Bush in India: What's a nuke
between friends? By Siddharth
Srivastava
NEW DELHI - "India's friend,
world's bully", a caption on the cover of the
latest edition of a weekly newsmagazine, sums up
the feelings of some on the eve of the three-day
visit to India by US President George W Bush.
The itinerary is in place, with Bush
slated to be in India on Wednesday evening. The
visit will include a last-ditch effort to sew
up the
nuclear deal signed between the two countries in
July. His likely agenda, not released for security
reasons, includes meetings with dignitaries on
Thursday, and a visit to information-technology
hub Hyderabad the next day followed by an address
from the Old Fort in Delhi in the evening, which
will be telecast live to catch breakfast viewers
in the United States. Bush leaves for Pakistan on
Saturday.
Attention has been focused on
the nuclear deal, which could be the highlight of
the visit if Washington agrees to an Indian offer
made this week. After much debate, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh has detailed a blueprint on how the
government would separate its civilian and
military nuclear programs, while keeping the
contentious experimental fast-breeder reactors.
"We have judged every proposal made by the
US side on merits, but we remain firm in that the
decision of what facilities may be identified as
civilian will be made by India alone, and not by
anyone else," Manmohan told parliament on Monday.
"Our proposed separation plan entails identifying
in phases a number of our thermal nuclear reactors
as civilian facilities to be placed under
safeguards, amounting to roughly 65% of the total
installed thermal nuclear power capacity, by the
end of the separation plan."
It is now up
to Bush to respond.
Many observers have
said there will be pressure to implement the
Indo-US nuclear deal given the lucrative market
India offers, with Washington ultimately toeing
New Delhi's line. Though Washington is pushing for
the conclusion of the deal during the Bush visit,
experts say the hurdles are only likely to be
overcome in the US Congress in May when the
Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is likely to change
some rules.
No country (especially France,
Canada and Russia) wants to lose out on the
nuclear contracts that could follow, while New
Delhi is committed to reducing dependence on
fossil fuels as well us shoring up energy
requirements for a growing economy.
In an
indication of US intentions, American officials
have provided an extended briefing in New Delhi on
the new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. GNEP
envisages a new worldwide nuclear system in which
a core of supplier nations will provide nuclear
fuel and technology to a set of user nations. The
partnership has received strong endorsement from
Russia and other nuclear nations such as Japan and
China, and officials say the Bush administration
plans to invite India formally as soon as the
current Indo-US nuclear deal is signed.
However, it is also true Indo-US relations
have gathered a momentum beyond nuclear aspects,
spanning business, defense and the strategic
sphere.
Indian Express editor Shekhar
Gupta wrote: "The two most divisive forces in the
world today are growing anti-Americanism in one
part of the world and rising Islamophobia in the
other. Both are definitely on the decline in
India. India's economic growth and promise,
combined with the success of its pluralistic,
secular democratic model have given it a unique
position in this flattening world to play way
above its league, punch above its weight."
There are of course dissonant voices as
well. While New Delhi will welcome Bush with open
arms, the left parties, crucial coalition partners
in the government, have begun their anti-US
tirades. A direct fallout of leftist posturing is
that Bush will not get to address a joint session
of the Indian parliament, despite several reports
of Manmohan making a personal appeal to the left
parties to allow it. Late last year the left
parties organized massive rallies against an
Indo-US air exercise in the state of West Bengal
(the left's bastion), in which F-16 fighter jets
took part in mock sorties for the first time in
India. Similar protests are likely to happen
across the country when Bush arrives.
A
senior left-party leader, A B Bardhan, said
recently that strong protests would be mounted
throughout the country against Bush. He described
the US president as "the ugly face of the most
aggressive imperialism in the world". In more
saber-rattling, West Bengal Chief Minister
Buddhadev Bhattacharya said Bush is the leader of
"the most organized pack of killers". Noted left
leader Jyoti Basu has labeled Bush as the "biggest
terrorist of the world". The left has also
criticized the Manmohan Singh government for not
supporting Tehran's cause in its fight over its
nuclear program, though New Delhi has made it
clear it will not stand for another nuclear power
in its neighborhood.
The left prides
itself in its anti-US stand, which constantly
irritates the government, and has also managed to
block several economic-reform measures, describing
them as anti-poor, which hits at the proponents of
free competition. The government, which wants to
push the liberalization process, has shown some
muscle in pushing through the
airport-privatization process and changes in
retail norms.
The left's antipathy toward
the US is rooted in its anti-imperialist,
anti-colonial and socialist ideologies, though its
unstinted support of China is paradoxical, given
the communist country's espousal of capitalism.
The left parties criticize Pakistan's nuclear
arsenal while at the same time opposing New
Delhi's stand against Iran. The left parties
follow an impression that an anti-US stand goes
down well with an electorate (particularly in West
Bengal, which voted them into parliament), which
has not benefited from economic reforms and
progress.
Meanwhile, comparisons are being
made between Bush's visit and the last one made by
a US president, Bill Clinton. While it is true
that Bush can't match the Clinton charm, with its
attention to Indian culture, food and impromptu
dances with village belles, his visit is likely to
be remembered in history as the moment when the
two countries made the decisive turn toward each
other in a unipolar world after their differing
Cold War affiliations.
Siddharth
Srivastava is a New Delhi-based
journalist.
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