PRAGOTI

In September 2006, I wrote an article for the MIT Center for International Studies that was critical of the U.S.-India nuclear deal and called it “ a triumph of the business lobby.” Many people thought that it was premature to call it a “triumph” because it had still to overcome obstacles on several fronts.

It is true, in order for the agreement to take effect, a series of milestones have to be reached, but slowly they are being met one by one as discussed below. An eventual deal looks almost a certainty although not necessarily in the time frame outlined by the Bush administration and the bipartisan Congressional leadership. Indeed, two years later, while much progress has been made, the finalization of the deal is bogged down due to the peculiarities of Indian politics. It is unclear at this point whether the deal could be finalized in the next few months, despite the ardent desire of the Bush administration.

However, that is perhaps secondary at this point, because regardless of its immediate fate, the broader objective of the agreement has already been achieved, which is a much closer tie between India and the U.S., including India’s buying into the so-called war on terrorism. Collaboration in defense, space, science and technology, and intelligence has also taken off in a big way since the July 2005 joint declaration in Washington by the two governments announcing the deal. But, let us first take a look at how the hurdles are being overcome.

First, a so-called 123 Agreement between U.S. and India has to be negotiated and ratified by the U.S. Senate. Second, India has to complete a safeguards agreement with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which will have to be approved by its board of governors. Third, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), an organization representing 45 countries that control worldwide trade in nuclear materials and technology, has to grant India a waiver. Fourth, and final, although the Indian Parliament unlike the U.S. Congress does not need to ratify the agreement, yet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has repeatedly promised that it would not proceed with what it called “operationalization” of the deal if there was no “political consensus” for it. Whether the P.M. made empty promises is likely to be sorely tested in the very near future for reasons that will be discussed later.

U.S. Congress and the deal

The central legislative piece for the deal yet to be voted on by the U.S. Congress is the 123 Agreement mentioned above. It is so named because it modifies section 123 of the U.S, Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which regulates U.S. cooperation with other nations in nuclear matters and prohibits trading with states that have not signed the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Before it could proceed with the 123 negotiations, the U.S. administration needed authorization from Congress. This authorizing legislation – the United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Promotion Act - later came to be known as the Hyde Act named after the late Representative Henry Hyde – a conservative Republican, who passed away recently. He was the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who shepherded the bill through Congress. It passed both chambers near the end of 2006 with large margins – 85 to 12 with 3 abstentions in the Senate and 330 to 59 with 44 abstentions in the House.

It is true; initially there was substantial opposition in the U.S. Congress. Many members were concerned that the deal would weaken the non-proliferation regime by granting an exception to India. There was and still is widespread concern about India’s friendly relationship with Iran.

However, over time, intense lobbying by the U.S. and Indian business groups and by the Bush administration helped change the minds of many Congressmen as exhibited in the lopsided votes in its favor. The bipartisan support continues to this day.

123 Agreement

The 123 Agreement was finalized in the autumn of 2007 after much wrangling. There continue to be concerns both in India and the U.S. about reported contradictions between certain provisions in the Hyde Act and the language in the 123 Agreement. While the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated in sworn testimony that the 123 Agreement fully complied with all applicable U.S. laws - the Hyde Act being one, high level Indian officials like Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee claimed India was bound by the 123 Agreement alone not the Hyde Act, implying that there were differences between the two. The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee sent as many as forty questions about the 123 Agreement to the State Department asking for assurances from Rice that it was not in violation of the Hyde Act. The State Department complied with the request, but asked the committee to not release its response publicly, in essence placing a gag order. Since the congressional committee has respected the gag order, it is natural to surmise that it is satisfied about 123’s compliance with the Hyde Act. It is likely that releasing such information would create difficulties for the Indian government, which is trying to reassure its partners that it is not about to accept a deal that would impinge on India’s sovereignty.

IAEA Safeguards

The safeguards agreement with the IAEA was also thought to be a challenging milestone for two reasons. One was that an India-specific safeguards regime would be unique and it was generally believed that negotiating an instrument for a “non-weapon” weapon state would be difficult . And, the other was the recognition that the IAEA works by consensus, which could potentially throw open the door to all kind of horse trading by member states and delay action.

But IAEA Director General, Nobel Peace Laureate Mohammed El Baradei had no reservations in supporting the deal from the beginning. It was perhaps an attempt by him to make up with the American administration after the bad feelings left over from his quarrel with the U.S. over the presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq before the U.S. invasion. Under its charter, the Director General wears two hats. He is at once both the non-proliferation sheriff of the world and the chief salesman for nuclear power globally. Whatever his reasons, El Baradei preferred this time to wear the latter hat more prominently and promoted the deal widely, much to the consternation of non-proliferation advocates in the U.S. who normally adore him.

Not surprisingly, the negotiations between the IAEA and Indian atomic experts have gone fairly smoothly and a safeguards agreement was hammered out in several weeks. It reportedly has a large preamble that pays tribute to the need for fuel supply guarantees that the Indian government was seeking under pressure from the left opposition. It is a moot point because IAEA does not have any fuel supply or reserve of its own. Interestingly, for reasons that are not entirely clear, the government has refused so far to share the details of the agreement with the UPA-Left Committee. Speaking with reporters in Chennai on April 6, Mr. Mukherjee confirmed that the negotiations with the IAEA were completed by saying that “it has been frozen” and “we were going to get the approval of the IAEA Board.”

NSG – a supreme irony

There have also been misgivings in the NSG. Several countries including Japan and Germany, the current Chair, have expressed concern about making an exception. Another important player is South Africa, the last Chair; it is a leader of the Non Aligned Movement and has moral authority on the issue having given up its own nuclear arsenal after the defeat of the apartheid regime. South Africa remains deeply skeptical about making a “clean” exemption for India that would be free of any future restrictions, if for example, India carried out a nuclear test . Like IAEA, the NSG also works by consensus, which gives reasons for hope to those who are opposing the deal that one country or another could balk. But in reality, NSG is not very different from other institutions of world diplomacy today, where “consensus” can be ordained if the major powers are in agreement. An all too familiar example is the U.N. Security Council.

That the big powers aside from the U.S. are in agreement is clearly evident from the public statements by Britain, France, and Russia. All three are eager to sign nuclear trade agreements of their own with India and are just waiting for the green light from the NSG. While China has not explicitly said so, it indicated during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit there a few months ago, that it would not block action.

It is likely, however, that NSG may not give India the clean exemption it is seeking, but in the end it is unlikely that one or more countries will stand in the way for the sake of principle. Eventually, the fine print of the NSG waiver will be perhaps secondary, if the government decides to go forward with the deal and call for elections.

One small historical footnote is a statement on the organization’s website that referred to India without naming it, which is worth noting if for nothing else but its supreme irony. It reads as follows: “The NSG was created following the explosion in 1974 of a nuclear device by a non-nuclear-weapon State, which demonstrated that nuclear technology transferred for peaceful purposes could be misused.”

Caught between a rock and a hard place

Although, both IAEA and the NSG are favorably disposed to the deal as discussed above, they cannot act until India is ready to do so. So, the ball has been back in New Delhi’s court for quite some time and the Singh government has found itself between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

On the one hand, the U.S. administration has cranked up pressure on India with the State Department’s Richard Boucher even going as far as giving an ultimatum of sort saying India would have to complete the agreement by “end of May,” a deadline that was driven as much by the U.S. congressional calendar in a Presidential election year as the nearing of the end of George Bush’s reign in January 2009. On the other hand, there is intense opposition to the deal from the Left parties led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and to a lesser extent from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) that Singh leads does not enjoy a parliamentary majority on its own. It depends crucially on a large block of about sixty votes from a handful of Left parties for its survival. The left parties are not part of the government and do not hold cabinet posts, but support it in the Parliament. They have threatened to withdraw their support if it goes forward, which could bring down the government and force early elections.

Singh’s Congress party and its UPA allies do not find the prospect of early elections attractive after the Congress party’s setbacks in recent elections to the State Assemblies in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and the latest in Karnataka. The left parties have also repeatedly said that they do not want early elections either.

The reality is such that the Congress party and the Left need each other to stave off a likely challenge from the BJP to return to power. Facing such a dilemma, Singh has been trying to put off a decision as long as possible, but now it appears to be nearing a decision time. Something will have to give.

Possible options for the government

There were three possible scenarios as follows. One was to acquiesce to the May deadline put forward by the Bush administration. This was unlikely because it would have meant an immediate rupture with the left and consequently elections possibly in July or August, which were clearly not desirable given the massive price hikes and inflation rising to 11% for the first time in many years. If it was ever an option, the election results in Gujarat and Karnataka eliminated that.

The second option was to put off the decision until the government completed its five-year term and elections were held early next year. Such a decision would have helped avoid a rupture with the Left and thus ensure that the coalition government would survive. However, it would have been a risky gamble because of the uncertain election prospects and also because the political climate in Washington could be less favorable after the U.S. Presidential elections. This is a default scenario, if the others fail to materialize.

The third scenario, which I have considered for sometime as the most likely, seems to be unfolding rapidly as I write this piece and try to stay ahead of the breaking news. It is indeed the strategy that the government appears to have been following while keeping the cards very close to its chest.

Government’s dual-track strategy

The government basically adopted a two-track strategy. On the one hand, it continued quiet negotiations with the U.S. and the IAEA and lobbied NSG member states. On the other hand, it placated the Left by appearing to give it a voice in the negotiations. It did so by forming a joint UPA-Left committee to supposedly oversee the negotiations and even giving it a veto power over the agreement struck with the IAEA.

With this two-track approach, it bought itself time to complete crucial negotiations without having to deal with agitation in the Parliament and the press. It also laid low for months giving the impression that the deal was off.

For example, in February, I attended the 10th Asian Security Conference in New Delhi where Mr. Pranab Mukherjee gave the keynote address. He spoke about energy security, but did not mention the deal once in his 45-minute speech, even though energy security is the ostensible selling point for the deal.

Even more recently, as on May 22, the government released a 63-page UPA report card with much fanfare, but was almost silent on the deal. It only made a passing mention by saying that there was “prospect of civil nuclear cooperation” with the U.S.

The silence was broken occasionally to provide reassurance to the supporters that the government was not asleep at the wheels. For instance, on March 3, Mr. Mukherjee made a statement in the parliament. He said that negotiations were moving forward with the IAEA. He also said that India was still seeking “international support” for the deal alluding to NSG members. Later, according to news reports, Indian officials briefed members of the NSG at a plenary meeting of the group in Berlin and delivered the message that the deal was far from dead and would be completed.

Mr. Mukherjee later traveled to Washington for consultations and on March 24, in meeting with President Bush, he and a four-member team reportedly briefed the U.S. President about the status of the deal and explained his government’s strategy. It was an opportunity perhaps to find out the drop-dead date for the U.S since May was simply unrealistic. Most important, Mukherjee told Bush that the deal would be done even if it took a long time to work out “domestic political problems.” No one would ever know if Mukherjee gave assurances to Mr. Bush whether India would go for it at an opportune moment even if “the political problems” could not be sorted out,

In search of a political consensus

Throughout this interregnum, while the government blew hot and cold, Singh continued the dual-track approach by maintaining that he would “seek the broadest possible consensus in the country” before finalizing the deal. But let’s face it; there was no political consensus to be found.

The left parties, who generally support the government, and the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are both against the deal, albeit for different reasons. Despite Singh’s overtures to them and strong American lobbying of BJP’s leaders by the likes of Henry Kissinger, BJP has stood its ground and won’t hand the nuclear deal on a silver platter to its opponents. Advani said in the Lok Sabha debate last November that the BJP’s own deal was “better!”

In the meantime, the Left parties kept up their pressure advising the UPA not to “commit political suicide” by rushing to embrace the deal. It warned repeatedly that the deal would compromise India’s “independent foreign policy” or more accurately perhaps what is left of it. It argued against forming a strategic partnership with the U.S. at a time when it is regarded widely as a hyper power that is out of control. It also forcefully debunked the myths that the deal would solve India’s current energy shortage, or the deal had to do with a uranium crisis facing India.

A time for reckoning

While there is no doubt that Singh, and a coterie of Congress leaders surrounding him, clearly want the deal, support within the UPA and even within the Congress Party itself is lukewarm at best. That said the real power lies in the hands of the party’s President Sonia Gandhi, who has given mixed signals, but mostly remained silent until now. She is reportedly at the centre stage to make a decision about going forward.

It will certainly upset the Left, but it has limited leverage nationally. In recent elections in West Bengal for Panchayats, which are rural administrative bodies, the Left parties did not perform as well as expected. West Bengal is a fortress of the Left, which produces a majority of members in the 60-member parliamentary Left block.

The viability of forming a “third front” with left and other likeminded parties, but without the Congress Party, also seems remote at this time. So, it is possible that the Congress and the Left could eventually come to an understanding again to either fight the elections jointly, or get together after the elections to keep BJP out of power.

Seeing weakness in the Left’s fortress, and the limited options they face nationally, Sonia Gandhi may conclude that she could afford to antagonize them without paying a long-term political price. She must draw encouragement from the statements of left leaders, when they say that the UPA-Left coalition is not based on a single issue, implying that there could be life after the deal.

After several postponements and a couple perfunctory meetings, the crucial UPA-Left meeting is now scheduled to be held on June 25. If it does take place, it is anybody’s guess what will happen. If the surge of activities in the South Block in the last few days is any indication, Bush’s drop-dead date is sure to be appearing on the horizon. The Indian government has reached a time for decision and indications are that Manmohan Singh, who does not have to worry about winning an election battle because he never fought one, is winning this battle.

So, it is also a time for reckoning for the opponents on both sides of the Atlantic. While it is by no means a done deal, and there may yet be opportunities to derail it in the coming months, but it is not too soon to also think about the morning after.

There was little apparent common ground between the opponents of the deal in India and those in the U.S., which is why it never galvanized. Opponents in the U.S. focused on non-proliferation and worried about how to preserve the NPT. In contrast, to most Indians, regardless of political affiliation, the NPT is a tool for nuclear discrimination and has simply become untenable.

Neither Indian opponents nor their U.S. counterparts made any attempt to bridge this divide and find common ground. Unfortunately, to the U.S. opponents, both BJP and the Left parties are somewhat untouchable because of BJP’s clamor for testing and the Communist left for a lack of understanding about who they are. There were contacts between other opponents, but because of the parliamentary nature of the battle, they were not as visible.

However, common ground can be found in areas unexplored so far. For example, both in India and the U.S., the opposition have been demanding more transparency in decision making. This goes beyond the nuclear deal.

Another is nuclear disarmament. There is renewed interest in the U.S. about reviving the movement because it has become clear to many that proliferation of nuclear weapons cannot be stopped as long as thousands of nuclear weapons remain in the hands of a few. Even people like George Schultz and Henry Kissinger agree and are calling for abolition of nuclear weapons. The 1988 Rajiv Gandhi plan for universal nuclear disarmament could be a starting point for discussion. It is noteworthy that in the Parliamentary debate on the deal in November 2007, it is the Left parties who consistently linked disarmament to non-proliferation.

2008 marks the fortieth anniversary of the NPT. And yet, after four long decades, we are far from achieving anything close to disarmament. As an advisor to the U.S. campaign to stop the deal, I believe it is clearly time for opponents to get together and chart a course for collaboration in the months and years ahead.

Subrata Ghoshroy directs a project to promote nuclear stability in South Asia at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was until last year a Senior Defense Analyst at the U.S. Government Accountability Office and from 1997-1998 a Professional Staff Member of the Armed Services Committee of the U.S House of Representatives.