Nuclear Suppliers Group now looking to meet during August 21-23 in Vienna
31 July 2008
The Hindu
Pakistan will not press for vote on Indian deal at IAEA
Siddharth Varadarajan
Nuclear Suppliers Group now looking to meet during August 21-23 in Vienna
Vienna: After firing a written salvo against the draft Indian safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Pakistan has backed off and is all set to join the consensus in favour of approving the text when the nuclear watchdog’s Board of Governors meets on August 1.
According to IAEA sources, Pakistan has assured the United States that it will not seek to block approval of the Indian safeguards agreement or call for amendments. Provided Islamabad sticks to its assurances, the August 1 meeting is likely to be a tame affair, though a number of countries are expected to make statements putting on record any misgivings they might have about the deal.
With the smooth approval of the agreement now being taken for granted, vigorous planning is already under way for the nuclear deal’s next step — the grant of a waiver to India by the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The dates now being discussed are August 21-23, with the meeting likely to take place in Vienna itself. And on Wednesday, Department of Atomic Energy chairman Anil Kakodkar met IAEA Director-General Mohammed el-Baradei for the first round of discussions on an additional protocol to the Indian safeguards agreement.
On July 18, Ambassador Shahbaz wrote a four-page letter to all members of the IAEA BoG as well as the NSG criticising the Indian agreement on a number of grounds and calling on other countries to join Pakistan in seeking amendments when the matter was brought before the Board. By July 23, however, Islamabad’s tone changed as its Ambassador made it clear that his delegation did not intend to “impede” the process.
During the IAEA Secretariat’s July 25 briefing on the Indian safeguards agreement, say diplomats, the change in the Pakistani attitude was most visible. Though its Ambassador referred to the letter he had sent, the only question he raised was about Pakistan being able to avail itself of the precedent being set for India. The Secretariat’s representative at the briefing, Vilmos Cserveny, who had in fact been the IAEA’s lead negotiator with India, replied that if Pakistan were to negotiate bilateral or multilateral agreements of the kind India had, a similar umbrella safeguards agreement could be drawn up and its approval would then be up to the BoG.
Though Pakistan has indicated where it will stand on August 1, China has yet to reveal its hand, the IAEA sources say. Officially, its Ambassador says he is still awaiting instructions from Beijing but the sense at the Vienna International Centre — which houses the IAEA and other U.N. agencies here — is that China will also be part of the consensus in favour of the Indian agreement.
In a statement on Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador Schulte said his government was looking forward to “the Board approving the India safeguards agreement on Friday.”
He said the BoG members have had ample time to study the agreement and ask questions of India and the Secretariat. Describing the agreement as one which would “allow India to place 14 reactors under international safeguards in the next six years, plus all future civil reactors,” Ambassador Schulte said the safeguarding of these facilities would be “a net gain for the world’s non-proliferation regime.”
29 July 2008
U.S. says NSG waiver for India will be 'clean' but not 'unconditional'
It also seems that an attempt will be made to tie the implementation of the NSG rule change to the completion of all the necessary domestic steps in the United States...
29 July 2008
The Hindu
No ‘unconditional’ NSG nod for India, says U.S.
Siddharth Varadarajan
New Delhi: Though India has made it clear that it expects the United States to deliver a “clean and unconditional exemption” for it from the export guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Washington says it is committed only to a “clean” and not “unconditional” waiver for New Delhi.
The distinction has not been lost on Indian officials as they await the American draft changes to the NSG guidelines.
According to sources, the draft is still going through the “inter-agency process” in Washington and might be handed over to New Delhi by Tuesday.
At a press conference on July 23, U.S. Ambassador David C. Mulford was at pains to clarify to journalists the distinction between the two concepts. (The audio link is here) He also said the “review by Congress” would be one of the “pieces” that NSG members would consider in granting their waiver, thereby opening the possibility of America seeking to tie the cartel down to not moving ahead with India until the domestic legislative process in the U.S. is complete.
During the internal negotiation process in Washington over the wording of the Hyde Act, the State Department’s principal nuclear negotiator, Richard Stratford, had argued that Congress was getting the sequencing wrong in vetting the 123 Agreement after the NSG had already acted. By insisting that the NSG act first, he said, India would be free to access nuclear supplies from elsewhere even if the U.S. Congress were to shoot down or delay ratification of the 123 Agreement.
Partly in order to deal with this problem, the U.S. is believed to have secured a “political understanding” from Russia and France that they would not rush to conclude export deals with India as soon as the NSG waiver comes through and would wait till Congress has the chance to ratify the 123 Agreement.
But with Congress now looking at a very tight schedule, it is possible some attempt will be made to include language in the NSG waiver making its implementation conditional on America completing its internal steps first.
To the extent to which this kind of drafting language would infringe on the sovereignty of the NSG’s 44 other members, officials here expect that any such move will be resisted by countries such as Russia.
Mulford's statement
At his press conference on July 23, U.S. Ambassador David C. Mulford was emphatic about the proposed waiver for India at the Nuclear Suppliers Group not being “unconditional”.
“I don’t think that you should use the word ‘unconditional waiver’,” he said in response to a question about the NSG. “I mean, what we talked about is getting a clean exemption, that means an exemption that is not laden with detailed concerns that we believe are adequately dealt with elsewhere, for example in the 123 Agreement, and secondly in the IAEA safeguards agreement, and finally in the determinations the President has to make under the Hyde Act.” When the U.S. and other members of the 45-nation NSG “go through this top to bottom,” said Mr. Mulford, “we will be able to move forward with a clean exemption.”
To a follow-up question what sort of conditions the U.S. expected the NSG to impose if the waiver were not unconditional, the Ambassador backtracked somewhat. “Let me go back to this question ‘unconditional waiver’. All I said there was I didn’t think that was the right word. I didn’t say there were going to be conditions,” he clarified. “By referring to it as a clean exemption, what we mean there is [the NSG will] decide to go ahead and agree to support the various pieces that have been put together — the 123 Agreement, the IAEA safeguards … and also the review made by Congress and the presidential determinations which go with that. We hope every country will then say we think this does cover all the issues we have on our mind and that they come out with a consensus for a movement forward which does not have conditions attached to it by the NSG. That’s basically the situation.”
Though he said the waiver not being “unconditional” didn’t mean the NSG exemption would involve conditions, it is significant that Mr. Mulford has been particular about only using the word “clean” when speaking about the waiver.
Asked repeatedly by Karan Thapar on CNBC on July 23 about a “clean and unconditional waiver,” for example, the U.S. Ambassador again used the first term and not the second in his answers each time.
According to Indian officials, the U.S. has been saying for some months now that the NSG waiver could include “reasonable conditionalities” and that the Europeans were insisting on these.
(In the print edition, the story was split into two. The url of the second part is here)
29 July 2008
The Hindu
No ‘unconditional’ NSG nod for India, says U.S.
Siddharth Varadarajan
New Delhi: Though India has made it clear that it expects the United States to deliver a “clean and unconditional exemption” for it from the export guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Washington says it is committed only to a “clean” and not “unconditional” waiver for New Delhi.
The distinction has not been lost on Indian officials as they await the American draft changes to the NSG guidelines.
According to sources, the draft is still going through the “inter-agency process” in Washington and might be handed over to New Delhi by Tuesday.
At a press conference on July 23, U.S. Ambassador David C. Mulford was at pains to clarify to journalists the distinction between the two concepts. (The audio link is here) He also said the “review by Congress” would be one of the “pieces” that NSG members would consider in granting their waiver, thereby opening the possibility of America seeking to tie the cartel down to not moving ahead with India until the domestic legislative process in the U.S. is complete.
During the internal negotiation process in Washington over the wording of the Hyde Act, the State Department’s principal nuclear negotiator, Richard Stratford, had argued that Congress was getting the sequencing wrong in vetting the 123 Agreement after the NSG had already acted. By insisting that the NSG act first, he said, India would be free to access nuclear supplies from elsewhere even if the U.S. Congress were to shoot down or delay ratification of the 123 Agreement.
Partly in order to deal with this problem, the U.S. is believed to have secured a “political understanding” from Russia and France that they would not rush to conclude export deals with India as soon as the NSG waiver comes through and would wait till Congress has the chance to ratify the 123 Agreement.
But with Congress now looking at a very tight schedule, it is possible some attempt will be made to include language in the NSG waiver making its implementation conditional on America completing its internal steps first.
To the extent to which this kind of drafting language would infringe on the sovereignty of the NSG’s 44 other members, officials here expect that any such move will be resisted by countries such as Russia.
Mulford's statement
At his press conference on July 23, U.S. Ambassador David C. Mulford was emphatic about the proposed waiver for India at the Nuclear Suppliers Group not being “unconditional”.
“I don’t think that you should use the word ‘unconditional waiver’,” he said in response to a question about the NSG. “I mean, what we talked about is getting a clean exemption, that means an exemption that is not laden with detailed concerns that we believe are adequately dealt with elsewhere, for example in the 123 Agreement, and secondly in the IAEA safeguards agreement, and finally in the determinations the President has to make under the Hyde Act.” When the U.S. and other members of the 45-nation NSG “go through this top to bottom,” said Mr. Mulford, “we will be able to move forward with a clean exemption.”
To a follow-up question what sort of conditions the U.S. expected the NSG to impose if the waiver were not unconditional, the Ambassador backtracked somewhat. “Let me go back to this question ‘unconditional waiver’. All I said there was I didn’t think that was the right word. I didn’t say there were going to be conditions,” he clarified. “By referring to it as a clean exemption, what we mean there is [the NSG will] decide to go ahead and agree to support the various pieces that have been put together — the 123 Agreement, the IAEA safeguards … and also the review made by Congress and the presidential determinations which go with that. We hope every country will then say we think this does cover all the issues we have on our mind and that they come out with a consensus for a movement forward which does not have conditions attached to it by the NSG. That’s basically the situation.”
Though he said the waiver not being “unconditional” didn’t mean the NSG exemption would involve conditions, it is significant that Mr. Mulford has been particular about only using the word “clean” when speaking about the waiver.
Asked repeatedly by Karan Thapar on CNBC on July 23 about a “clean and unconditional waiver,” for example, the U.S. Ambassador again used the first term and not the second in his answers each time.
According to Indian officials, the U.S. has been saying for some months now that the NSG waiver could include “reasonable conditionalities” and that the Europeans were insisting on these.
(In the print edition, the story was split into two. The url of the second part is here)
The king is gone, long live the kingdom’s old ways
By abandoning the principle of consensus in favour of arithmetical machinations, Nepal’s discredited establishment is betraying the aspirations of the young republic.29 July 2008
The Hindu
The king is gone, long live the kingdom’s old ways By abandoning the principle of consensus in favour of arithmetical machinations, Nepal’s discredited establishment is betraying the aspirations of the young republic.
Siddharth Varadarajan
When the people of Nepal cast their votes in the elections to the Constituent Assembly in April, they did so not merely in order to abolish the monarchy. What they wanted was an end to the era of manipulated democracy in which political parties and politicians swung this way or that for no reason other than to grab or hold on to power. That is why they delivered a crushing blow to the two establishment parties most associated with this brand of crass parliamentarianism — the Nepali Congress and the Unified Marxists-Leninists. If the voters sealed the fate of the Shah dynasty by choosing candidates who were formally committed to the republic, they also sent a stern message to that lesser Nepali dynasty, the Koiralas, by defeating the daughter and virtually every close relative of its patriarch, Girija Prasad, barring one. As for the UML, there was no better measure of the public’s contempt for its opportunism of the past few years than the defeat handed out to its leader, Madhav Kumar Nepal, from both the constituencies he contested.
By voting in the Maoists as the single largest party, the electorate also sent a clear message that it favoured the new. But voters tempered this message by denying the former rebels an absolute majority of their own. Under the rules of Nepal’s interim constitution as it stood at the time of the election, a two-thirds majority was needed for any major decision, including the election of Prime Minister and President. By giving the Maoists a little more than one-third of the seats in the 601-strong house, the electorate said it wanted the Maoists to keep alive the principle of consensus that had served Nepal’s parties so well in the struggle against the monarchy. And also that it considered the party’s manifesto to be so important to the constitutional development of Nepal that its views could not be ignored by the CA, even if the Old Establishment were to gang up against them.
Sadly for democracy, peace and the immediate future of the young republic, however, this fine balance that the electorate struck has now been cynically subverted by reactionary elements in the NC and the UML.
By stitching together an unprincipled coalition together with the UML and the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum of Upendra Yadav, the NC managed to get one of its leaders, Ram Baran Yadav, a Madhesi politician, elected President. As part of the same bargain, the MJF’s Parmanand Jha was elected Vice-President. In both cases, the Maoist-backed nominees for President and VP — the independent Madhesi activist and intellectual, Rama Raja Prasad Singh, and the independent legislator, Shanta Shrestha, respectively — were defeated.
Sequence of betrayal
Once it was clear that the Maoists had emerged as the largest party in April, the NC and the UML more or less conceded that the party would have the right to lead the new government. At the same time, they kept raising procedural and policy obstacles in the way of the Maoist leader, Prachanda, becoming Prime Minister. In particular, they said the Maoists might never leave power if the two-thirds majority rule were not replaced by a simple majority. Mr. Prachanda warned that such a change would destroy the principle of consensus and bring in the power-play of majority and minority, but his concerns were brushed aside.
Even after amending the interim constitution to allow the President and Prime Minister to be chosen (and removed) by a simple majority, the political stalemate persisted. For the better part of the past two months, the question of who would become the republic’s first President paralysed the entire process of government formation. After initially staking a foolish claim for both the prime ministership and the presidency, the Maoists had quickly backed off from the latter and expressed their willingness to nominate any prominent non-political personality for the job of ceremonial head of state. But this proposal was immediately rejected by the NC, which proposed, instead, that the caretaker Prime Minister, Girija Prasad Koirala, be elevated to President and none else. Given Mr. Koirala’s age and indifferent health, as well as the well-founded fear that he would use the job to create an alternative power centre, the Maoists baulked at his nomination.
With deadlock at that end, the Maoists asked the UML to nominate someone other than Mr. Nepal — whom they judged to be unsuitable given that he lost both the seats he contested in the April elections — for the presidency. This time, it was the UML’s turn to be adamant. The party rejected the Maoist suggestion that its senior leader, Shahana Pradhan, or any woman, Dalit or janajati from its ranks be made President, and insisted instead that it wanted only Mr. Nepal for the job.
Rebuffed by the intransigence of both parties, the Maoists then turned to the fourth-largest formation in the CA, the MJF, with an offer they thought no self-respecting Madhesi group could refuse: the nomination of Rama Raja Prasad Singh as President. The MJF was unhappy with the choice of Mr. Singh but could not afford to openly reject him. So it insisted that one of its members be made Vice-President, something the Maoists were unwilling to accept since they had imagined the top four posts of President, VP, Prime Minister and Speaker would be equitably divided among different sections of the population in such a way that Madhesis, women, Pahadis and janajatis would all feel they had a stake in the new set-up.
As the Maoist agreement with the MJF broke down, the NC and the UML rushed to field their own Madhesi nominees for President. For two months, these parties had refused to come up with any names other than those of their top leaders. But now that it seemed the political stalemate could be broken in such a way as to isolate the Maoists, the two Establishment parties promptly withdrew their insistence on nominating Mr. Koirala or Mr. Nepal. With the MJF on board, a carve-up was effected wherein an NC leader with no credibility in the struggle of Madhesis became President (the UML helpfully withdrew its nominee, Ramprit Paswan), an MJF leader became the Vice-President and the UML’s Subhash Nemwang was chosen to be Speaker of the CA.
At the best of times, such unprincipled politics should have no place in a democracy. What makes the recent drama more sordid is that it is taking place in a country that has just freed itself from the yoke of monarchy and is trying to usher in a constitutional system that would genuinely empower its citizens.
Having demonstrated the viability of their unholy coalition, the NC and the UML are now saying they have no objection to the Maoists forming the government. It is clear, however, that any Maoist-led government would be subject to constant blackmail by the Old Establishment. That is why Mr. Prachanda has said he is still willing to enter and lead the new government but only on the basis of an understanding with all the parties in the CA about the broad policies to be followed and about the new set-up not being destabilised.
The present stalemate presents both an opportunity and a dilemma for the Maoists. By staying out of power and insisting that the Old Establishment run the country as it sees fit, the party will almost certainly ensure an even bigger vote share for itself when elections are next held. But staying out of power will vitiate the constitution writing process and perhaps even fatally imperil it. It will also raise questions about the smooth implementation of the peace process, since any NC-UML led government is unlikely to pursue the promised integration of the Peoples’ Liberation Army with the Nepal Army.
The presence of the MJF in the coalition alongside the NC and the UML will also open up a dangerous frontline. The latter two parties are reluctant federalists who embraced the concept of an inclusive Nepal only because the Maoists placed it squarely on the national agenda. Will they end up appeasing the more extremist elements of the MJF and provoke a backlash of the kind that has already started, thanks to Mr. Parmanand Jha taking his oath of office in Hindi rather than in his constitutionally-recognised mother tongue of Maithili? Or will the Pahadi chauvinists amongst their ranks prevail and push for a polarisation of the polity on ethnic lines?
Though the Maoists have every right to feel betrayed and cheated, they must make one last attempt to foster a consensus. For better or worse, the former rebels are the only party with the ability to manage the contradictions and faultlines which lie at the base of Nepali society. A government that is not led by them will find it hard to negotiate its way through the next 20 months during which the rising and sometimes contradictory aspirations of Nepal’s people must be bound together in the emerging Constitution.
Even at the eleventh hour, it is essential that democratic elements in the NC and the UML put an end to the dangerous course their parties have embarked upon. President Yadav should immediately invite Mr. Prachanda to form a government, swear him in and give him one month to demonstrate he has the support of the CA. Nepal has a unique opportunity to showcase its spirit of republicanism and peace at the SAARC summit in Sri Lanka next week. There can be no better way of doing so than for Kathmandu to be represented by Prime Minister Prachanda.
Iran replies to Indian 'non-paper' on gas pipeline
Given the lack of urgency New Delhi is displaying in finalising the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project, Tehran has sent across a note with new proposals aimed at addressing lingering Indian concerns...29 July 2008
The Hindu
Iranian government replies to Indian ‘non-paper’ on gas pipeline
Siddharth Varadarajan
New Delhi: In an attempt to address the pointed concerns India raised about the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline during the visit here of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last April, the Iranian government has handed over some fresh proposals and called for talks to quickly finalise the deal.
The Iranian proposals are contained in a ‘non-paper’ that was delivered to the Indian embassy in Tehran last week, The Hindu has learned. Drafted as a response to the ‘non-paper’ handed over by the Prime Minister’s Office to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s delegation at the end of his five-hour visit to Delhi on April 29, the Iranian note identified for the first time the specific offshore fields which will be used to feed the $7.4 billion pipeline with natural gas for Pakistan and India.
Time-frame
During the visit, the Iranian President had proposed an accelerated time-frame of 45 days for resolving the outstanding issues but no technical level meeting of the two sides has taken place since then. The Iranian non-paper is Tehran’s way of reinvigorating the process, since New Delhi does not appear to be in a hurry to schedule a meeting or resolve its concerns through technical or political negotiations.
In its non-paper, the PMO had raised a number of issues. Among these were the question of security of transit through Pakistan and India’s desire to take delivery of its share of the gas not on the Iran-Pakistan border as has been envisaged till now but at the Pakistan-India border. India also expressed concern about Iran’s failure to nominate the gas fields concerned for the pipeline. Finally, the Indian side sought an Iranian response to the possibility of the three partner countries taking commercial stakes in downstream projects in each other’s territories as a means of providing an additional layer of protection against wilful disruption of gas supply.
Trilateral arrangement
The Iranian note identifies phases 19, 20 and 21 of the massive South Pars offshore gas field as the source of feedstock for the pipeline and says other phases can also be deployed to maintain adequate pressure at all times.
It also says that Tehran is prepared to look at a “trilateral arrangement” for the delivery of gas at the Pakistan-India border. On the question of cross-investments too, the Iranian non-paper says suitable arrangements can be examined.
While Indian officials feel Iran is “not serious” about the pipeline and is only looking to score propaganda points over the U.S. by demonstrating it is not isolated, the Iranian side harbours doubts about India’s sincerity, given Washington’s hostility to the gas deal.
28 July 2008
India files nuclear separation plan with IAEA
Following persistent questioning by countries like Canada about the absence of any specific facilities in the Indian draft ssafeguards agreement, a copy of the Indian nuclear separation plan has been submitted to the IAEA and circulated to all member states as an official document of the agency. Indian officials say this is part of the process of seeking the Board of Governors' approval, and that the briefing conducted by the IAEA Secretariat for IAEA members went smoothly...28 July 2008
The Hindu
India files nuclear separation plan with IAEA
Move a response to queries about safeguards agreement
Siddharth Varadarajan
NEW DELHI: India has filed a copy of its plan for the separation of civilian and military nuclear facilities with the International Atomic Energy Agency as part of the process for getting its safeguards agreement approved by the nuclear watchdog’s Board of Governors on August 1.
The document — as tabled in Parliament by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 11 May 2006 — was published on Friday by the IAEA secretariat as Infcirc/731 and circulated to all member states.
In a note verbale included with the plan, the Permanent Mission of India in Vienna said it was the “government of India’s intention to move forward in accordance with the provisions of the [India-specific safeguards agreement] after its entry into force.”
According to Indian officials, the decision formally to circulate the separation plan is linked to the questions a number of IAEA members have raised in briefings by India and the Secretariat about the fact that the draft safeguards agreement does not list any specific facilities to be safeguarded.
As per the provisions of the draft, only those Indian facilities listed in the annex will be subject to Agency safeguards. The annex is at present blank and will be filled only after India negotiates fuel supply arrangements for each facility to be safeguarded and files a separate declaration and notification to that effect at some point in the future.
During the briefing conducted by the Secretariat for IAEA members on July 25, countries such as Canada asked when and how this annex would be populated.
The circulation of the Indian separation plan which lists 14 specific thermal power reactors to be offered for safeguards between 2006 and 2014 is intended to clear the air on this issue.
The Hindu has learned that the July 25 briefing was a “smooth affair” with Secretariat officials providing clarifications on a number of issues to a handful of member states. Among the countries which had queries were Canada, Norway, Ireland and Sweden. One of the clarifications sought was on the meaning of “corrective measures.” According to officials, the Secretariat staff noted that these measures are meant to ensure the uninterrupted supply of fuel for the reactors India offers for safeguards “and are not to be confused with termination conditions, which are spelt out in paragraphs 29 and 32 of the safeguards agreement and which are standard.” There were no separate queries on termination.
The Pakistani representative asked only one question about whether the Indian agreement could “be a precedent” for other non-parties to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). The Secretariat replied that it would be a “good precedent,” since the concept of an “umbrella agreement” for multiple facilities was an improvement over separate Infcirc/66 agreements for standalone facilities.
[Since this article went to press, I have learned that the Secretariat's representative, Vilmos Cserveny, also said that if Pakistan were to negotiate bilateral or multilateral agreements of the kind India had, a similar umbrella agreement could be drawn up whose approval would be up to the Board of Governors].
According to official sources, Department of Atomic Energy chairman Anil Kakodkar will also travel to Vienna for the August 1 IAEA BoG meeting. While he may attend the board meeting in his capacity as an alternate governor, India’s governor is Ambassador Saurbah Kumar and the rules allow for an alternate to also be present — the main purpose of his visit will be to have discussions with IAEA Director-General Mohammed el-Baradei on an Additional Protocol to accompany the Indian safeguards agreement.
In the July 2005 agreement with the U.S., India had undertaken to sign and adhere to an additional protocol with the IAEA in respect to its civilian nuclear facilities. The Hyde Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in December 2006 said one of the determinations the U.S. President must make before allowing nuclear commerce with India is that the country has made “substantial progress” towards concluding such a protocol.
(In an earlier version of this story, March 11, 2006 was inadvertently mentioned as the date when the Indian separation plan was tabled in Parliament)
26 July 2008
India bracing itself for American NSG draft guidelines
The divisive debate and vote in Parliament this week shows Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has absolutely no room to manoeuvre. On August 17, 2006, he told the Rajya Sabha,"If in their final form the US legislation or the adapted NSG Guidelines impose extraneous conditions on India, the Government will draw the necessary conclusions, consistent with the commitments I have made to Parliament."Well, the Hyde Act was full of extraneous clutter, the 123 Agreement less so. But the ultimate test will be what happens at Nuclear Suppliers Group. Either the Americans deliver the "clean, clear and unconditional" exemption from the NSG's full-scope safeguards requirement that India wants or New Delhi might well have to walk away from the deal...
26 July 2008
The Hindu
India bracing itself for American draft
Washington has so far not shared its plans with Delhi on changes to NSG guidelines
Siddharth Varadarajan
New Delhi: In a sign of the uphill territory still left to traverse on the nuclear front, Indian officials are bracing themselves for a round of tough negotiations when the Americans finally share the text of their proposed amendment to the Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines later this week.
A short draft comprising six paragraphs was circulated by the U.S. in March 2006 but it is believed to have undergone substantial revision in Washington since then. An unnamed State Department official was quoted in a recent report of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) as saying the new draft had deliberately not been circulated for fear that it would trigger fresh objections to the nuclear deal within India.
Though South Block is familiar with elements of the new draft, the actual text is only likely to be made available to New Delhi on Friday night or Saturday, officials told The Hindu on Friday.
At previous meetings with the Indian side on the NSG issue, U.S. officials have taken the view that while they fully support India’s demand for an unconditional exemption from the NSG’s restrictive export guidelines, a number of European members of the 45-nation nuclear cartel are pressing for inclusion of conditions and restrictions.
Asked whether it was not rather late in the day to be receiving a copy of the proposed changes to the NSG guidelines, a senior official said India had been saying right from the outset that it would accept only a “clean, clear and unconditional” exemption. “There is nothing to negotiate. The last thing we wanted was to get stuck whittling down a huge list of conditions to something smaller. Instead, we are saying, ‘You know what we want, and that’s a text which is unconditional’,” the official added.
Trial balloons
Among the conditions that have already been floated as trial balloons by the U.S. in previous discussions with India are provisions for periodic review, Indian compliance with future NSG guidelines, a reversion of the ban in case India conducts a nuclear test explosion, and a ban on the sale of enrichment and reprocessing equipment.
India, say the officials, has no option but to stick to its guns.
“If anything, the fierce debate and the trust vote that the Manmohan Singh government has just won demonstrate that the Prime Minister has absolutely no wiggle room,” said an official. “If the NSG imposes conditions, India will reserve the right to walk away.”
Part of the problem is the mixed signals the Indian side has sent on what might and might not be acceptable to the government.
For example, India has maintained that its nuclear testing moratorium is a unilateral commitment and that the NSG rule change should not be conditional on it. While U.S. law may require the cessation of cooperation in the event of a nuclear test, the laws of other suppliers like Russia and France do not. Yet, in an interview to the Asian Age on April 9, Shyam Saran, the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy, said it was “unrealistic” for India to expect the NSG not to insist on a no-testing condition. This statement has since been seized upon by the Americans as evidence that India might be flexible on its demand for a clean exemption. In its May 20, 2008 report, the CRS quoted Mr. Saran’s statement to speculate that “New Delhi may be willing to accept some conditions” on the NSG exemption front after all.
Though the NSG was set up in 1975 to tighten the rules of nuclear commerce in the wake of India’s 1974 nuclear test, its guidelines did not prohibit nuclear sales to India until 1992. That year, new rules were adopted stipulating that the export of so-called “trigger list items” could be made to non-nuclear weapon states only if all their nuclear activities were under safeguards.
Under the terms of the July 18, 2005 India-U.S. agreement, Washington is committed to working with its friends and allies to “adjust international regimes to enable full civil nuclear energy cooperation and trade with India.” New Delhi maintains that this means the NSG must unconditionally waive the applicability of its full-scope safeguards rule to India and not impose any other extraneous conditions.
India also objected to a prescriptive clause in the March 2006 NSG guideline draft which said members would “continue to strive” for the “earliest possible implementation” of full-scope safeguards in India.
Fear of U.S. vendors
In Congressional testimony, U.S. officials have assured legislators that they would oppose the adoption of NSG guidelines which would place U.S. firms at a disadvantage vis-a-vis competitors.
The fear of U.S. vendors is that since their nuclear exports to India would be governed by the NSG guidelines as well as the more restrictive provisions of the Hyde Act and the 123 Agreement, New Delhi should not be able to send its business to countries with less restrictive national rules.
25 July 2008
IAEA board continues consultations on safeguards
As President Bush discussed the next steps with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and said he is "look[ing] forward to continuing to work with his government to strengthen the United States-India strategic relationship", there is still no clarity in Vienna about the fate which awaits the Indian safeguards agreement...25 July
The Hindu
IAEA board continues consultations on safeguards
‘A clearer picture likely to emerge in the next few days’
Siddharth Varadarajan
New Delhi: “Consultations” at the International Atomic Energy Agency on India’s safeguards agreement are still going on but a clear picture of how the draft text will fare has yet to emerge.
For the past two weeks, the chairman of the IAEA’s board, Chilean ambassador Milenko E. Skoknic, has been holding “bilateral consultations” with each of the 35 nations represented on the nuclear watchdog’s apex body to gauge their response to the Indian text.
Speaking to The Hindu on condition of anonymity since the consultation process hasn’t ended, an IAEA Board source said it was hard to speculate about what might happen during the August 1 Governors meeting when the Indian draft is taken up for approval. “Many members do not as yet have precise instructions from their governments because the text is still being analysed by them,” the source said.
Consultation process
Since India is now actively lobbying Board members in their respective capitals, it is likely that a clearer picture could emerge in the next few days, the source added. Asked what traction the Pakistani campaign for introducing amendments and holding a vote on the agreement was achieving, the source declined to answer, saying this was one of the issues the “consultation process” was dealing with.
On July 25, the IAEA secretariat will hold a briefing for BoG members and field questions on any provision in the Indian draft that individual countries feel is not clear. The briefing is being seen by Indian officials as quite crucial. “Since the safeguards text was agreed to by India and the secretariat, we are confident that they will successfully address any questions or concerns that Board members might have,” an official said here.
During the July 18 briefing by Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon for Board members and members of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, most of the questions were raised by European members as well as Canada. Among the sections in the Indian safeguards draft that clarifications were sought on were:
• Paragraph 5 (the non-hindrance clause) which makes it clear that the IAEA would not interfere with “any activities involving the use by India of nuclear material, non-nuclear material, equipment, components, information or technology produced, acquired or developed by India independent of this Agreement for its own purposes.”
• Paragraph 52 (c) and 105, allowing India to report to the Agency any disruption of operation of safeguarded facilities on account of material violation or breach of bilateral or multilateral arrangements to which India is a party.
• The reference to “corrective measures.”
One of the IAEA Board members noted the long and drawn out procedure specified in paragraphs 13, 14 and 15 for placing a facility under safeguards and argued that India might conceivably get away with never safeguarding any of its nuclear facilities. According to officials, Mr. Menon replied that there was no reason for India to do that since it was entering into a nuclear agreement in order to engage in international cooperation and that reactors not offered for safeguards would obviously not be eligible for cooperation.
In general, said the officials, the Indian argument in Vienna has tended to emphasise the similarity between the Indian agreement and the standard safeguards procedures envisaged by the IAEA’s Infcirc/66 template for standalone nuclear facilities in countries that are not party to the NPT.
“What we are trying to stress there is that the India specific character of the agreement stems mainly from the fact that it is an ‘umbrella agreement’ to cover all the facilities we are offering.”
24 July 2008
IAEA safeguards grant India nuclear weapons status: Pakistan
Pakistan has upped the ante in Vienna by asking members of the IAEA Board of Governors to join it in moving amendments to the Indian safeguards agreement when the matter comes up for consideration on August 1... .jpg)
24 July 2008
The Hindu
IAEA safeguards grant India nuclear weapons status: Pakistan
May move amendments to draft in Board meeting
Siddharth Varadarajan
New Delhi: In a four-page letter addressed to Board members of the IAEA, Pakistan has attacked the draft Indian safeguards agreement for envisaging termination conditions and fuel supply arrangements which could allow India to “divert part of [any imported] fuel for weapons purposes.”
At the same time, it said that the Indian model should not be “discriminatory” and should be applied to states such as itself.
[I have uploaded the letter as a PDF file here.]
Pakistan is a member of the 35-strong Board of Governors. The letter, written by its Ambassador to the IAEA, Shahbaz, was sent out on July 18, though the Indian mission in Vienna has yet to formally receive a copy. A similar letter was circulated by Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.N., Munir Akram, on July 15. The BoG will meet August 1 to consider the Indian agreement.
Apart from raising procedural objections to the convening of a Board of Governors meeting at short notice, Pakistan is strongly opposing a number of specific provisions in the agreement. It says both the BoG and the Nuclear Suppliers Group should “carefully weigh the consequences that may ensue from succumbing to ‘expediency’ over ‘principles’” if the “drive to steamroll”this agreement was not “resisted.”
In particular, it urges Board members to “join it in seeking appropriate amendments to the agreement when it is considered in the BoG.”
According to Indian officials, Pakistan has sounded a number of BoG members on the possibility of putting the Indian draft to a vote on August 1 rather than approving it by consensus. Though indications are that so far the Pakistani proposal does not have takers, Islamabad would be within its rights to call for a division when the Board meets.
Ambassador Shahbaz’s letter, a copy of which is with The Hindu, says a “disturbing feature” of the agreement is the reference in the Preamble to a phrase from the Indo-U.S. statement of July 2005 “specifically [noting] India’s ‘willingness’ to ‘identify and separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities.’ Thus, the IAEA Board is being asked to recognise and accept India’s nuclear weapons status,” the letter says.
The Pakistani envoy’s missive demands that this preambular reference be deleted because it runs counter to the purpose of IAEA safeguards and “is in itself unique, as similar provisions do not exist in other such agreements.”
Curiously, though the letter condemns the Indian safeguards agreement on proliferation grounds, it argues that Pakistan should be afforded the same treatment. In one place, it warns the BoG that the Indian text “is likely to set a precedent for other states which are not members of the NPT and have military nuclear programmes.” But elsewhere, it also demands that “any safeguards agreement adopted by the BoG in respect of India should be available as a model for other non-NPT states.”
Among Pakistan’s other objections: - “Despite India’s refusal to place its Breeder Reactors and Thorium-based programme under safeguards, the draft recognises India’s three-stage nuclear programme. This is gratuitous legitimisation of potential nuclear proliferation and contrary to the IAEA’s objectives.”
- The draft contains “ambiguous provisions regarding conditions for the termination of the Safeguards Agreement,” provides India access to international fuel markets and provides for “unspecified ‘corrective measures’ which India would be allowed to take to ‘ensure uninterrupted operation of its civilian reactors.” This contravenes “the continuation of IAEA safeguards in perpetuity.”
- “The agreement may indeed provide an incentive to India to conduct further nuclear weapons testing, since future termination of the Safeguards Agreement, after India has built up an adequate fuel reserve, would resolve India’s problems relating to the shortage of nuclear material for both its civilian and nuclear weapons programme.”
Pakistan has also objected to the reference in the agreement to “a restricted document, GOV/1621” and said the BoG “cannot approve an Agreement with secret clauses.” It was vital, it said, for the conditions for termination of safeguards to be “expressly incorporated.” [In fact, GOV/1621 is available to all IAEA member states and has also been published in a 1985 book].
Criticising the IAEA draft for not providing for termination of peaceful nuclear cooperation in the event of a nuclear test by India, Pakistan said the agreement “threatens to increase the chances of a nuclear arms race in the sub-continent.”
The Pakistani letter says IAEA rules prevent the Indian agreement from being considered “at the earliest, 45 days later, i.e. 25 August 2008” and that “the political expediencies of either India or the U.S. are not sufficient reason” for “the 45 day rule” to be waived.
Indian and IAEA officials told The Hindu the 45 day rule was not “hard and fast” and that several safeguards agreements have been approved in less time. According to sources, Pakistan’s safeguards agreement for the Chashma reactor was itself cleared within 48 hours of the text being circulated to the Board in November 2006.
During the recent visit to Delhi by Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir, the Indian side sounded Pakistan out on its objections to the safeguards agreement. Mr. Bashir said there was “nothing personal” in Islamabad’s stand and that the country was acting in its own national interest.
.jpg)
Pakistani delegation relaxing before the start of an IAEA session
24 July 2008
The Hindu
IAEA safeguards grant India nuclear weapons status: Pakistan
May move amendments to draft in Board meeting
Siddharth Varadarajan
New Delhi: In a four-page letter addressed to Board members of the IAEA, Pakistan has attacked the draft Indian safeguards agreement for envisaging termination conditions and fuel supply arrangements which could allow India to “divert part of [any imported] fuel for weapons purposes.”
At the same time, it said that the Indian model should not be “discriminatory” and should be applied to states such as itself.
[I have uploaded the letter as a PDF file here.]
Pakistan is a member of the 35-strong Board of Governors. The letter, written by its Ambassador to the IAEA, Shahbaz, was sent out on July 18, though the Indian mission in Vienna has yet to formally receive a copy. A similar letter was circulated by Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.N., Munir Akram, on July 15. The BoG will meet August 1 to consider the Indian agreement.
Apart from raising procedural objections to the convening of a Board of Governors meeting at short notice, Pakistan is strongly opposing a number of specific provisions in the agreement. It says both the BoG and the Nuclear Suppliers Group should “carefully weigh the consequences that may ensue from succumbing to ‘expediency’ over ‘principles’” if the “drive to steamroll”this agreement was not “resisted.”
In particular, it urges Board members to “join it in seeking appropriate amendments to the agreement when it is considered in the BoG.”
According to Indian officials, Pakistan has sounded a number of BoG members on the possibility of putting the Indian draft to a vote on August 1 rather than approving it by consensus. Though indications are that so far the Pakistani proposal does not have takers, Islamabad would be within its rights to call for a division when the Board meets.
Ambassador Shahbaz’s letter, a copy of which is with The Hindu, says a “disturbing feature” of the agreement is the reference in the Preamble to a phrase from the Indo-U.S. statement of July 2005 “specifically [noting] India’s ‘willingness’ to ‘identify and separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities.’ Thus, the IAEA Board is being asked to recognise and accept India’s nuclear weapons status,” the letter says.
The Pakistani envoy’s missive demands that this preambular reference be deleted because it runs counter to the purpose of IAEA safeguards and “is in itself unique, as similar provisions do not exist in other such agreements.”
Curiously, though the letter condemns the Indian safeguards agreement on proliferation grounds, it argues that Pakistan should be afforded the same treatment. In one place, it warns the BoG that the Indian text “is likely to set a precedent for other states which are not members of the NPT and have military nuclear programmes.” But elsewhere, it also demands that “any safeguards agreement adopted by the BoG in respect of India should be available as a model for other non-NPT states.”
Among Pakistan’s other objections: - “Despite India’s refusal to place its Breeder Reactors and Thorium-based programme under safeguards, the draft recognises India’s three-stage nuclear programme. This is gratuitous legitimisation of potential nuclear proliferation and contrary to the IAEA’s objectives.”
- The draft contains “ambiguous provisions regarding conditions for the termination of the Safeguards Agreement,” provides India access to international fuel markets and provides for “unspecified ‘corrective measures’ which India would be allowed to take to ‘ensure uninterrupted operation of its civilian reactors.” This contravenes “the continuation of IAEA safeguards in perpetuity.”
- “The agreement may indeed provide an incentive to India to conduct further nuclear weapons testing, since future termination of the Safeguards Agreement, after India has built up an adequate fuel reserve, would resolve India’s problems relating to the shortage of nuclear material for both its civilian and nuclear weapons programme.”
Pakistan has also objected to the reference in the agreement to “a restricted document, GOV/1621” and said the BoG “cannot approve an Agreement with secret clauses.” It was vital, it said, for the conditions for termination of safeguards to be “expressly incorporated.” [In fact, GOV/1621 is available to all IAEA member states and has also been published in a 1985 book].
Criticising the IAEA draft for not providing for termination of peaceful nuclear cooperation in the event of a nuclear test by India, Pakistan said the agreement “threatens to increase the chances of a nuclear arms race in the sub-continent.”
The Pakistani letter says IAEA rules prevent the Indian agreement from being considered “at the earliest, 45 days later, i.e. 25 August 2008” and that “the political expediencies of either India or the U.S. are not sufficient reason” for “the 45 day rule” to be waived.
Indian and IAEA officials told The Hindu the 45 day rule was not “hard and fast” and that several safeguards agreements have been approved in less time. According to sources, Pakistan’s safeguards agreement for the Chashma reactor was itself cleared within 48 hours of the text being circulated to the Board in November 2006.
During the recent visit to Delhi by Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir, the Indian side sounded Pakistan out on its objections to the safeguards agreement. Mr. Bashir said there was “nothing personal” in Islamabad’s stand and that the country was acting in its own national interest.
Text of Pakistan's letter to the IAEA Board on the Indian safeguards agreement
Here is the full text of the four page letter sent by Pakistan's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency on July 18 to all members of the Board of Governors criticising the rush to approve the Indian safeguards agreement.
23 July 2008
India begins its lobbying
Eight envoys have fanned out across the globe to make India's case on the nuclear deal...
24 July 2008
The Hindu
India begins lobbying
Special Correspondent
New Delhi: With the nuclear deal back on track, India has deployed a number of special envoys to lobby for its next two stages with countries that are members of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors or the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon met the Austrian state secretary on Tuesday to press India’s case and is now in Berlin for discussions with German officials. Germany is the convener of the NSG. The Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on nuclear matters, Shyam Saran, is in Ireland, considered by India a particularly hard nut to crack. From there he will move on to Australia and New Zealand as well as to Bolivia, Ecudador, Chile and Brazil, all members of the IAEA Board.
Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal is being fielded for the Nordic countries while the rest of Europe and other ‘western’ countries like Japan are being covered by the three secretaries in the Ministry of External Affairs: Nalin Surie, N. Ravi and Hardeep Puri. Special Envoy Chinmay Gharekhan will cover Saudi Arabia, Iraq and North Africa, where Algeria and Morocco are both IAEA board members. Two Ministers of State, Prithviraj Chavan and Anand Sharma, have also been pressed into service to deal with African and South-east Asian members.
Among the scenarios being discussed by Washington and New Delhi is the convening of a short plenary session of the NSG in the first week of August, wherein the American proposal for modification of the group’s export guidelines will be introduced. The draft would then be taken up for detailed examination by a handful of NSG members which form the 45-nation cartel’s consultative group. During this period, individual members will also have time to discuss the proposal in their respective capitals. Finally, the NSG plenary would be called again for the first week of September where the proposal could be approved.
In case the convening of the first plenary in early August is not possible, the American proposal can also be circulated to NSG members through the “point of contact” the group maintains in Vienna, officials said.
24 July 2008
The Hindu
India begins lobbying
Special Correspondent
New Delhi: With the nuclear deal back on track, India has deployed a number of special envoys to lobby for its next two stages with countries that are members of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors or the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon met the Austrian state secretary on Tuesday to press India’s case and is now in Berlin for discussions with German officials. Germany is the convener of the NSG. The Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on nuclear matters, Shyam Saran, is in Ireland, considered by India a particularly hard nut to crack. From there he will move on to Australia and New Zealand as well as to Bolivia, Ecudador, Chile and Brazil, all members of the IAEA Board.
Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal is being fielded for the Nordic countries while the rest of Europe and other ‘western’ countries like Japan are being covered by the three secretaries in the Ministry of External Affairs: Nalin Surie, N. Ravi and Hardeep Puri. Special Envoy Chinmay Gharekhan will cover Saudi Arabia, Iraq and North Africa, where Algeria and Morocco are both IAEA board members. Two Ministers of State, Prithviraj Chavan and Anand Sharma, have also been pressed into service to deal with African and South-east Asian members.
Among the scenarios being discussed by Washington and New Delhi is the convening of a short plenary session of the NSG in the first week of August, wherein the American proposal for modification of the group’s export guidelines will be introduced. The draft would then be taken up for detailed examination by a handful of NSG members which form the 45-nation cartel’s consultative group. During this period, individual members will also have time to discuss the proposal in their respective capitals. Finally, the NSG plenary would be called again for the first week of September where the proposal could be approved.
In case the convening of the first plenary in early August is not possible, the American proposal can also be circulated to NSG members through the “point of contact” the group maintains in Vienna, officials said.
21 July 2008
An endgame with no clear winners
Whether the UPA government survives or falls, none of the principal protagonists will be able to walk away from the present stand-off with a sense of having accomplished anything in the long-term... 22 July 2008
The Hindu
An endgame with no clear winners
Siddharth Varadarajan
When a patient is staring death in the face, the dividing line between self-preservation and self-destruction can be rather thin. In medieval times, leeches were often attached to a dying patient's body in the belief that the 'bad' blood they drew out would help breathe life into him. But even if this drastic remedy worked, the doctor had to know when it was safe to cast aside the pet parasites. Let them feed too long and the sick man might never recover; remove them too soon and they may not have time to deliver their 'cure'.
Ever since the Left parties withdrew their support from the United Progressive Alliance, the Congress party has sought to prolong the life of the government it leads by resorting to leech therapy. Beginning with the Samajwadi Party, it has struck deals with a range of parties and individuals to ensure at least 271 votes when the confidence motion is put to test on July 22. Some of these deals involve concessions that are in the public domain – a file speeded up here, a cabinet berth promised there -- but the most critical indulgences sought and granted are the ones not being advertised.
Whatever they are, these deals could prove counterproductive for the Congress at four levels. First, the perception has gotten around that the UPA will go to any length to win this vote, even if this means accommodating demands that ought not to be accommodated. The Congress may carry the day but its reputation will have been diminished as a result. Second, creating the impression that the SP's pet agendas will be pursued with vigour has given Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati a compelling reason to go flat out to unseat the government. Third, the impression that one section of big capital is being pandered to has galvanized another section into action, and it is far from clear what the overall effect of this corporate intervention will be for the Congress. Fourth, the understanding with the SP is clearly not momentary. As it matures into a full-fledged political alliance involving seat-sharing in Uttar Pradesh, the compact will represent the Congress's formal abandonment of any hope of revival in India's politically most important state.
To the negative consequences of this naked power play must be added the folly of submitting the fate of the party and government to the dictates of the American electoral datebook rather than the rhythms of the Indian political system. It is no secret that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi are moving full speed ahead on the nuclear deal because the Bush administration will relinquish office at the end of the year. Though there is no reason to expect that a delay on India's part will lead to better terms as and when the nuclear deal is finally operationalised, there was also no reason to assume the threads of the current process would be impossible to pick up once a new president is installed in the White House in January 2009. To argue that is to lend credence to the fears many have expressed about the next U.S. president and Congress not being in synch with the understandings the Bush administration leaves behind on issues ranging from the significance of the Hyde Act's preambular sections to the precise meaning of some of the provisions of the 123 agreement.
If the Congress was unable to carry the Left along and believed the nuclear deal to be an issue of such urgency, it should have sought a fresh electoral mandate as early as last November. That is the time when, according to the Prime Minister's advisers, Dr. Manmohan Singh realized the Left would never allow him to proceed. Instead, the party dithered for a whole year -- allowing the fatal perception to gain ground that its government was paralysed by indecisiveness -- before taking the final desperate plunge on July 8. If the Congress squandered the better part of its reputation by doing nothing for a whole year, it is now destroying what remains by trying to do too much, too soon.
As it stands today, the nuclear deal's contours address most if not all of the major concerns the Department of Atomic Energy had raised in the course of the debate over the past two years. If implemented in the way it is promised, it would increase the country's energy options in the long-run. But no deal is so good that it merits the short-circuiting of democratic propriety through horse-trading or worse.
If the Congress suffers from a lack of credibility, it largely has itself to blame. In July 2005, it made two fatal blunders. First, it oversold the energy argument by falsely suggesting imported nuclear power could be the answer to India's electricity needs in the short or even medium term rather than being a modest, but no less necessary, additionality. Second, it marketed the nuclear deal as the cornerstone of a strategic alliance with the U.S., without realizing that Indians are deeply ambivalent about such a partnership with Washington. It then compounded this blunder by capitulating to American pressure over Iran in 2005 and 2006, something which is evident even today in the complete lack of urgency with which negotiations over the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline are being pursued. Yet another blunder was committed in 2006 when the Indian leadership failed to impress upon the American side in a timely fashion the problems that had emerged in the Hyde legislative process. When the Hyde Act was finally passed in a form that India found problematic, the government brushed aside its implications rather than identifying and taking specific steps to insulate the country from any future American pressure.
As a result, even though the DAE-led negotiating team finally produced a safeguards text that provides a framework to address India's concerns, the Government has been unable to win the battle for public opinion. Even if the government wins the trust vote on Tuesday, the Prime Minister and the Congress will not be able to live down the taint of impropriety surrounding their victory. Since the maximum controversy has been caused by specific conditions embedded in the Hyde Act and 123 agreement, it is only fair that the decision on operationalising these be left to the government which comes to power after another general election. Dissolving the House and calling for elections after the Nuclear Suppliers Group amends its guidelines to provide India a clean, clear and unconditional exemption would be the morally and politically correct thing to do. The safeguards agreement makes it clear that there is no "auto-pilot" since the first Indian reactor will be subject to IAEA scrutiny only after separate fuel supply arrangements are tied up after the 123 is ratified by the U.S. Congress. However, precisely because there are misgivings in both countries -- as well as differences in interpretation -- about several clauses in the 123, it is best if the decision on operationalising that agreement were made after elections are held in both India and the U.S.
Strategic alliance to roll on
For the Left, the biggest danger is that most of the parties working alongside it to topple the UPA government are actually ardent champions of a strategic alliance with the United States. In his recent interview to The Hindu, BJP leader L.K. Advani made this clear several times. Other NDA and UNPA constituents such as the Akali Dal, Shiv Sena, Telugu Desam Party and Biju Janata Dal are also openly pro-American. As for Mayawati and the Bahujan Samaj Party, there is nothing in her programme or speeches to suggest she is at all averse to the underlying trend in the bilateral relationship with the U.S. – especially military-to-military cooperation, which has emerged as the foundation.
If the UPA wins the trust vote, the Samajwadi Party will not stand in the way of an accelerated strategic partnership. Indeed, the U.S. will use the opportunity to press on the gas pedal on some of its other key demands such as the opening up of the insurance sector. But if the UPA loses and fresh elections are held in November, the Left may well find its ability to influence the Centre has diminished.
Who then is likely to emerge the winner from this stand-off? For the U.S., the nuclear deal is of peripheral interest; what really matters to Washington is its ability to shape India's strategic choices through military interoperability and acquisitions and a range of other forms of engagement. The arrangement which prevailed in Delhi till July 8 was the worst possible one from an American point of view because of the Left's ability to calibrate the degree of this engagement. This ability was not always used effectively – even as it has vetoed the nuclear deal, for example, military-to-military cooperation continues to proceed at breakneck speed – but the Left's presence was always an irritant. Now that the Left is out, Washington is confident that in any of three emerging political scenarios -- a Congress-led coalition minus the Left, a BJP-led coalition, or a weak Third Front with Congress or even BJP support – the Communists would wield less influence than they do today. Even in a Mayawati-led front, the nuclear deal may remain paralysed but there is an odds-on chance that the underlying strategic agenda will surge ahead.
In an article written soon after the 123 text was made public, I had suggested that one way for India to nail down any ambiguities of interpretation in the 123 agreement was to balance the U.S. Hyde Act with an amendment to the Indian Atomic Energy Act "making it illegal for nuclear material or equipment to be transferred out of the country if the transfer would disrupt the continuous operation of our power reactors or pose an environmental or security risk". ('Deal breather, not deal breaker', The Hindu, August 20, 2007). This suggestion has since been picked up by the BJP leader, L.K. Advani, and has also been accepted as a possibility by the UPA government at the highest level.
While it is possible to find technical and legal remedies for the nuclear deal's deficiencies, the struggle against a strategic alliance with America was always going to be political. And that struggle has to be ongoing, rather than one shot. By reversing the equation and forcing a one shot political fix to the nuclear deal, the Left is likely to find that the domestic realignment it has inadvertently triggered will make the more important struggle harder to win.
20 July 2008
Thorium and the Indian nuclear programme
In a recent article in Frontline, my colleague R. Ramachandran has drawn attention to the July 4, 2008 speech by Department of Atomic Energy chairman Anil Kakodkar at the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore as well as his Founder's Day address last October to suggest the atomic energy chief is diluting his earlier advocacy of thorium use in order to make a stronger case for the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal.Ramachandran ends his article directly questioning the motive for Kakodkar's arguments:
The juncture at which Kakodkar has chosen to make these remarks can only make one wonder whether the compulsions were political or technical. Thorium science and technology developed within the DAE itself would suggest the former. As [former head of the Indian fast breeder programme Placid] Rodriguez says, “The statement that thorium, which has all along been hailed as the panacea for our energy security and independence, is suddenly discovered to have nuclear properties that do not allow fast growth in power generation capacity, and giving this as an alibi for the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal is surprising, coming as it does from Kakodkar, who is identified in the public mind with India’s thorium utilisation efforts.”
Well, Kakodkar has hit back in today's Hindu in an interview to my colleague, T.S. Subramanian:
Subramanian: You are the father of thorium reactor technology in India. You said in Bangalore recently that if India could import 40,000 MWe of nuclear power between 2012 and 2020, we can wipe out the gap between the demand and the supply of power by 2050 – by building more fast breeder reactors using the spent fuel arising from these imported reactors. But you also said that thorium does not have properties that allow for faster growth of power generation. Media commentators have alleged that this amounts to India abandoning its third stage of building thorium-fuelled reactors.You can read the full interview here.
Kakodkar: Right from the beginning all the way up to now, there is absolutely no contradiction between my statements on thorium utilisation strategies.
These are based on detailed analyses and they remain valid. [Dr. R.] Ramachandran’s article in Frontline (August 1, 2008) is either from a result of lack of understanding or misinterpretation. The three-stage nuclear power development programme based on domestic efforts remains a priority activity and would be implemented unhindered.
To optimise the benefits of thorium utilisation, the timing of the introduction of thorium has to be judiciously planned. In any case, it has to follow significant build-up of nuclear power generation capacity through deployment of fast breeder reactors. The point to realise is the fact that India’s electricity requirements are growing faster. The gap between electricity demand and supply that can be managed on indigenous resources is widening and it would exceed 400,000 MWe by 2050.
The question that one needs to address is how soon we can bridge this gap through the growth potential that is possible with fast reactors. Clearly, this necessitates emphasis on deployment of fast breeder reactors with the shortest possible doubling time. The timing of the introduction of thorium needs to be adjusted such that the demand-supply gap is bridged at the earliest and at the same time, we derive full benefit of the vast energy potential of our thorium resources for centuries to come.
The import of 40,000 MWe of power as an additionality [to the domestic nuclear power programme] bridges not only this gap by 2050 but it would avoid the necessity of import of much larger fossil energy resources and at the same time enable earlier deployment of thorium, meeting the objectives stated above.
The point is even after we pursue the domestic three-stage nuclear power programme, which we will pursue on a priority basis in any case, there will be a gap of 400,000 MWe. If we introduce thorium earlier, this gap will become larger and the three-stage programme will become smaller. On the other hand, if we can get this 40,000 MWe from outside [by importing reactors], we can bridge this gap, and at the same time, we can advance the deployment of thorium.
18 July 2008
Interlude: Fidel and Gabo
Even as his body recuperates from surgery brought on by acute intestinal crisis and bleeding, Fidel Castro's mind is as energetic and active as ever. Roughly once a week, sometimes more or less frequently, he manages to write his reflections on an issue or topic of contemporary concern. His latest one was triggered by the visit of his old friend Gabriel Garcia Marquez...Reflections by Comrade Fidel
INTERLUDE
Yesterday, on Tuesday, I had a bundle of cables with news about the meeting in Japan of the most highly industrialized powers. I shall leave that material and take it up some other time, if it does not grow cold and stale. I decided to take a rest. I chose to get together with Gabo and his wife, Mercedes Barcha, who are visiting Cuba until the 11th. How I wanted to chat with them, to recall almost 50 years of sincere friendship!
Our news agency, as suggested by Che, had just been born, and it hired, among others, the services of a modest Colombian journalist named Gabriel García Márquez. Neither Prensa Latina nor Gabo had the slightest idea that there would be a Nobel Prize; or maybe this son of a small-town Colombian post-office telegraph operator buried in the banana plantations of a Yankee company had some inkling, with that "Brobdingnagian" imagination of his. He shared his lot with a bunch of siblings, as was the custom, still his father, a Colombian with the privilege of being employed thanks to the telegraph keys, was able to give him an education.
I experienced the opposite. The post office with its telegraph keys and the little public school in Birán were the only facilities in that hamlet that were not owned by my father; all the rest of the goods and services of any economic value belonged to Don Ángel, and for that reason I was able to go to school. I never had the privilege of getting to know Aracataca, the small town where Gabo was born, but I certainly had the privilege of celebrating my 70th birthday in Birán, with him as my guest.
It was also a fortuitous circumstance that in 1948 when, on our initiative, a Latin American Students’ Congress was being held in Colombia, the capital of that country was also the place where, following the dictates of the U.S., the Latin American States were meeting to establish the OAS.
It was an honor that the Colombian students introduced me to Gaitán. This man offered his support and gave us pamphlets of what came to be known as the Peace Prayer, a speech made on the occasion of the Silent March, that massive and impressive demonstration which streamed through Bogotá protesting the massacres of peasants by the Colombian oligarchy. Gabo took part in that march.
In his book Transparency of Emanuel, Germán Sánchez, our current Cuban ambassador in Venezuela, transcribes paragraphs quoting Gabo’s words on that episode.
It was chance until this point.
Our friendship is the result of a relationship cultivated over the course of many years, in hundreds of conversations which were always pleasant to me. Talking with García Márquez and Mercedes whenever they came to Cuba –and it was more than once a year– became a healing experience for the tremendous tension, subconscious but constant, that assailed a revolutionary Cuban leader.
In Colombia itself, on the occasion of the 4th Ibero-American Summit, the hosts organized a horse-drawn carriage tour of the walled city of Cartagena, a kind of Habana Vieja, a protected historical relic. The Cuban comrades in charge of security had told me it wasn’t advisable for me to participate in the scheduled tour. I thought that this concern was excessive since, due to too much compartmentalization, the people giving me this information were unaware of concrete facts. I always respected their professionalism and cooperated with them.
I called Gabo, who was close by, and jokingly told him: “Get on this carriage with us so they don’t start shooting!” And that’s what he did. In the same vein, I told Mercedes who stayed behind at the starting point: “You are going to be the youngest widow!” She hasn’t forgotten! The horse took off, limping along from its heavy load; its hoofs skidding across the pavement.
Later, I found out that the same thing had happened there than in Santiago de Chile, when a TV camera hiding an automatic weapon was pointed at me during a press conference, and the mercenary operating it didn’t dare fire. In Cartagena, they had rifles with telescopic sights and automatic weapons positioned for ambush at a spot in the walled area, and once again the fingers which were to squeeze the trigger grew stiff. The excuse was that Gabo’s head obstructed the view of the target.
Yesterday, during our conversation, I recalled this and I asked him and Mercedes –an Olympic champion of facts and figures– about a number of events experienced both inside Cuba and abroad where we were present. The New Latin American Cinema Foundation, created by Cuba and presided over by García Márquez, located in the old Quinta Santa Bárbara –historically significant for both positive and negative developments occurring in the first quarter of the last century– and the School for New Latin American Cinema run by that Foundation and located in the proximity of San Antonio de los Baños, took up some of our meeting.
Birri, with his then long black beard, which today is as white as snow, and many other Cuban and foreign personalities passed through our reminiscences.
I gained respect and admiration for Gabo because of his capacity for organizing the school in such a meticulous fashion, without overlooking a single detail. I initially had certain prejudices about this intellectual with a marvelous sense of fantasy; I had no idea how much realism dwelled in his mind.
Scores of events in and out of Cuba, at which we both were present, came up while we talked. So many things can happen in decades!
As it’s only natural, two hours were not enough for our conversation. Our meeting had begun at 11:35 a.m. I invited them to lunch, something I had not done with any of my visitors during these past almost two years, since I had never thought of it. I realized that I was really on vacation and I told them that. I improvised. I solved the problem. They had their lunch, and as for me, I followed my special diet with discipline, without deviating an inch, not to add years to my life, but productivity to my time.
No sooner had they arrived that they gave me a small, lovely present wrapped up in bright, attractively colored paper. It contained tiny volumes a little bigger than post cards, but shorter. Each one was between 40 and 60 pages long, printed in small but legible letters. They are the speeches given in Stockholm, capital of Sweden, by five of the Nobel Laureates for Literature in the last 60 years. "So you have something to read" –Mercedes told me as she gave them to me.
I asked them for more details about the gift before they left at five in the afternoon. “I have had the most wonderful time today since my illness almost two years ago" --I told them forthrightly. That’s how I felt.
“There will be other times”, Gabo replied.
But my curiosity continued. A little later, as I was walking, I asked a comrade to bring the gift. Conscious of the rhythm with which the world has been changing in the last few decades, I wondered: What did some of those brilliant writers, who lived prior to this turbulent and uncertain era, think about humanity?
The five Nobel Prize Laureates selected for the small collection of speeches, which hopefully one day our compatriots will be able to read, in chronological order were:
William Faulkner (1949)
Pablo Neruda (1971)
Gabriel García Márquez (1982)
John Maxwell Coetzee (2003)
Doris Lessing (2007)
Gabo didn’t like making speeches. He spent months searching for facts, I recall, in agony over the words he had to say upon receiving the Prize. The same thing had happened with the short speech he had to make at the dinner in his honor following the presentation of the Prize. If that had been his profession, for sure Gabo would have been dead from a heart attack.
It must not be forgotten that the Nobel is awarded in the capital of a country that has not been ravaged by war in more than 150 years, ruled by a constitutional monarchy and governed by a Social-Democratic Party where a man as noble as Olof Palme was assassinated for his spirit of solidarity with the poor of the world. Gabo’s mission was not an easy one.
The Swedish institution, which cannot be suspected of being pro-communist, granted the Nobel Prize to William Faulkner, an inspired and rebellious American writer; to Pablo Neruda, a Communist Party member who received it during the glorious days of Salvador Allende, when fascism was trying to gain control of Chile, and to Gabriel García Márquez, one of the brilliant and prestigious writers of our era.
One doesn’t need to say how Gabo was thinking. It is enough to simply transcribe the final paragraphs of his speech, a jewel of prose, upon receiving the Nobel Prize on December 10, 1982, while Cuba, dignified and heroic, was resisting the Yankee blockade.
“On a day like today, my master William Faulkner said in this place: “I decline to accept the end of man,” he said.
“I would feel unworthy of standing in this place that was his, if I were not fully aware that the colossal tragedy he refused to recognize thirty-two years ago is now, for the first time since the beginning of humanity, nothing more than a simple scientific possibility. Faced with this awesome reality that must have seemed a mere utopia through all of human time, we, the inventors of tales, who will believe anything, feel entitled to believe that it is not yet too late to engage in the creation of the opposite utopia.
"A new and sweeping utopia of life, where no one will be able to decide for others how they die, where love will prove true and happiness be possible, and where races condemned to one hundred years of solitude will have at last and forever a second opportunity on earth.”
Fidel Castro Ruz
July 9, 2008.
7:26 p.m.
17 July 2008
Obama’s foreign policy speech serves notice on Pakistan
Promising a military surge in Afghanistan, the Democratic presidential contender has come as close as he can to warning the Pakistani military: You are either with us or against us.17 July 2008
The Hindu
NEWS ANALYSIS
Obama’s foreign policy speech serves notice on Pakistan
Siddharth Varadarajan
In perhaps his most comprehensive foreign policy speech to date, Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the job of U.S. President, has promised to move resources away from the war he says America should never have fought — Iraq — to the war he insists it must fight to the finish — Afghanistan. And if it is to do that successfully, he says, the United States must be prepared for a radical overhaul of its traditional policy of supporting the P akistani military at the expense of democracy in that country.
Indeed, so large does Islamabad loom in Senator Obama’s mind that he speaks of the “cave-spotted mountains of northwest Pakistan” in the same breath as “the centrifuges spinning beneath Iranian soil” as two of the most important threats against which the American people have to be protected. The message is stark and unmistakable, though its threatening import for the Pakistani army is moderated somewhat by his belief that the U.S. cannot be protected “by the sheer might of [its] military alone.”
While the bulk of his speech, delivered in Washington, D.C. on July 15, is devoted to attacking the Iraq policy of his Republican rival, John McCain, the Democratic Senator used the occasion to lay out a vision of the world that draws unabashedly on the legacy and constructs of the Truman era like the Marshall Plan and the imperative of alliance building to “contain threats.”
Senator Obama’s emphasis on economic aid and nation building for Afghanistan is a welcome departure from the priorities of the Bush White House but his foreign policy continues to be built around a discourse and world view in which “threats” are what the U.S. faces rather than causes and in which military force is a crucial though not singular tool in Washington’s armoury. This is hardly surprising. As the Bush era draws to an end, leading scholars of American foreign policy such as Professor Inderjeet Parmar of Manchester University have cautioned against assuming its excesses were simply the product of a neo-Conservative cabal. Rather, U.S. foreign policy as it exists today is a product of the fusion between liberal interventionists, conservative nationalists and neo-conservatives that occurred post 9/11. Elements of this mix existed even before, under Bill Clinton, but came into sharper relief under President George W. Bush. And what is certain is that this policy blend will continue to maintain its potency under either of the two contenders for the presidency.
This is already apparent from Mr. Obama’s July 15 speech. Of the five goals he identifies as the most crucial to the pursuit of a “tough, smart and principled national security strategy,” three are identical to those which the Bush administration, in its own way, has already flagged as critical: (1) Securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states; (2) Achieving true energy security (the equivalent of Bush’s exhortation to ending America’s addiction to oil) by investing $150 billion in the “green energy business sector” over the next 10 years; and (3) Rebuilding [America’s] alliances to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Here, the Senator repeats, inter alia, the Bush formulation of the need for the U.S. to “strengthen our partnerships with Japan, South Korea, Australia and the world’s largest democracy — India — to create a stable and prosperous Asia.”
On some of these goals, the policy tools are different — Senator Obama echoes President Bush’s pursuit of “diplomacy backed with strong sanctions” but says he is willing to meet with “the appropriate Iranian leader at a time and place of my choosing.” On others, the mix is the same. It is only in the remaining two goals — (1) ending the war in Iraq, and (2) finishing the fight against Al-Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan — that the Obama presidency promises a major change in emphasis. The U.S. must end the war in Iraq, the Senator said, but it “must be as careful getting out as [it was] careless going in.” If that formulation suggests the exit from there will be rather less precipitous than his earlier campaign rhetoric suggested, Mr. Obama wants an immediate military surge in the other theatre of America’s war on terror, Afghanistan. At the same time, he wants this stick to be accompanied by the carrot of enhanced aid to help the Afghans “grow their economy from the bottom up.”
In his speech, Senator Obama was blunt about the greatest threat to the security of America and Afghanistan lying “in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where terrorists train and insurgents strike” across the border. “We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary and as President, I won’t,” he warned. Calling for a more sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO, the Democratic nominee said: “We must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights.”
While Mr. Obama has said this in the past, the man who might be the next U.S. President is insistent in making the link between the Pakistani military’s questionable efforts in the war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and its hold over politics in the country. Serving notice of his intentions, he said: “We must move beyond a purely military alliance built on convenience or face mounting popular opposition in a nuclear armed-nation at the nexus of terror and radical Islam ... Only a strong Pakistani democracy can help us move towards [the] goal … of securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states.”
The persistence with which Senator Obama has been conveying the same message over and over again should occasion some introspection at GHQ in Rawalpindi. Under an Obama presidency, the focus of America’s military presence in the region is going to be Afghanistan, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and Pakistan itself. The Pakistani military has a limited window for course correction.
15 July 2008
Bolton has a way with words
"Tehran's efforts to intimidate the United States and Israel from using military force against its nuclear program..." is the astonishing way in which John R. Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations and neocon extremist non-pareil, describes the gathering war clouds in the Middle East in an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal.
So when the U.S. and Israel threaten force against Iran, that's not intimidation but Iran's effort to prepare for that use of force is! Nice.
Playing the "Muslim card" on the nuclear deal
The Economic and Political Weekly has just published my article on Muslims and the nuclear deal. An earlier version of the same had appeared on this blog a few days back.
July 12 2008
Economic and Political Weekly
Playing The Muslim Card on Nuclear Deal
The nuclear deal and other questions of foreign policy should be opposed or defended on their own merits. Sadly, both the government and its opponents have played fast and loose with the "Muslim" card, to the detriment of the community's larger interest.
by Siddharth Varadarajan
Going by the statements Indian politicians make, Hindus and Muslims must be the most gullible people on earth. How else can one explain the cynical revival, in the run-up to the next general election, of the Ayodhya temple card by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L K Advani? Or the manipulative assertion by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati that the nuclear deal is anti-Muslim.
Sadly, Mayawati is not the only one to look at one of the most important foreign policy issues confronting India in this manner. On June 23, M K Pandhe, a member of the politburo of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), warned the Samajwadi Party against supporting the UPA govern- ment on the nuclear issue because, he claimed, "a majority of the Muslim masses are against the deal". The CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat wisely disowned this shocking statement two days later by saying that Pandhe's remarks "are not the view of the party" but the damage had al- ready been done. Now that it has been let out of its bottle, this dangerous genie will not be exorcised easily. Parties eager to hoodwink Muslims into supporting them feel they now have an issue. And waiting in the wings are the traditional Muslim- baiters in the BJP, who thrive on the communalisation of any issue and will point an accusatory finger at the community when the time is ripe.
For the past three years, Mayawati has maintained a studied silence on the deal despite its supposedly "anti-Muslim" character. Now that an alliance between the Samajwadi Party and the Congress is look- ing increasingly likely, however, she is discovering she can no longer afford to sit on the fence. "The UPA government is adamant to sign the nuclear deal with the US at the cost of much cheaper gas from Iran but Muslims would never accept the deal", she declared at a press conference in Lucknow on July 1.
As if on cue, Muslim leaders like Zafaryab Jillani and Kalbe Sadiq have swallowed this poisonous bait hook,line and sinker. According to UNI, Jillani asked why the Congress government at the centre was supporting the deal when the minority community was against it. Can there be a better way of offering communal grist to the BJP's political mill than the issuing of such foolish statements?
Apprehensions on Nuclear Deal
Like a large number of Indians, most Muslims probably have apprehensions about the nuclear deal adversely affecting India's national interest. Even if they are agnostic or ignorant about the deal itself, the majority of Indians (including the majority of Muslims) are opposed to any kind of military or strategic alliance with the US. It is perfectly legitimate to hold such sentiments and express them too and it was wrong for the Congress Party to claim the foreign policy debate was being "communalised" because Muslim organisations demonstrated against the US president George W Bush when he visited India in 2006. However, for Mayawati or anyone else to suggest that the deal is "anti Muslim" or that the agreement should be scrapped because the Muslims are not in favour is an act of political cynicism that the "Muslim masses" would be well advised to be wary of. For today they are being used only as alibis to justify a political realignment. Tomorrow, they could well be turned into scapegoats when the next realignment occurs.
In 2005 I had argued that the Manmohan Singh government was under pressure from the Americans to sacrifice the Iran pipeline for the nuclear deal ('A Farewell to the Gas Pipeline?', The Hindu, July 22, 2005) so I have no problem with Mayawati attacking the Congress for this. But how is this a "Muslim" issue? India, I wrote at the time, needs Iranian gas till well into the 21st century and that it would be foolish for Manmohan Singh to "give up the energy in hand for two in the Bush". Already, the shortage of gas in the country has led to more than 7,000 MW of installed thermal power capacity lying idle. According to ministry of power data, 13,400 MW of electricity generating capacity in the country is operating on gas with a plant load factor (PLF) of only 53 per cent as against the required 90 per cent.
The pipeline from Iran would help alleviate this shortfall and it is shocking that the UPA government is needlessly dragging its feet on the negotiations with Tehran and Islamabad. Equally short- sighted was the government's capitulation to American pressure on the question of sending Iran's nuclear file to the UN Security Council. Thanks partly to that vote, there is a much greater likelihood of a new war being launched by the US or Israel. But how did these become "Muslim" issues? The majority of Indian expatriates in the Gulf whose livelihood would be threatened by a regional war are not Muslim. And aren't Hindus also interested in "much cheaper gas"?
'Shia' Sentiments
Of course, the original sin of communalising the Iran issue belongs not so much to Mayawati or the Samajwadi Party but the UPA government itself. Unwilling to counter the American pressure on Iran with strong political and strategic arguments of the kind that the ministry of external affairs and the directorate general of military intelligence were making internally, our leaders preferred to buy time for themselves with the lame excuse of "Shia sentiments". Both the prime minister and Natwar Singh, who was external affairs minister at the time, used this dangerous argument in 2005 in order to (unsuccess-fully) tell the Americans why they were prepared to go thus far and no further on Iran. And as recently as April this year, national security adviser M K Narayanan told the International Institute of Strategic Studies' conference in Delhi that one of the reasons India was concerned about how the west was handling Iran was because it had "a very large Shia population".
Narayanan was being coy about India's opposition to the use of force but another speaker at the conference, the former US ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, was more blunt. If asked to choose between Iran going nuclear and a war to stop it going down that route, he said, India would undoubtedly choose the former. However, no Indian leader would dare to spell out our national priorities in so forthright a fashion for fear that the Americans would take offence. It is much easier to use the Indian Muslims as an alibi. Of course, the Manmohan Singh government is not unique in this regard. If the erstwhile National Democratic Alliance government finally backed away from the folly of sending Indian soldiers to die alongside the American occupation forces in Iraq in 2003, this was not because of any "Muslim" opposition to its plans. Nevertheless, Vajpayee told more than one opposition leader who went to see him in the run-up to the Cabinet's July 14, 2003 decision that if only the Muslims were to take to the streets of Delhi to protest the proposed deployment of Indian troops, this would make his job of saying 'No' to the Americans easier.
No Tangible Gains
For the Muslims of India, the idea that they wield so much influence over the country's foreign or any other policy must surely come as a big surprise. Especially since they have no tangible gains to show for this influence. The Sachar Committee's report has painted a vivid statistical picture of a community that lags behind the national average in most socio-economic indicators. When the UPA government came to power, it promised to do something to address the genuine concerns of the community.
Four years later, the record is spotty indeed. There has been some positive fiscal targeting of districts where Muslims live in large numbers but it is too early to judge how effective this has been. The promised Communal Violence bill - which is supposed to ensure that massacres of the kind that were enacted in Gujarat in 2002 never happen again - appears to have been quietly shelved. Even a simple issue like uniform compensation for all victims of mass violence and terrorism has not been addressed; the Congress-led UPA would much prefer making piecemeal announcements for each set of victims so as to maximise electoral gains.
To make matters worse, non-delivery in the core areas of Muslim concern is accompanied in the Indian system by quick action or outlandish promises on bogus issues. As chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, for example, Mayawati is not prepared to lift a finger to ensure that the ongoing trial of policemen charged with the massacre of Muslims in Hashimpura and Malliana 21 years ago is brought to a speedy and just conclusion. But she is all ready to fight the good fight against the nuclear deal in the name of the community. It is almost as if there is a conspiracy to keep Muslims, like other Indians, confined to pressing purely identity-based sectional demands. Muslims or Gujjars who protest against SEZs could find themselves arrested or shot and their demands will never be addressed in a 100 years. But if Muslims and Gujjars protest against Taslima Nasrin or for scheduled tribe status, they may still get shot at but their irrational demands are almost always acceded to.
All parties, whether secular or communal, Left or Right, need to fight it out among themselves on the merits and demerits of the nuclear deal. But to drag the Muslims into the midst of their squabbles is to do a great disservice to the struggle of the community against marginalisation and discrimination and to turn them into nothing more than sacrificial sheep at the altar of the BJP, if and when the party ever returns to power.
How unlikely is it that the party - which says it is against the nuclear deal but in favour of a strategic alliance with the United States - will reverse its stand on the 123 Agreement the next time it comes to power in New Delhi? When that happens, it is the Muslims of India who will be set up as straw figures and demonised for allegedly holding back the "progress" of the country.
July 12 2008
Economic and Political Weekly
Playing The Muslim Card on Nuclear Deal
The nuclear deal and other questions of foreign policy should be opposed or defended on their own merits. Sadly, both the government and its opponents have played fast and loose with the "Muslim" card, to the detriment of the community's larger interest.
by Siddharth Varadarajan
Going by the statements Indian politicians make, Hindus and Muslims must be the most gullible people on earth. How else can one explain the cynical revival, in the run-up to the next general election, of the Ayodhya temple card by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L K Advani? Or the manipulative assertion by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati that the nuclear deal is anti-Muslim.
Sadly, Mayawati is not the only one to look at one of the most important foreign policy issues confronting India in this manner. On June 23, M K Pandhe, a member of the politburo of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), warned the Samajwadi Party against supporting the UPA govern- ment on the nuclear issue because, he claimed, "a majority of the Muslim masses are against the deal". The CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat wisely disowned this shocking statement two days later by saying that Pandhe's remarks "are not the view of the party" but the damage had al- ready been done. Now that it has been let out of its bottle, this dangerous genie will not be exorcised easily. Parties eager to hoodwink Muslims into supporting them feel they now have an issue. And waiting in the wings are the traditional Muslim- baiters in the BJP, who thrive on the communalisation of any issue and will point an accusatory finger at the community when the time is ripe.
For the past three years, Mayawati has maintained a studied silence on the deal despite its supposedly "anti-Muslim" character. Now that an alliance between the Samajwadi Party and the Congress is look- ing increasingly likely, however, she is discovering she can no longer afford to sit on the fence. "The UPA government is adamant to sign the nuclear deal with the US at the cost of much cheaper gas from Iran but Muslims would never accept the deal", she declared at a press conference in Lucknow on July 1.
As if on cue, Muslim leaders like Zafaryab Jillani and Kalbe Sadiq have swallowed this poisonous bait hook,line and sinker. According to UNI, Jillani asked why the Congress government at the centre was supporting the deal when the minority community was against it. Can there be a better way of offering communal grist to the BJP's political mill than the issuing of such foolish statements?
Apprehensions on Nuclear Deal
Like a large number of Indians, most Muslims probably have apprehensions about the nuclear deal adversely affecting India's national interest. Even if they are agnostic or ignorant about the deal itself, the majority of Indians (including the majority of Muslims) are opposed to any kind of military or strategic alliance with the US. It is perfectly legitimate to hold such sentiments and express them too and it was wrong for the Congress Party to claim the foreign policy debate was being "communalised" because Muslim organisations demonstrated against the US president George W Bush when he visited India in 2006. However, for Mayawati or anyone else to suggest that the deal is "anti Muslim" or that the agreement should be scrapped because the Muslims are not in favour is an act of political cynicism that the "Muslim masses" would be well advised to be wary of. For today they are being used only as alibis to justify a political realignment. Tomorrow, they could well be turned into scapegoats when the next realignment occurs.
In 2005 I had argued that the Manmohan Singh government was under pressure from the Americans to sacrifice the Iran pipeline for the nuclear deal ('A Farewell to the Gas Pipeline?', The Hindu, July 22, 2005) so I have no problem with Mayawati attacking the Congress for this. But how is this a "Muslim" issue? India, I wrote at the time, needs Iranian gas till well into the 21st century and that it would be foolish for Manmohan Singh to "give up the energy in hand for two in the Bush". Already, the shortage of gas in the country has led to more than 7,000 MW of installed thermal power capacity lying idle. According to ministry of power data, 13,400 MW of electricity generating capacity in the country is operating on gas with a plant load factor (PLF) of only 53 per cent as against the required 90 per cent.
The pipeline from Iran would help alleviate this shortfall and it is shocking that the UPA government is needlessly dragging its feet on the negotiations with Tehran and Islamabad. Equally short- sighted was the government's capitulation to American pressure on the question of sending Iran's nuclear file to the UN Security Council. Thanks partly to that vote, there is a much greater likelihood of a new war being launched by the US or Israel. But how did these become "Muslim" issues? The majority of Indian expatriates in the Gulf whose livelihood would be threatened by a regional war are not Muslim. And aren't Hindus also interested in "much cheaper gas"?
'Shia' Sentiments
Of course, the original sin of communalising the Iran issue belongs not so much to Mayawati or the Samajwadi Party but the UPA government itself. Unwilling to counter the American pressure on Iran with strong political and strategic arguments of the kind that the ministry of external affairs and the directorate general of military intelligence were making internally, our leaders preferred to buy time for themselves with the lame excuse of "Shia sentiments". Both the prime minister and Natwar Singh, who was external affairs minister at the time, used this dangerous argument in 2005 in order to (unsuccess-fully) tell the Americans why they were prepared to go thus far and no further on Iran. And as recently as April this year, national security adviser M K Narayanan told the International Institute of Strategic Studies' conference in Delhi that one of the reasons India was concerned about how the west was handling Iran was because it had "a very large Shia population".
Narayanan was being coy about India's opposition to the use of force but another speaker at the conference, the former US ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, was more blunt. If asked to choose between Iran going nuclear and a war to stop it going down that route, he said, India would undoubtedly choose the former. However, no Indian leader would dare to spell out our national priorities in so forthright a fashion for fear that the Americans would take offence. It is much easier to use the Indian Muslims as an alibi. Of course, the Manmohan Singh government is not unique in this regard. If the erstwhile National Democratic Alliance government finally backed away from the folly of sending Indian soldiers to die alongside the American occupation forces in Iraq in 2003, this was not because of any "Muslim" opposition to its plans. Nevertheless, Vajpayee told more than one opposition leader who went to see him in the run-up to the Cabinet's July 14, 2003 decision that if only the Muslims were to take to the streets of Delhi to protest the proposed deployment of Indian troops, this would make his job of saying 'No' to the Americans easier.
No Tangible Gains
For the Muslims of India, the idea that they wield so much influence over the country's foreign or any other policy must surely come as a big surprise. Especially since they have no tangible gains to show for this influence. The Sachar Committee's report has painted a vivid statistical picture of a community that lags behind the national average in most socio-economic indicators. When the UPA government came to power, it promised to do something to address the genuine concerns of the community.
Four years later, the record is spotty indeed. There has been some positive fiscal targeting of districts where Muslims live in large numbers but it is too early to judge how effective this has been. The promised Communal Violence bill - which is supposed to ensure that massacres of the kind that were enacted in Gujarat in 2002 never happen again - appears to have been quietly shelved. Even a simple issue like uniform compensation for all victims of mass violence and terrorism has not been addressed; the Congress-led UPA would much prefer making piecemeal announcements for each set of victims so as to maximise electoral gains.
To make matters worse, non-delivery in the core areas of Muslim concern is accompanied in the Indian system by quick action or outlandish promises on bogus issues. As chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, for example, Mayawati is not prepared to lift a finger to ensure that the ongoing trial of policemen charged with the massacre of Muslims in Hashimpura and Malliana 21 years ago is brought to a speedy and just conclusion. But she is all ready to fight the good fight against the nuclear deal in the name of the community. It is almost as if there is a conspiracy to keep Muslims, like other Indians, confined to pressing purely identity-based sectional demands. Muslims or Gujjars who protest against SEZs could find themselves arrested or shot and their demands will never be addressed in a 100 years. But if Muslims and Gujjars protest against Taslima Nasrin or for scheduled tribe status, they may still get shot at but their irrational demands are almost always acceded to.
All parties, whether secular or communal, Left or Right, need to fight it out among themselves on the merits and demerits of the nuclear deal. But to drag the Muslims into the midst of their squabbles is to do a great disservice to the struggle of the community against marginalisation and discrimination and to turn them into nothing more than sacrificial sheep at the altar of the BJP, if and when the party ever returns to power.
How unlikely is it that the party - which says it is against the nuclear deal but in favour of a strategic alliance with the United States - will reverse its stand on the 123 Agreement the next time it comes to power in New Delhi? When that happens, it is the Muslims of India who will be set up as straw figures and demonised for allegedly holding back the "progress" of the country.
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