for the presidential election are completed and President George W. Bush becomes a total lame-duck.

The Bush administration is said to be desperate to have the deal signed and sealed quickly not merely because it has invested a great deal of political capital in it, but also because it could present it in the national elections as the Republicans’ sole foreign policy achievement – in contrast to the Iraq and Afghanistan disasters.

“Clearly, the timetable for the deal’s negotiation is being dictated by U.S. domestic political expediency, and not by the democratic debate in India,” argues M.V. Ramana, a physicist and nuclear affairs analyst based at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in the Environment and Development in Bangalore.

This became evident last week when Burns, a key negotiator in the deal, said time was running out to complete the agreement: “One message that the U.S. is articulating very clearly to India is that this is an opportunity that doesn’t come around often. They ought to take this opportunity…it is smart to get it back to the Congress … when they will have the time to look at it and not get it too deep into our election year.”

Burns bluntly added that India will need to honour the deal if it wants to play “a global leadership role …and enter a new era of relations with the U.S.”

Kissinger too reiterated the same message by telling the Indian media that the deal’s failure could affect Washington’s future dealings with India because the American leadership will not be able to trust India or calculate how India will respond to future strategic overtures.

There is a big domestic hitch, though. The UPA cannot avoid a discussion on the deal in the coming Parliament session. In that debate, a large number of political parties, led by the Left and a new regional grouping called the United National Progressive Alliance, are certain to oppose the deal.

So the Congress party’s only chance lies in neutralising the BJP, which is against the deal largely for opportunistic reasons -simply because it heads the opposition.

Unlike the Left parties, which criticise the deal for its strategic implications in promoting a close security relationship with the U.S., the BJP wants a strategic partnership with Washington. The BJP says it opposes the deal in “its present form”, not in principle.

The U.S. is now attempting to bring about a rapprochement between the Congress and the BJP – a move that is seen here as similar to what it did in Pakistan between President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

Ambassador Mulford recently met BJP leaders including leader of the opposition L.K. Advani, party president Rajnath Singh, and former National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra. Kissinger too met Advani to canvass support for the deal.

It is not clear if the BJP will come around to backing the deal after having opposed it for two years as a “sell-out of India’s sovereignty and strategic independence.” Rajnath Singh told Mulford that the deal should give India the freedom to conduct further nuclear tests – something Washington cannot possibly accept overtly.

However, it is not ruled out that the generally pro-Western and pro-U.S. BJP will agree to a compromise such as supporting a vague “sense-of-the-House” resolution in the deal’s favour. But it is likely to demand a high political price for this.

“That will severely damage the credibility of the Congress,” says Vanaik. “Even that may not be enough to dispel the impression within the international community that the deal does not enjoy strong domestic support, leave alone consensual backing. This could further embolden critics of the deal in the IAEA and the NSG.”

The domestic consequences could be especially grave if the Congress’ allies in the UPA strengthen their opposition to pushing the deal through at the risk of the government’s collapse and imminent mid-term elections. They have repeatedly warned against early elections.

Manmohan Singh’s insistence on ramming the deal through is unlikely to be overwhelmingly supported by his own Congress party. His strategy could thus cause disarray in the Congress as well as the UPA, without ensuring the consummation of the agreement.

Equally importantly, it will set a bad political precedent in signing long-term agreements with huge foreign policy, security and energy security implications without a transparent domestic debate leading to a strong consensus.