M.D. Nalapat
Manipal, India — Contrary to the
expectations of Congress Party boss Sonia Gandhi and Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, last week's special meeting in Vienna of the 45-member Nuclear
Suppliers Group ended in deadlock. The meeting had been requested by the United
States to approve George W. Bush's quest for a "clean waiver" for the
resumption of nuclear trade with India – commerce that had been frozen since
India's 1974 nuclear test.
Tellingly, all but one of the countries
opposing India were either European, or of largely European stock. The one
exception was Japan, a country that prides itself on its people being the
"Westerners of the East."
Expectedly, Austria led the Euro-attack
against the proposed exemption, reiterating the bloc’s 34-year demand that
India be forced to accept full-scope safeguards on all its nuclear facilities,
as well as sign on to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty. New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Finland, Switzerland and Ireland
joined hands with Japan in backing the Austrian stand, even though each had
been individually made aware by Indian negotiators that any such conditions
would result in India walking away from the deal.
Unfortunately for backers of the deal,
reports reaching New Delhi suggest that the Bush point person for the talks,
Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation
John Rood, proved to be less than enthusiastic about securing a clean waiver
for India. In this, Rood is following in the path of his predecessor Robert
Joseph, who had also been unenthusiastic about the deal. Both are members of
the U.S. nonproliferation mainstream that for decades has focused on India – a
state that has never proliferated its technology beyond its own borders – while
doing little about U.S. policies that have winked at proliferation by Pakistan,
China and North Korea.
When Manmohan Singh signed on to a joint
statement with U.S. President George W. Bush on July 18, 2005, it was assumed
that Washington recognized that the 1.16 billion-strong democracy – which has
nearly 300 million English speakers and is rapidly becoming a strategic U.S.
ally – had by its unblemished nonproliferation record earned the right to
nuclear commerce as "a country possessing advanced nuclear
technology."
Clearly, many within the Bush
administration disagree, standing with those European countries that have
sought to derail the nuclear deal at the Nuclear Suppliers Group, despite India
having offered to place 70 percent of its existing reactors under safeguards.
Incidentally, both France and the United Kingdom have strongly backed India in
the NSG, thus indicating that not all European countries are resentful of India
being given a clean waiver by the NSG.
Should the NSG approve a deal already
cleared by the International Atomic Energy Agency and nuclear trade with India
resume, a future administration would be likely to continue the country's
moratorium on nuclear testing, which was announced by Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee soon after the 1998 tests. However, should the deal fall
through, the way would be clear for the next administration in India to resume
nuclear testing and begin to move away from New Delhi's longstanding policy of
ignoring lucrative foreign offers for purchase of its technologies.
Funding on a significant scale would be
needed to develop an adequate nuclear energy program in the absence of an NSG
nod, and trade in such technologies would be a likely route toward mobilizing
the funding needed. Ironically therefore, the group that is opposing India's
being given any option other than unconditional surrender of its strategic
deterrent is playing into the hands of nuclear hawks who are expected to have a
muscular voice in the government that will be formed after the 2009 general
election.
Given the strong domestic opposition even
to the concessions already made by Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh to clinch
the deal with the United States, it will not be possible for New Delhi to agree
to any further conditions. What the Austria-led group is looking for is an
Indian commitment to sign on to the NPT, the CTBT and the Fissile Material
Cut-off Treaty as a non-nuclear-weapons state, a position that would reduce to
nonsense India's 55-year odyssey toward becoming an independent nuclear and
space power.
Clearly, some within the international
community are not yet ready to accept a world order in which those of an
ethnicity different from themselves be given the same privileges as they
themselves enjoy. Unless of course that country be China, which is not only
responsible for making North Korea and Pakistan nuclear powers, but which is
fawned on by all the countries now opposing India at the NSG.
With others doing its work of preventing a
clear waiver to India, Beijing can put on a cooperative mien, hoping that
others will derail the consensus needed for NSG decisions to become effective.
When the NSG re-convenes on Sept. 4 to
discuss the India waiver, should the Austria-led group succeed in pushing to
impose additional – and unacceptable – conditions on India, such actions would
be reminiscent of the way in which Moscow's diplomatic nose was buried in the
mud in the former Yugoslavia by NATO in the 1990s. And as recent events in
Georgia show, eventually there will be payback for those who have not
understood that the world they exist in bears little resemblance to the world
in the 19th century, when a single ethnic group dominated the world.
This century calls for a close alliance
between the countries with European-origin majorities and India, in order to
face the twin threats of religious extremism and state authoritarianism. An
all-round alliance with India is key even to the continued economic success of
Euro-majority countries – yet this baby may be stillborn thanks to Austria and
its allies should they succeed in throwing out the bathwater of the NSG's
proposed India-specific nuclear waiver. Much more is at stake in Vienna on
Sept. 4 than nuclear trade with India.
-(Professor M.D. Nalapat is
vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and
professor of geopolitics at Manipal University. ©Copyright M.D. Nalapat.)
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