M D Nalapat
Within
a week, President Barack Obama will come to India on a three-day
visit,” the most time that he has spent in a single country” since
assuming office. It seems an age ago, but just four years ago, it was
then Senator from Illinois Barack Obama who introduced a killer
amendment to the Senate legislation ratifying the Bush-Singh nuclear
deal. Some weeks previous to this effort, Senator Obama had met a small
group of Indians visiting Washington in order to sound out legislators
on the agreement. At the breakfast meeting, which was held at the
residence of a prominent Indian-American Obama backer, the brilliant and
very persuasive junior senator was transparent in his distaste at the
attempt by George W Bush to give India the same rights in nuclear
commerce as those states that had signed the Non-proliferation Treaty.
Obama clearly saw India as undeserving of the privilege of nuclear
commerce unless it first gave up its nuclear weapons, a view that he
shared with the leaders of almost all of Europe, Australasia, East Asia
and North America.
The only reason that the Nuclear Suppliers Group accepted the US contention that India merited a waiver was the steady and relentless pressure exerted by President Bush. To the final hours before the final NSG vote two years ago, Bush and Condoleezza Rice cajoled world leaders among the 45 member-states to ensure a unanimous decision favouring India. To the last, countries such as Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand and China opposed the waiver, but finally fell in line because of the diplomatic blitz unleashed by President Bush. Had it been an Obama presidency, there would never have been an India waiver, for the incoming President of the United States has appointed a non-proliferation team whose members have spent much of their working lifetimes trying to get India to follow the advice given by Bill Clinton, which is to “cap, roll back and eliminate” its nuclear and missile deterrent. Although Clinton has got a bad press in India for such insistent advice, he may perhaps not have been aware that India was a country of more than a billion people in a very unpleasant neighbourhood. Or, if he was aware of this, perhaps he may have been willing to introduce legislation to permit a few tens of millions of Indian nationals to settle in the US, should a nuclear attack befall an India that disarms itself under his advice. Bill Clinton has visited India since demitting office as President, usually to paint the country as the endemic focus of either AIDS or as the prime candidate for a nuclear attack. These visits have been sponsored ones, one having as the host Amar Singh, one of the most colourful politicians in India, whose access to big money is as legendary as the wonderful time those attending his many soirees have.
