Deterring pressure

By now critics in India should have realised that the Indo-US nuclear deal is a good one for India and that those negotiating it are not about to keel over and play dead when confronted with US pressure to do this or that.

By now critics in India should have realised that the Indo-US nuclear deal is a good one for India and that those negotiating it are not about to keel over and play dead when confronted with US pressure to do this or that. US efforts to try to get a formal commitment from India not to undertake further nuclear testing on the pain of terminating the putative cooperation under the deal can only be seen as a somewhat desultory ploy to calm the US non-proliferation ayatollahs. The Americans know very well that a country that stood resolutely against the ‘in perpetuity’ extension of the NPT and virtually single-handedly blocked the CTBT in the mid-Nineties, is unlikely to give in on this issue.

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India has, of course, already agreed to maintain a self-imposed moratorium on further testing. New Delhi’s aversion to a formal commitment was clearly spelt out by its diplomats during the negotiations over the CTBT in mid-1996. Its view was that the nuclear weapons States had agreed on ending explosive testing because they had garnered enough knowledge from the hundreds of tests they had already done. New Delhi also made it clear that while it would not sign the treaty, it would not oppose it either. Despite this, provisions were incorporated insisting that without the signature of New Delhi and some other States capable of making nuclear weapons, it would not come into force. Arguably, this attempt to box in India was the catalyst that led to the Pokhran II tests. As is well-known, US pressure prevented a test in December 1996, as did political uncertainty in 1997. But in 1998, at the first opportunity, the tests were conducted.

The current Indo-US nuclear deal has benefits for both India and the US. As the two sides move to a formal bilateral agreement they need to keep the provisions of the July 18, 2005 joint statement in sharp focus. The proposed Indo-US nuclear cooperation agreement is to be about cooperation for civil nuclear technology. It seeks to end a comprehensive US embargo of the Indian nuclear programme. It’s key preconditions are that India separate its civil and military programmes, and that the US open up to the former and learn to live with the latter.