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US accepts India as a
nuclear buddy
By Siddharth
Srivastava
NEW DELHI - It is one more step
towards achieving the next level of India-US
relations, as well as the US promise to help
cement India as a future global power.
In
a radical shift in nuclear relations between the
two countries, the US has decided to treat India
on a par with recognized nuclear-weapon states,
extending all "benefits and advantages", including
nuclear fuel for civilian nuclear reactors.
These significant decisions are contained
in a joint statement issued after a summit meeting
between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US
President George W Bush in the White House on
Monday.
India, in turn, has promised to be
a responsible nuclear state, including placing its
civilian nuclear facilities under International
Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, continuing its
unilateral moratorium on nuclear tests and
adherence, among other things, to the Missile
Technology Control Regime and Nuclear Suppliers'
Group guidelines.
These moves come despite
India not being a party to the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But Bush said
nuclear cooperation could include "expeditious
consideration of fuel supplies" to the US-built
Tarapur nuclear power plant near Mumbai, which is
reportedly low on fuel because of US restrictions
on India.
Successive US administrations
have refused to approve sales of nuclear material
to India since it has not signed the NPT, which
came into existence in 1968. India feels that the
NPT favors nations that already possess weapons,
and is biased against non-nuclear-weapon states.
However, moving against the conventional
wisdom of Western countries, in January last year
Bush pledged that the US would be willing to help
India with its nuclear energy and space technology
in return for Delhi's promise to use the
assistance for peaceful purposes and to help block
the spread of dangerous weapons. It is a
reflection of the way that the Bush regime looks
to construct a new nuclear global order. The
existing US-led global nuclear regime is
struggling to deal with the fact that North Korea
has declared that it possesses nuclear weapons,
while Iran, according to the US, is intent on
moving in the same direction. The new paradigm
pursued by Bush defines clusters of nations on the
basis of a "trust factor". This would take into
consideration the record of a country in peddling
nuclear technology, as well as indigenous
paradigms which make the existence of such
technology safe/dangerous in a particular country.
India feels there is no reason why it cannot be
trusted, despite staying out of the NPT.
Of course, more factors are at play in the
singling out of India as the first country to be
acknowledged as a nuclear-weapon state by the US
despite it staying out of the NPT.
More
than the content of what has been achieved, it is
the symbolism attached to the Manmohan visit to
the US that is of note. Prime ministers of India,
such as Rajiv Gandhi and P V Narasimha Rao, have
visited the US in the past - but as leaders of the
world's largest democracy, comprising a big
proportion of the world's poor and diseased. As
Manmohan meets with the top echelons of the US
administration, he represents a country considered
an emerging power of the world, a huge market, a
future military power that will counter China in
the region if the need arises, an information
technology powerhouse, the business-processing
back-office of the world, an outsourcing hub and a
research and development center. And also a
country that is as much a victim of terrorism and
party to the "war on terror" as the US.
The changed relationship is already
reflected in the kind of issues that India and the
US have been talking about in the recent past -
military supplies, transfer of nuclear technology
for civilian purposes (which has resulted in the
nuclear deal), cooperation in energy, enhancement
of trade, cooperation in services, agriculture,
AIDS, UN reforms. And the mention of the Kashmir
dispute with Pakistan has been considerably toned
down.
It will take time for each of these
matters to reach complete fruition, given the maze
of laws, both national and international, vested
interests, committees, sub-committees and groups
that will look into them. Differences also exist
on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, as well
as on UN reform.
But mandarins sitting in
foreign offices and manning top business positions
have recognized that a change is needed. What is
more important is that a continuum is being
established that deals with issues that have not
even been in the realm of discussions for decades.
C Raja Mohan, a foreign-policy analyst,
has compared the Manmohan visit to that of Chinese
leader Deng Xiaoping to the US in January 1979. He
says: "China was by no means a strong nation then,
having just begun its economic reforms. It was a
pygmy in comparison to America and Russia. But it
was China's potential to alter the global power
calculus that encouraged Washington to shower
attention on Deng.
"Similarly, while
India's weight in the world system is growing, it
is much weaker than either the US or China. But it
is the prospect that India is emerging as the
"swing state" in the global balance of power that
is shaping Singh's visit to Washington."
While arguing for a place in the comity of
powerful nations that look for economic, social
and military integration, there is also the
immediate threat of terrorism that makes the US
look for allies as well as like-minded nations.
India and the US cannot but be together, with
Pakistan, the traditional Cold War ally of the US,
being increasingly seen as unreliable.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New
Delhi-based journalist.
(Copyright
2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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