Why did the Congress-UPA leaders put their own government in peril for the sake of just one deal? Was it really a noble aim of securing energy security for India, that motivated the no-holds-barred bullying, barter and buying of support during the trust vote in Parliament? Every Indian needs to know: what are the real implications of the Deal?
According to the agreement with the IAEA, the Deal was necessary to meet “the twin challenges of energy security and protection of the environment”. If we are to believe the advertisements taken out by the government of India in the national press, nuclear power is absolutely necessary basically for three reasons: it produces more energy than any other source; it is the most efficient, safe and environmentally cleanest source of energy; it becomes more important in light of rising oil prices. The substance of these claims we will examine in the pages that follow, but at least a simple fact must be noted here. The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) tells us that the installed nuclear power capacity in the country as of May 31, 2008 is only 4120 MW, as compared to a total power generation capacity 144,565 MW, that is, about 2.85 percent. And according to figures provided by Anil Kakodkar, chairperson of the Department of Atomic Energy, the deal will increase India’s installed energy capacity only by 2.5% by 2020. The bulk of electricity in the country, and indeed in the whole world, comes from coal.
Clearly the urgent desperation for the Deal did not lie in our growing energy needs; that counts only as the most plausible pretext.
We should remember the Trojan Horse and ask ourselves: why does the US want this Deal? What are the strings attached to this ‘gift’?
The Bush Administration’s immediate stake was to try and add an item to the republican government’s empty success card. Another is to pump up U.S. reactor sales — the industry has been running without any new orders for more than 30 years. But the most important reason lies in US geopolitical strategy. The basic motive in this case is to make India into Washington’s most trusted regional pawn in South Asia. As Barack Obama’s declared support to the deal indicates, the US establishment is broadly behind Bush on the last two questions.
It must also be said that the ‘gift’ itself is hardly as generous as it seems. The Indian Government makes much of the claim that India, as a privileged exception to NSG norms, is to receive nuclear fuel supply although it has not signed the NPT. However, this claim is belied by the fact that India, with its voluntary moratorium, has already conceded as much.
The meeting point between New Delhi and Washington came out in bold relief in a joint press conference at Hokkaido, Japan, held just after the Indian Prime Minister informed the US president about his decision to go ahead and operationalise the deal.
“I thank the President for his personal magnificent contribution to the evolution of our relationship”, said an ebullient Manmohan Singh. “… it is the intention of my government” , he added, ” [and]… the will of the Indian people, particularly the thinking segments of our population, that … whether it is a question of climate change, whether it is a question of managing the global economy, India and United States must stand tall, stand shoulder to shoulder, and that’s what is going to happen.” Those who are opposing the nuclear deal in India are thoughtless, brainless creatures, he implied. The full spectrum support or rather submission was duly reciprocated by George W. Bush. Expressing great respect for the Indian Prime Minister, he said: “… I think it’s very important that the United States continues to work with our friend to develop not only a new strategic relationship, but a relationship that addresses some of the world’s problems.”
More recently, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, making a case for the Deal before the US Congress, put it candidly, “the nuclear balance in the region is a function of the political and military situation in the region. We are far more likely to be able to influence these regional dynamics” with the Indo-US Nuke Deal in place. In other words, the Nuke Deal will bind India to enabling the US to ‘influence’ the ‘political and military situation in the region.’
The single message emanating from both sides was clear enough. America wants India, and India is ready, to play second fiddle in the international campaigns of the latter, and coming on top of a long list of recent pacts, the nuclear deal was to be viewed as the gateway to this new, higher level of strategic partnership. The Manmohan government seeks to justify this on the thoroughly comprador logic that India can grow taller and stronger only by going deeper and deeper into American embrace in economic (including energy), diplomatic and military domains.
And this is where the people of India are dead against the deal. History knows of countless instances — the latest one being the recent air-raid on Pakistan — to show that the United States is a country that looks after its own interests alone in both friendship and enmity. Anchored in the US Hyde Act, the deal will push India’s energy economy into alarming depths of dependency on the US. Informed scientific and patriotic-democratic opinion in the country has already rejected it as a charter of modern-day slavery. Some pseudo-nationalists would have us believe that our country is too big to be dominated by any other; but history tells us that size is no bar here: undivided India was even bigger when tiny England kept it in subjugation for nearly 200 years.
The other most vital plank on which the deal must be opposed concerns the utter contempt for national opinion that has characterised the government’s conduct all through. Ronen Sen’s “headless chickens” comment against MPs was condoned; P Chidambaram in his convocation address at IIM Ahmedabad in March last year went on record saying, “Indian … democracy has often paralyzed decision making … this approach must change”; after the deal was halted in November Manmohan Singh wondered, in front of an international audience at the Fourth International Conference on Federalism, whether a “single party state” would be preferable. Add to this the paranoiac non-transparency with which the whole thing has been rushed through. The text of the draft safeguards agreement negotiated with the IAEA secretariat was kept a secret from the nation, even the parliament, even the MPs who for all practical purposes formed the second tier of government, on the false ground that IAEA rules required the Indian government to treat it as a “privileged” and confidential document. All this constituted a serious affront to democracy and we must punish the UPA Government for it. Thirdly, we must resist the deal because nuclear energy is by no means a safe, viable and desirable option for meeting India’s energy needs either at this juncture or in the foreseeable future.
