Doomed If They Do, Doomed If They Dont

Part I

Since the issue at hand is so complicated and steeped in strategic considerations and nucular, sorry, nuclear jargons, let us try to understand the situation with the help of an allegory, “The Largest Singh Meets the Longest Sam, A True Sad Story.”

There have been living a largest democracy (aka The Largest Singh) and a longest democracy (aka The Longest Sam) in our strange political world. The longest Sam who has always ignored the largest Singh suddenly decides to discover the latter.

There is a background to this discovery. The largest Sam has been seeing a dragon-like apparition for sometime now. This stubborn ghost keeps coming and coming (especially after the ‘iron curtain’ was removed and the ‘rising sun’ went into recession). So the longest Sam desperately tries to find an exorcist, who could deal with this ghost locally and stop it from coming to his shores. Finally, the longest Sam finds an exorcist, the largest Singh with many a trick under his turban and with all the potentials (and even some vague aspirations) to be able to ‘come’ himself at some distant future point. So the longest Sam designs a strategy! Tie up the stubborn apparition and the supple exorcist together. So neither of them will be coming! At least for sometime!

The largest Singh (exorcist) has indeed had a confrontation with this dragon-like apparition once before and still fosters some ill-will. However, he is more worried about the next-door sorcerer, Hush-Mush-Sharaf who keeps directing little demons and devils to his door. So the largest Singh creates a few blood-sucking parasitic vampires called Bomb-Iyers. Not to be let down in the tussle, Hush-Mush-Sharaf, the sorcerer, creates his own killer conman, Bomb-Sell Khan. Strangely enough, BS Khan has the blessings of the dragon-ghost while his necromancer boss keeps in touch with the longest Sam.

So our largest Singh is caught up in a mess now:

Bomb-Sell Khan bobs round and round

And the dragon dances all around.

The longest Sam’s watching on the WH-mount;

And the Bomb-Iyers nag and nag for more amount.

The Bomb-Iyers have been promising radically big and radiantly (or radioactively?) bright things that could stop the BS Khans, scare away the Beijing ghost, make the largest Singh look like the longest Sam, and even secure him a place in history, in future, in the history of future, in the future of history, and all at the same time.

Alas, Bomb-Iyers turn out to be idle extortionists. They keep asking for more money, more time, more secrecy, more laws, more (foreign) help, more patience, more waste, more, more, more. In the meantime, the demons still keep coming (albeit in smaller numbers) and the dragon continues to haunt. As the going gets tough in CD (Capital Delhi), the largest Singh goes to DC.

In DC, the longest Sam plots a strategy:

Hmm…how about I give the largest Singh the technology vampire

Just as my good ol’ Brit cousins threw his textile knowledge into bonfire.

That will certainly pull the rug under the feet of Bomb-Iyers

And give me complete control to tie ‘em all up with just one coir.

The longest Sam screams at the top of his voice: “Now Clear…Now Clear…New Clear …Nucular!”


Sam beckons Singh; Singh obliges Sam. The largest democracy and the longest democracy meet! In a totally undemocratic manner, of course! The largest Singh had not taken his people into confidence before giving up his independence in important policy matters. Similarly, the longest Sam has had no consultations with his people or policymakers or foreign friends (and fiends).

Having agreed upon something (only portions of which have been shared with their respective popular and representative constituencies), the longest Sam and the largest Singh are going back to work - to make the deal democratic. With hands around each other, they mutter in unison: “Strange workings of the democratic spirit!”

And the people in the largest Singh’s native land who have been trying to get rid of the parasitic Bomb-Iyers and their ‘vegetarian’ and ‘non-vegetarian’ nuclear diets look all worried. Do Singh and Sam do something about this nuclear menace? The largest Singh and the longest Sam swing their bottoms crooning: “Doomed If We Do, Doomed If We Don’t.”



Part II: The Energy Carrot and the China Stick


In a paper entitled “India as a New Global Power: An Action Agenda for the United States” (2005), Ashley J. Tellis, a US-India relations specialist at Carnegie Endowment, identifies three constraints on India’s rapid economic growth and on the emergence as a great power: insufficient access to energy, shortage of foreign investment and infrastructural weakness. Suggesting the creation of an energy dialogue as a means to jump-start the US-India relations, Tellis points out that India’s energy challenges cut across multiple realms such as foreign policy, geopolitics, environmental concerns and proliferation.

Discussing in detail the different aspects of India’s civilian nuclear power program and its strengths and weaknesses, such as the Department of Atomic Energy’s (DAE) three-stage program and its implications, India’s shortage of natural uranium, the rich thorium reserves etc., Tellis insists that Washington should satisfy New Delhi’s need for nuclear energy. To circumvent the problem of integrating India into the global nonproliferation order, he comes up with five illustrative options the United States has and envisions six end-states of integrating India into the Global Nuclear Regime.

However, two considerations weigh heavily in the analysis of Tellis that reflect the concerns of his Washington masters. One, the US should increase India’s access to civilian nuclear energy that implies integration with the global regime, “because this course of action alone provides the best guarantee that New Delhi will scrupulously control its national capabilities permanently and thus choke off the only real security threat emanating from India to the United States.” Two, integrating India into the nonproliferation order at the cost of capping the size of its nuclear deterrent could “place New Delhi at a severe disadvantage vis-à-vis Beijing, a situation that could not only undermine Indian security but also U.S. interests in Asia in the face of the prospective rise of Chinese power over the long term.”

In other words, Tellis, who is a close confidant of Robert Blackwill, the former American ambassador to India, who has brokered this current US-India deal proposes that the US should help India with the civilian nuclear program and get a foothold in Indian affairs and policies and also advocates closer bilateral relations that is steeped in American military sales and support for India’s growing nuclear weapons program Thus the so-called India nuclear deal, as the American media have christened, comprises of ‘the energy carrot and the China stick’ that the United States will employ to drive India into subservience.

According to the “Indo-US Joint Statement,” the Indian nuclear establishment will have to identify and separate civilian and military nuclear facilities and programs “in a phased manner” and file a declaration regarding the civilian facilities with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It should take a decision to ”place voluntarily its civilian nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards” and should also sign and adhere “to an Additional Protocol with respect to civilian nuclear facilities.” India will continue the “unilateral” moratorium on nuclear testing and persist with the non-proliferation export control policies. India will also work with the US on concluding the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT) and adhere to the guidelines of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). Interestingly enough, nobody knows what these “phased manner,” “declaration,” voluntary placement, IAEA safeguards, and the “Additional Protocol” all mean or will consist of.

The “Indo-US Joint Statement” is also vague about its nuclear fuel commitments. It says that the US administration will work with the US Congress and their friends and allies in order to “adjust” the national laws and policies and the international regimes “to enable full civil nuclear energy cooperation and trade with India, including but not limited to expeditious consideration of fuel supplies for safeguarded nuclear reactors at Tarapur.” So nuclear fuel for Tarapur plants are promised even without talking about the four-decade-old plants’ continued viability or the decommissioning aspects. Similarly, the US “will encourage its partners” to consider the fuel request expeditiously. Although this is a rather clumsy and vague undertaking, countries like Russia, who have been constrained by the NSG commitments and hence reluctant to supply the fuel for Tarapur and construct additional nuclear plants in India, may jump at this opportunity and go berserk.

The deal also talks about the United States’ willingness to “consult with its partners…with a view toward India’s inclusion” in the ITER and Generation IV International Forum. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is a project in which six countries are experimenting under the aegis of IAEA with a hydrogen plasma torus to design and build nuclear fusion power plants. Generation IV is a project undertaken by ten countries under the US Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology to examine concepts that may bring about economical, safe, proliferation-resistant and less-waste-producing nuclear reactors.

New Delhi along with its ‘big-on-words-and-small-on-action’ Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) is embarking upon a highly ambitious plan of producing 20,000 MW power from nuclear power plants by the year 2020 and increasing that ceiling to 40,000 MW eventually. For such a grand plan to fructify, India needs lots and lots of natural or enriched uranium fuel. Although the DAE has been talking about fast breeder reactors, using thorium as fuel, and constructing advanced heavy water reactors (AHWRs), New Delhi seems to have realized that the only way to get so much nuclear fuel and generate more power is through some kind of an arrangement with external sources. For such a thing to happen, the Nuclear Suppliers Group should relax its strict regime and make exceptions for India. And that could happen only with the blessings of the United States.

However, the current US Non-proliferation Act prevents India and other countries that have not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty from acquiring a wide range of US military technology that included components that could be used for nuclear programs. Although the current deal promises assistance with civilian nuclear program, it all remains to be seen if the US Congress will be willing to change the nonproliferation act that bars American nuclear energy aid to nuclear weapons states or if the NSG will be ready to bend its rules for India. It will also be interesting to see if the US, that has not built a new nuclear power station since 1996, will resume constructing nuclear power projects. After all, the American public is not enthusiastic about this. For instance, when the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant came up for re-licensing in the state of New Jersey last summer (2004), the entire civil society was up in arms against the move and stopped it.

The United States has specific goals to achieve in signing the current deal. It wants to accelerate India’s rise as a global power only to place it as a regional counterweight to China. Interestingly, a Pentagon report on China’s military strength, released when Dr. Manmohan Singh was in the US, argues that China is increasing its nuclear arsenal and that the Chinese missiles can strike India, Russia, and all of the United States.

As a country that thrives on the sale of weapons and military technologies, the United States also has business plans in mind. According to the Indo-US Joint Statement, President Bush has said, “as a responsible state with advanced nuclear technology, India should acquire the same benefits and advantages as other such states.” These “benefits and advantages” would be India’s purchasing $ 5 billion worth of conventional military equipment from the US including anti-submarine patrol aircraft that could spot Chinese submarines in the Indian Ocean, and Aegis radars that could help the Indian destroyers operating in the strategic Strait of Malacca monitor the Chinese military.

It is also speculated that India may be allowed to buy the Arrow Missile System developed by Israel with American technology. Some analysts have pointed out that the US may also try to sell the AP-1000 reactors made by Westinghouse. It is important to note that the Bush administration tried to sell the same to China with the largest-ever loan granted by the U.S. Export-Import Bank. Strangely enough, these “benefits and advantages” that India may be bestowed with for its responsibility, democracy and all of that do not include even a simple acknowledgement of India’s aspirations for a seat in the UN Security Council, or its recognition as a nuclear power with a seat in the NSG.



In return for the American promises (most of which are vague and unpromising), India seems to have given some important security, energy and foreign policy concessions to the United States. For example, right after signing the deal, the Indian Prime Minister remarked to The Washington Post that the $7.4 billion India-Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project was fraught with risks and difficulties. The United States is opposed to this project and their objection emanates from the fact that the project could generate much needed hard currency for Iran and from the fear that it could be used for Tehran’s nuclear program.

The joint statement is also completely silent about the traditional principles and values that India has consistently voiced in the international arena such as nuclear disarmament, total abolition of weapons of mass destruction and so forth. Instead, the deal simply mentions the American welcome of “the adoption by India of legislation on WMD (Prevention of Unlawful Activities Bill).” Just as the WMD Bill was hurriedly passed before the prime minister’s trip to the US, the Atomic Energy Act of 1962 is also being amended to facilitate private investment in nuclear power generation. Dr. Singh’s call for investment may prod US companies to jump into nuclear energy production with serious repercussions to our strategic interests, national security, sovereignty, independence and freedom.

The claim that opening up our civilian nuclear power plants for international inspection will curtail India’s diverting the spent uranium fuel to be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium is also misplaced. It is important to remember that the plutonium for the 1974 test came from the safeguarded Tarapur plant after all. Moreover, there will always be research reactors, and underhanded methods that are not altogether unknown in the field of nuclear science and in the military-industrial complex. Most importantly, the agreement is deliberately silent about India not producing weapons-grade plutonium or not expanding the country’s nuclear arsenal.

It is highly unlikely that the United States will ensure the strict implementation of the IAEA safeguard procedures and hold the DAE accountable for all its commissions and omissions. First, a complete and thorough stocktaking is very hard to do since it will be the DAE that will be guiding the IAEA authorities. Second, since the American interests weigh heavily in the whole scheme and they want India to do the dirty job of containing the Chinese, they may turn a blind eye to the whole process. Washington will certainly poke its nose into the Indian nuclear program for espionage and business purposes and to monitor the growth of the Indian advanced technology sector. After all, the US has expressed its willingness to “adjust U.S. laws and policies” and to “work” with friends and allies to “adjust international regimes” to accomplish the current deal. This “adjustment” culture is not an expedient measure but a time-tested oft-repeated ‘wink and nod’ practice in the political-diplomatic world.

So, one would be thoroughly mistaken if one were to think that the specified safeguard measures mentioned in the deal would finally bring some kind of transparency, accountability and popular participation (TAPs) to the workings of the DAE. In fact, the Indian Foreign Secretary, Shyam Saran, has already indicated that they would not agree to any discriminatory safeguards, meaning India would object to obligations that discriminated between nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states. In other words, the IAEA team could do in India what it would do in the United States and other nuclear powers and nothing more.

If this “India nuclear deal” somehow goes through, the non-proliferation efforts of humanity will take a severe beating as it will justify all the clandestine nuclear programs around the world. In fact, the Chinese premier has already talked about enhancing bilateral nuclear cooperation between his country and Pakistan by selling the latter two more nuclear reactors. The legal and policy “adjustments” that the US administration promises to India will expose Washington’s hypocrisy and double-standards and seriously undercut their efforts to confront North Korea, Iran and other countries. In the international arena, clandestine nuclear program may even become a tool to win the major powers’ attention and other incentives. If India wins Western patronage and pampering through the nuclear route, next in line may be Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan and others who are capable of producing nuclear weapons.

The one and only silver lining in this dark and gloomy cloud is that the international safeguards and verification may finally call the DAE bluff, and expose their stale and sordid science and copycat Chandni-Chowk-type technology. Quite understandably, the Indian nuclear establishment is very much worked up about the likely chances of subjecting their civilian nuclear facilities to international safeguards and verification. It is not that they have invented anything new or original or valuable that may be prematurely exposed to the outside world and thus it would curtail their scientific prowess or advancement. Having gobbled up unlimited amount of public money and national resources for more than five decades, the DAE produces less electricity than what the rickety windmills generate with little attention or support from the government. The latest nuclear accomplishment in India is going bananas. The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) scientists have developed the technology to extract the juice from banana. According to these scientists, as much as 60 per cent of the total soluble material in a banana can be extracted and the leftover pulp can be used as an additive in confectioneries, milk shakes and baby food. How wonderful!

A simple cost-benefit analysis of the “India nuclear deal” would reveal the nasty picture that is emerging. We will have Uncle Sam sitting in our living room poking his imperialistic nose into every sphere of our national life constantly calculating his selfish gains and cunningly pushing us into our neighbor’s yard. We would be doing the dirty job of confronting China at the cost of jeopardizing our (relatively) good neighborly relations. The already anti-democratic and anti-people money-guzzling Indian nuclear establishment will continue with its lackadaisical performance and gain considerably from the newly found international legitimacy. The nuclear expenditure will increase exponentially; there will ensue militarism, arms race with China, insecurity and underdevelopment. The ordinary Indian citizen will scrape along in poverty and misery as he has always been.