Nuclear Deal

Some of you might know that I harbor a deep interest in Strategic affairs, and my area of interest has been the Indo-US relations. Given this, it is no surprising fact that I have been following the meetings that are being held on the Nuclear Deal.

At the onset itself, let me say that I believe that our PM Manmohan Singh is an honorable man, one of the few who has any credibility left, and I do not believe that he talks with a forked tongue. He may not be a great orator, but who ever writes his speeches is an intelligent and sensitive person, and his speeches are some of the best I have ever read of any PM. His speech in Oxford, though it received a lot of flack, was an excellent piece of writing and communicated some wonderful observations. Read it here.

Yesterday afternoon, he gave a speech in the Rajya Sabha, detailing out the plans for the separation of Civil and Military Nuclear assets. He laid to rest the various doubts that many people harbored and washed away all doubts from my mind about the importance and need of this process.

Some history lessons are in order. India under the leadership of Nehruvian Ideas, refused to sign the NPT, because it was discriminatory. What it said was basically that, those countries who had nuclear weapons could keep them while others who had not developed them so far, could enjoy the Civilian uses with the help of abovementioned countries, as long as they promised to not develop nuclear weapons. It was a treaty to preserve the world order as of that day. Those countries who did not sign the treaty, like India, would not be helped by the 5 Nuclear powers, towards peaceful uses of Nuclear technology. With this in mind, it a matter of great relief the Canada and Russia has helped us in building several reactors.

Unlike the US which has great reserves of Uranium, India has large reserves of Thorium, so She decided to work towards Thorium reactors. We have not made much progress on this, having reactors with the Maximum capacity of only 220Mw.

With the Economy growing at an Tremendous pace, the need of infrastructure was greater then ever before. Electric power has become one of the most needed resources in India today. India had to look at other sources of Power, and Nuclear Power came at the top of that list. It was with these needs in mind that Manmohan Singh signed that Infamous July 18th agreement.

As Dr Sings said,

As India strives to raise its annual GDP growth rate from the present 7-8% to over 10%, the energy deficit will only worsen. This may not only retard growth, it could also impose an additional burden in terms of the increased cost of importing oil and natural gas, in a scenario of sharply rising hydrocarbon prices. While we have substantial reserves of coal, excessive dependence on coal-based energy has its own implications for our environment. Nuclear technology provides a plentiful and non-polluting source of power to meet our energy needs. However, to increase the share of nuclear power in our energy mix, we need to break out of the confines imposed by inadequate reserves of natural uranium, and by international embargos that have constrained our nuclear programme for over three decades.

According to me, the greates thing to come out of this agreement is that US has acknowledged India as a Nuclear Power, and has not asked her to give up the weapons.

But more importantly, in the Joint Statement, the United States implicitly acknowledged the existence of our nuclear weapons programme. There was also public recognition that as a responsible State with advanced nuclear technologies, India should acquire the same benefits and advantages as other States which have advanced nuclear technology, such as the United States. The Joint Statement offered the possibility of decades-old restrictions being set aside to create space for India'’s emergence as a full member of a new nuclear world order.

For India to get Nuclear fuel as well as the expertise she needs, all she had to do was separate her Civil and Military installations. The Civil installations would be under IAEA safeguard, while India could do what she wanted at the military sites. Even the choice of marking a site as Civil or Military lay with India. As the PM said,

We have ensured that our three-stage nuclear programme will not be undermined or hindered by external interference. We will offer to place under safeguards only those facilities that can be identified as civilian without damaging our deterrence potential or restricting our R&D effort, or in any way compromising our autonomy of developing our three stage nuclear programme.

Neither have our strategic interestss been harmed. Unlike what some people believe,

nothing that could compromise our nuclear deterrent has been shared with anyone.

I believe that this deal, when it goes through, will be one of the best things that could happen for India. She will be helped in building more reactors, thus generating more power, while being allowed to keep her weapons.

Some people believe that the US will not keep her part of the deal, coz this deal will not be passed by Congress. To them I will only say, that the Bush presidency has had an excellent history of passing legislation thru Congress, which neither the Democrats nor the Republicans wanted. Getting this bill passed is the work of Bush, and if Congress does not pass this deal, we have Bush to blame.