With 86 members of the United States Senate voting in favour of the civil nuclear agreement with India, and only 13 against, the process set in motion three years ago by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush has reached a satisfactory conclusion. Few would have thought such a day possible. Going by the prevailing dogma, even contemplating trade in nuclear materials and equipment with a country refusing to sign the NPT and developing its own nuclear deterrent was taboo.
Much of the credit for this historic development — which disregarded the belief of an age in an effort to craft a new paradigm in world affairs — goes to the unwavering political support to the idea from President Bush. Naturally, the US leader himself was ecstatic when the news of the Senate vote came in.
He said the development would lay the foundation of a far-going, strategic relationship. Joseph Biden, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, noted rightly that the voting showed that the support in the chamber was broad, solid, and bipartisan. While two killer amendments moved by Democratic senators were shot down, the legislation that was so overwhelmingly endorsed makes it clear that cooperation in the civil nuclear field would cease if India conducted a nuclear test.
This is in line with the purport of the measure passed in the House of Representatives last week as well as the Hyde Act. But Indians would not have failed to note that in order to bring the Democrats around, before the Senate vote, secretary of state Condoleezza Rice wrote to Senate majority leader Harry Reid that “most serious consequences” would follow if India were to go in for a test in the future. Not only would nuclear cooperation cease but other sanctions would also follow. Conceptually, there is nothing surprisingly new about this, given the traditional American perspective on non-proliferation.
Equally, however, such thinking is not in accord with the spirit of the negotiations of the bilateral 123 Agreement between the two countries. Therefore, there is certain to be considerable interest in New Delhi in the presidential statement that would accompany the American legislation. Meeting the Indian Prime Minister in Washington recently, President Bush had said the final outcome ought to be such as to be acceptable to both the United States and to India. India would naturally be waiting to see what mitigating language he brings into play to align the new US legislation with the meaning and intention of the 123 Agreement signed between this country and the US.
The Indian leadership has been emphatic that it would be guided solely by the 123 Agreement, which envisages that both sides take a look at the balance of circumstances pertaining to security in the region, should India conduct a test. Essentially, this means that future testing does not automatically mean end of nuclear cooperation with the US. There is also the consideration that countries like France and Russia do not bring with them the equivalent of the newly passed American legislation in respect of nuclear trade with India. If the US envisages a transformed era in relations with India, this is something that cannot be kept out of view.
