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INDIA/US: New Deal in Nuclear Poker

Analysis by Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI, Mar 18 2008 (IPS) - As the political window of opportunity to conclude the United States-India civilian nuclear cooperation deal during George W. Bush’s presidency further narrows, the “now-it’s-off, now-it’s-on” game of political poker over the agreement has taken another turn in New Delhi.

This is likely to upset the political calculations of the Bush administration, which has mounted enormous pressure in lobbying for the deal, to the point of saying that the U.S. does not mind signing the deal even with a government that has clearly lost its parliamentary majority and its democratic mandate.

A meeting this week of a specially established joint committee of India’s ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and its Left allies, which are opposed to the deal, has proved inconclusive. According to an agreed text, committee members felt that “further discussions were needed”. The next meeting, the eighth since the committee was constituted, will be held in April.

This was the first time the joint committee was convened after the Indian government reportedly concluded earlier this month a draft agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on special safeguards (inspections) under which some of India’s civilian nuclear facilities will be placed under scrutiny as part of the deal’s many and complex arrangements .

After the meeting, the deal’s supporters and critics made mutually contrary claims.

The proponents claimed the deal still “remains on track”, if only just, primarily because the Left did not veto it. A daily newspaper, which has campaigned for the deal, quoted an unnamed Western diplomat as saying: “If the Left wanted to kill the deal, they could have done it on Monday.”

The deal’s opponents contend that the delay in finalising the safeguards agreement with the IAEA secretariat means that the Left effectively stared the UPA down. During the talks, the government stipulated no deadline for completing negotiations on the deal.

The UPA leadership did not succeed in persuading the Left to soften its opposition to the deal in any manner. So, say the opponents, the UPA has decided to back down, at least for the moment.

The opponents’ assessment seems to be closer to the truth. Senior UPA leaders apparently calculate that in the present political situation, it would be far too risky to lose the support of the Left parties, on which they are dependent for a parliamentary majority. Most UPA leaders do not feel they will do better in a mid-term election.

Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee recently gave interviews, to the “Outlook” magazine and the NDTV news channel, in which he stressed that the Congress party, which leads the UPA, does not want early elections, and that it will not sacrifice the government for the deal.

Since then, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has also called upon Congress party cadres to prepare for an election only next year.

“This means that the Congress party’s top leadership is loath to reducing its government to a minority – and thus risk losing the deal too,” says M V Ramana, a nuclear affairs analyst based at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in the Environment and Development in Bangalore.

Sonia Gandhi and Mukherjee, who adopt a cautious approach, seem to have prevailed over the zealously pro-deal group, led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which also includes Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, and science and technology minister Kapil Sibal.

Mukherjee was explicit in his interviews: the Congress won’t sacrifice the government or hold mid-term elections; nobody in the UPA wants an early election; and in any case, “a minority government cannot, need not and should not sign a major agreement”. This approach was reflected in the UPA-Left meeting. “The relatively relaxed atmosphere and pace of the talks over 75 minutes suggest that the government is in no hurry to rush the deal through,” a senior dealer of one of the four Left parties involved in the negotiations told IPS.

Added the source: “The government did not show us the text of the draft agreement on the grounds that it is confidential and cannot be disclosed without the IAEA’s approval. UPA representatives merely give us verbal explanations of the agreement. We cannot study and analyse its content and worth until we see the text. And that will take some time.”

As analysts try to figure out the meaning and calculation of the different moves, and put divergent interpretations on them, some Left leaders say they will take several months to study the deal and discuss its details in the committee. In the absence of a deadline, they are under no pressure to conclude the discussions.

General secretary Debabrata Biswas of the Forward Bloc, one of the four Left parties, says: “If they have taken five months to reach the draft agreement, we can also take six months to study the details.”

Meanwhile, a senior minister has briefed the media, saying: “We want the elections on schedule in 2009. So we will continue to play ball with the Left as long as it takes. This means the deal will lapse during our government’s tenure… the deal is therefore not happening…”

If the deal dies, it will be more for Indian domestic political reasons than its intrinsic merits/demerits, and also because the Indian government does not yield to U.S. pressure to somehow complete the deal by the end of May.

Several U.S. government officials, political leaders and businessmen have recently lobbied the Indian government, including Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher. They have repeatedly told India that “time is of the essence”.

The Indian official assessment is that if the next steps in negotiating the deal are not concluded quickly, and the text of the agreement is not sent to the U.S. Congress by May, it is unlikely to be ratified before it goes into recess in July. After that it practically becomes virtually impossible for the deal to be ratified before President Bush fades out.

As visiting Democratic Senator, and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph Biden warned last month: “if we do not have the deal now, it is highly unlikely that the next President will present the same deal to India. In all probability, it will be renegotiated”, but on less favourable terms.

“Some statements by U.S. officials have adopted a particularly offensive tone,” says Ramana. “For instance, Boucher, in a recent interview to ‘Outlook’ magazine, made a parody of democracy by refusing to make a distinction between a minority government and a caretaker government. He reduces a government with a proper democratic mandate to one which is ‘duly constituted’, ‘whatever its political status’.”

Worse, adds Ramana, “Boucher justifies the nuclear deal in terms of ‘turning on the lights for the kids to do homework’. This is politically insulting. It’s also ridiculous because nuclear power is irrelevant to lighting up villages at night. It can at best provide base-load power, which must remain steady throughout the day and night. It’s no good for peaking power needed by villagers at night.”