Welcome to the Matrix of the Indian state

The Radia tapes reveal the networks and routers, the source codes and malware that bind the corporate and political establishments in India.







29 November 2010
The Hindu

Welcome to the Matrix of the Indian state

Siddharth Varadarajan

As squeamish schoolchildren know only too well, dissection is a messy business. Some instinctively turn away, others become nauseous or scared. Not everyone can stomach first hand the inner workings of an organic system. Ten days ago, a scalpel — in the form of a set of 104 intercepted telephone conversations — cut through the tiniest cross-section of a rotting cadaver known as the Indian Establishment. What got exposed is so unpleasant that several major newspapers and television channels that normally scramble to bring “breaking” and “exclusive” stories have chosen to look the other way. Their silence, though understandable, is unfortunate. Even unforgivable.

After all, the tape recordings of Niira Radia's phone conversations have come to light against the backdrop of the recent Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report on the allocation of 2G spectrum, which demonstrated how the rules were arbitrarily bent by the then Telecom Minister, A. Raja, in order to favour a handful of private companies at government expense. Among the beneficiaries of Mr. Raja's raj were Anil Ambani. And also Ratan Tata. In one of the tapes, an unidentified interlocutor asks Ms Radia, whose clients include both Mr. Tata and Mukesh Ambani, why “you people [i.e. the Mukesh Ambani group] are supporting [Raja] like anything ... when the younger brother [Anil Ambani] is the biggest beneficiary of the so called spectrum allocation”. “Issue bahut complex hai,” Ms Radia replies. “Mere client Tatas bhi beneficiary rahein hain (my client, the Tatas, have also been a beneficiary).”

Apart from telecom, the tapes also provide valuable insight into the gas dispute between the two Ambani brothers. This was a dispute in which Mukesh Ambani made skillful use of the “gas is a national resource” argument with a pliant media even as he used his influence with individual MPs to try and orchestrate a massive tax concession for his company from the same national resource, Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin natural gas.

In an interview to NDTV and the Indian Express on Saturday — two media houses that have so far avoided covering the tapes — Ratan Tata has called the recordings a “smokescreen” designed to hide the real truth. He is wrong. Utterly wrong. No doubt we know very little about who leaked the recordings and why these were cherry-picked from a wider set of 5,000 recordings the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax authorities made as part of their surveillance of Ms Radia. But even if the story they tell is partial and designed to expose only a fraction of the corporate lobbying which has been going on, we would be naive to ignore the contents of the tapes or be dismissive about their significance.

In the science fiction film, The Matrix, Morpheus tells Neo, “You're here because you know there's something wrong with the world.” The Matrix, he says, is the world that has been pulled over everyone's eyes to blind them from the truth that they are slaves. He offers Neo the choice of a blue or red pill. “You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill ... and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

The Niira Radia audio archive loaded on to the Internet by Open and Outlook magazines last week is the red pill of our time. It reveals the source codes, networks, routers, viruses and malware that make up the matrix of the Indian State. The transmission of information, also known as “news”, between different nodes is vital for the system to work efficiently. The news is also the medium for reconciling conflicts between different sectors of the establishment. If you hear the recordings, you begin to understand the truth about the Wonderland that is India. No wonder there are many amongst us who would rather swallow the blue pill. For once you go in, the only way out is to keep digging. And yes, the rabbit-hole runs deep.

So deep, for example, that we hear a Member of Parliament, N.K. Singh, who is meant to represent the people and the state who voted for him, brazenly batting for a single-man corporate constituency, Mukesh Ambani.

In one recording, Mr. Singh tells Ms Radia of the firefighting he is doing on behalf of Mr. Ambani to ensure a tax concession the finance minister had announced in the 2009 budget for gas production is made applicable retrospectively. Ms Radia says she has killed news stories about the Rs.81,000 crore super profit Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) would make were that to happen but Mr. Singh is more concerned about what happens in Parliament during the debate on the Finance Bill. His fear is that if Opposition MPs make a noise about a largesse being given to one company, the finance minister would be on the defensive and the prospect of extending the concession retrospectively would not even arise. Mr. Singh accuses BJP leader Arun Shourie of being on Anil Ambani's side and reveals how he has managed to get Mr. Shourie replaced as the BJP's lead speaker by Venkaiah Naidu. How well does Mukesh know Venkaiah, asks Mr. Singh, who is a Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar on a Janata Dal (United) – JD(U) ticket. Ms Radia replies that a senior RIL executive, P.M.S. Prasad, knows Mr. Naidu well. “Then I am going to get him flown in today to talk to Venkaiah,” Mr. Singh says, “because if he is the first speaker, and he already takes a party line, then it will be very difficult for Shourie in his second intervention, to take a different line. Then we have to orchestrate who will speak, you know, this is the immediate problem right now. Because, frankly, if this doesn't go through, this tax thing, then it's a major initiative taken that then fails to materialise.”

We don't know if Mr. Prasad flew down and met Mr. Naidu as N.K. Singh wanted him to do. But the BJP leader's speech in Parliament two days later has this telltale suggestion: “The Bay of Bengal has become the new North Sea of India. Government departments should not be seen quarrelling whether mineral oil is a natural gas or not. Whatever concessions [are] needed for infrastructure, exploration ... are connected with the energy security of the country.” This was a veiled reference to the Petroleum Ministry's letter to the Finance Ministry asking for natural gas to be given the same tax concessions available to oil retrospectively and not just from the New Exploration Licensing Round (NELP) VIII round which would exclude RIL's KG basin output. A request the revenue secretary had turned down.

In other recordings, we see journalists and editors, who are meant to report and analyse what is going on objectively, offering to become couriers and stenographers and foot soldiers in the war one set of corporate fat cats is waging against another. We also see a political fixer, Ranjan Bhattacharya, whose USP once was his familial proximity to the Bharatiya Janata Party, seamlessly open a line to the Congress and go about his business as if election results don't matter. He boasts about his proximity to Ghulam Nabi Azad and his ability to send a message to “SG, boss”, a reference to the Congress president. He then quotes Mukesh Ambani telling him the Congress party is now “apni dukan”. Mr. Bhattacharya may have been lying about his influence but then the formidable Ms Radia is anything but a dupe.

We also hear in the tapes an iconic businessman, Ratan Tata, who today makes sanctimonious statements about crony capitalism and the danger of India becoming a banana republic, lobbying through his PR agent, Ms Radia, for A. Raja to be given the Telecom portfolio.

If the allocation of spectrum by the Manmohan Singh government in 2008 and 2009 is one of the biggest scams in independent India, then the involvement of businessmen like Ratan Tata, Sunil Mittal and Mukesh Ambani in lobbying for their choice of telecom minister when the UPA government returned to power in May 2009 is surely a very important part of the back-story. But it is a story none of the journalists who liaised with Ms Radia during this time chose to report. More than the squabble within the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) or between the DMK and the Congress, the involvement of India's biggest companies in the process of cabinet formation was the story that should have been headlined. Ms Radia talks of Sunil Mittal and AT&T using Times Now to push out stories about Dayanidhi Maran being the frontrunner for telecom and Mr. Raja being in disfavour. Her own strategy appears to have been to use her relationship with Barkha Dutt and Shankar Aiyar to get the opposite message out onto news channels like NDTV and Headlines Today.

Instead of using Ms Radia as a “source” for covering the DMK, her role, and the role of her principal clients, in trying to push for a minister who was seen even then as tainted ought to have been exposed. But then Delhi is a hothouse of power, and proximity to power deadens one's reflexes and weakens one's nerves. What Indian journalism needs more than anything else today is distance. From both politicians and industrialists. It is never too late to swallow that red pill.

My interview to a Chinese magazine on Obama's visit to India

Sanlian LifeWeek, "one of the most widely circulated weekly magazines in China with 300,000 readers per week in more than 30 Chinese big cities" contacted me last week to get my views on the visit to India by US President Barack Obama.

According to the journalist who wrote to me, the magazine is published by Sanlian Publishing House, which was founded in the 1930s and is one of China's largest publishing houses of long history.

Since it is rare for an Indian journalist to speak to Chinese readers, however briefly, I was more than happy to provide my two fens worth!

I don't know how much of this they actually used in the published story but their questions and my full answers are below... (If any reader of this blog knows Chinese, I'll be happy to send them a PDF of the story which the magazine sent me)

Interview Questions

Question 1: Many Chinese analysts are less optimistic than India media about Obama's present visit. It is widely believed here while Obama gains economic benefits substantively from this trip, India only gets symbolic gesture from Obama’s supporting India's political ambition to become a permanent member of Security Council. Obama's trip is motivated by economic interest, while India expects political gains. How do you see this gap? How do you see what this trip has brought to the US and to India?

Varadarajan: The United States has three main objectives in developing closer relations with India and these were the focus of President Obama's visit.

The first is to gain economic benefits from commercial and military deals. This goal was only partially fulfilled. $10 billion worth of Indian commercial deals were announced but many of these were previously agreed. As for defence, the big contract for 126 fighter aircraft has yet to be decided between the US, French, Russian and European vendors. The second goal was to dispel the idea that the Obama administration was less committed to the strategic partnership than George W. Bush was. On this front, he was successful, particularly by making the announcement of support for an Indian permanent seat at a future, expanded UN Security Council, and by endorsing the Indian positions on terrorism and the need for a 'step by step' dialogue with Pakistan where easier issues are taken up first. The third goal was to encourage India to work closely with America in the East Asian region and help Washington better manage the uncertainties stemming from China's rise. On this front, he was only partially successful. The Indians are happy to expand their role in Asia and East Asia but are wary of doing so under the "leadership" of anyone, especially the Americans. Nor do they want to be seen as American "allies".

The Indian goals from the visit were also three-fold. First, to make a further dent in the high technology-denial regimes and complete the process started in 2005 with the Indo-US nuclear deal. On this front, India achieved some successes. Three of its companies were taken off the US Entities List, Obama promised that India would be treated the same as other American friends and a commitment was made to push for Indian membership of multilateral export control regimes like the NSG and the MTCR. The second goal was to achieve a better convergence of views on regional security issues, especially terrorism, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. Here, India was only partially successful. Obama came away with a better understanding of India's concerns on terrorism emanating from Pakistan and also of the importance of India's role in Afghanistan. But the US President remains too trustful of the Pakistani military and too distrustful of diplomatic options with Iran, from the Indian point of view. The third goal was to win greater US acceptance of the global role that India aspires to play. This was met with success: the US endorsed India's candidature for a permanent Indian seat and also spoke of working together with India to have a dialogue with other states possessing nuclear weapons (such as Pakistan, China, Russia etc) on nuclear doctrines.

It is true that the promise of a UNSC seat is open-ended and, in a way, conditional on India playing the part of a "responsible stakeholder" from the American viewpoint. But Obama's endorsement will create space for India to push its cause more effectively.

Question 2: The New York Times analyzed Obama's Indian trip as a necessity to counter assertive China. One example in case is the large scale military deal with India. But to many Chinese analysts and experts, in real politics, this is not true. Do you think the U.S. and India take each other as a strategic democratic partner to counter China in Asia?

Varadarajan: It may be simplistic to characterise American policy towards Beijing as one of "countering China". Yes, the US is worried by what it sees as growing Chinese assertiveness. So are many countries in Asia, especially India, Viet Nam etc. The US also makes a lot of noise about the lack of transparency in Chinese defence policy and defence spending. In reality, the US is by far the strongest military power in the world and has been using its armed might in Asia for several decades, often with very negative consequences for the region (eg. Viet Nam war, Iraq war of 2003).

The US and Chinese economies are closely intertwined but this does not mean there is no strategic rivalry. Power for both the Chinese and the Americans means the same thing: no restriction on their own freedom of action and the ability to deny that complete freedom to others. During the Cold War and after, the US relied on a network of allies to project its power in Asia. Today, America itself may not be in decline but some of these allies, especially Japan, are in decline. The thrust of US policy over the past 15 years has been to build a new network of partnerships that can sustain American hegemonic interests in Asia. And Pentagon planners believe India has the potential to be the most important of such partners, given its military capability, democratic culture and regional and even global aspirations. To this end, the Pentagon has been encouraging arms sales and inter-operability with the Indian military and also been pushing for access to Indian bases.

The Indian side, however, is wary. They would like access to the latest American hardware and are keen to benefit from military exercises but they do not intend to serve as a junior partner in such a project. There is resistance within India to signing agreements like the Logisitcs Support Agreement and CISMOA. And while many Indians are wary of Chinese military power and feel the need to grow Indian capabilities as a counter or hedge, there is no support for a military gang-up with the US against China. Most see such a strategy as dangerous for the region.

Question 3: Historically, India holds an independent policy towards many issues and seldom follows the U.S. As some Indian scholars put, India has its own global strategy and is not interested in any kind of military alliance. What is your opinion? How do you see the U.S. and India’s divergence in issues like US’s AfPak policy and towards Iran, and more broadly, their Asian version?

Varadarajan: There are some in India who would like the country to work more closely on global issues with the United States but the overwhelming majority support an independent foreign policy. This means that just as there will be issues on which we will work with the US, there will also be issues where we will work closely with other countries and this may also mean taking stands and positions that run counter to what the US wants. We have seen this on the world trade talks issue (Doha round), as well as on the climate change issue. Even on Iran, the Indian position today is at variance with the American one. India does not believe sanctions and coercion are the way forward, for example.

Differences may also crop up on the question of Asian security architecture when it becomes clear that the US intends not to work as a partner of Asia and East Asia but seeks to lead and direct it. But here, it is important for Chinese readers to understand that hardline Chinese policies and attitudes, especially when it comes to territorial disputes and boundary questions, are making it easier for the American side to push its role and even "leadership" in Asia. The US would like nothing more than to be able to play on the insecurities and fears of China's neighbours.

India and Obama: Trading one hyphenation for another

India may no longer be bracketed with Pakistan in American thinking but its hyphenation with China does not augur well for the relationship or the region...







12 November 2010
The Hindu

Trading one hyphen for another

Siddharth Varadarajan

Speaking to an audience of businessmen in New Delhi in May 2009, Robert D. Blackwill struck a dark and pessimistic tone about what the arrival of Barack Obama in the White House portended for India. As George W. Bush's ambassador, Mr. Blackwill had helped effect a major transformation of the bilateral relationship. But four months into the tenure of his successor, he was concerned that “there may be a substantial change under way in the quality and the intensity of U.S.-India relations.”

The main reason for this was the change in Washington's attitude towards Beijing. According to Mr. Blackwill, President Bush “based his transformation of U.S.-India relations on the core strategic principle of democratic India as a key factor in balancing the rise of Chinese power.” Going by early indications, however, “it is not clear that the Obama administration has the same preoccupation with the rise of Chinese power and India's balancing role in it.”

Ambassador Blackwill was not alone in reading the tea leaves that way. The world financial crisis had increased the clout of China and there was much breathless talk of ‘G-2', a new Sino-American compact to stabilise the global economy. “So China today appears, at least to me, to be on a substantially higher plane in U.S. diplomacy than India, which seems to have been downgraded in administration strategic calculations,” Mr. Blackwill noted. One consequence of this downgrading was the role the Obama administration appeared to encourage China to play in South Asia. The joint statement issued at the end of President Obama's visit to Beijing in November 2009 spoke about the two countries increasing their cooperation towards the goal of “bringing about more stable, peaceful relations in all of South Asia.” Not surprisingly, India saw red.

Twelve months later, however, the world seems to have spun around to the Bush axis again. The U.S. no longer harbours illusions about a G-2 in which China would play the role of a junior partner. Tension with Beijing has returned across a wide range of bilateral issues from currency and trade to naval deployment and maritime security. The past year has also seen a deterioration in China's relations with several Asian powers like India, Japan and Vietnam, with disputes flaring up over stapled visas for Kashmiri-domiciled Indians and disputed islands in the South China and East China seas. It is in this context that President Obama and his advisors seem to have rediscovered the importance of India.

In a triumph of strategic path-dependence over political fantasy, President Obama has returned to the baseline policy the United States has been following for the past decade. This is the policy of renewing alliances and creating “partnerships” in Asia so as to sustain American domination and leadership in a region that is otherwise increasingly being influenced by China's rise. And at the heart of this policy is encouraging India to get more involved in the East Asian economic and strategic space. “Today, the U.S. is once again playing a leadership role in Asia,” President Obama said in his speech to the joint session of Parliament earlier this week. [We] want India to not only “look East”, we want India to “engage East”…”

The crucial words here are the “leadership role” of the U.S. They provide the context for the increased engagement Mr. Obama wants to see as he exhorts India to go east. The Manmohan-Obama joint statement talks of the two leaders having a shared vision for peace, stability and prosperity in “Asia, the Indian Ocean region and the Pacific region.” They also speak of the need for an open, balanced and inclusive architecture in the region.

Without going into the merits or demerits of India looking and engaging the East under American “leadership,” the essentially derivative nature of the Indo-U.S. relationship needs underlining. What is common to the warming to India under Bush, the cooling in the initial months of the Obama administration, and the current warmth is, in a word, China. American attitudes towards Beijing appear to have become a better predictor of temperature on the Indo-U.S. front than anything intrinsic to the bilateral relationship. And that can't be a good thing.

The reality of this equation for Indo-U.S. cooperation in the strategic and military sphere is reinforced by some of the views collated by Bethany N. Danyluk and Juli A. MacDonald in The U.S.-India Defense Relationship: Reassessing Perceptions and Expectations, a report prepared for the Pentagon in November 2008. “If there were no China,” a U.S. Navy officer is quoted as saying in the unclassified report, “we would still engage [India], but maybe not to the same extent. There are plenty of opportunities for cooperation, but China drives a lot of what we are doing”.

The 2008 report, which updates a similar survey of American and Indian policymakers' attitudes that the Pentagon commissioned in 2002, provides a valuable insight into the other imperatives that also seem to be driving the American desire to have India look east. These include the expectation that India could relieve some of the regional security burdens currently borne by the U.S., with its overextended military commitments, and the idea that Washington ought to somehow leverage the relationships India has in the region to achieve mutual objectives “in places where the United States would like to maintain a lower profile.” According to one American official quoted: “The United States is trying to get out of the one-on-one hub-and-spoke mentality. We need to figure out where the United States injects itself effectively. Where it does not, it would be helpful to have India engage these actors horizontally.”

The picture that emerges, then, is a complex one in which American off-shore balancing is combined with the outsourcing of hegemonic responsibilities in East Asia.

The fact that the U.S. hopes to benefit from increased Indian engagement in East Asia can hardly be an argument against India looking east. But the hyphenation with China that the American policy towards India is predicated on should make us pause for thought. Though India — and even the U.S. — are not in the business of containing China, this explicit hyphenation of two major Asian powers in American public discourse creates unnecessary complications for New Delhi. For example, the Chinese attitude towards a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council for India may be outrightly hostile if Beijing concludes that Washington is being motivated by some crude notion of a balance of power in Asia. Of course, China may still be hostile in the absence of such a motive but it might reconcile itself to the rise of Indian power if it believes this power will not be used to hurt its legitimate core interests. Sending out such a signal is essential for India.

As India and China grow, they will inevitably rub up against each other in their respective backyards. India does not like the growing Chinese influence in South Asia any more than China will welcome India's increasing presence in East Asia. But when this presence comes bundled together with an American one, the mix can seem suffocating and lethal for both. Just as India reacted so negatively to America speaking of a Chinese role in South Asia, China is likely to be shell-shocked by the copious references to East Asia in the various speeches and statements that were made during Mr. Obama's recent visit to India. It may react by reaching out and playing catch up with a country it has unnerved with its statements on the border issue this past year. Or it may ratchet up the pressure. Or it may just wait and see whether Mr. Obama's domestic difficulties and changes in global dynamics push Washington into once again warming towards Beijing and cooling towards Delhi.

India's relationships with the U.S. and China will never be completely independent of each other but the challenge for Indian policymakers is to ensure each is free standing and independent of the pushes and pulls which occur between Washington and Beijing. The U.S. does not do partnerships. That is why Mr. Obama reminded Indian parliamentarians of the leadership role America is playing in Asia. But Asia doesn't need leaders and followers. So long as Washington insists on leading the show, the Asian architecture India and the U.S. speak about cannot be genuinely open, balanced and inclusive. As New Delhi slowly recovers from the Obama whirlwind, this is one message that needs to be internalised.

Obama's UNSC statement a boost but India to be on probation

“[In] the years ahead,” the American President told Parliament on Monday, “I look forward to a reformed U.N. Security Council that includes India as a permanent member.” ... My news analysis ...

9 November 2010
The Hindu

Obama's UNSC statement a boost but India to be on probation

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: Barack Obama's endorsement of a permanent seat for India in a reformed U.N. Security Council represents a significant evolution of American policy towards both India and the world body.

“[In] the years ahead,” the American President told Parliament on Monday, “I look forward to a reformed U.N. Security Council that includes India as a permanent member.”

Led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the members of Parliament burst into thunderous applause when they heard those magic words. And yet, the absence of a timeline, Mr. Obama's use of passive voice and his caveat on India's “increased responsibility” all suggest that the U.S. expects India to bat for pet American causes in order to fully earn a seat at the global high table.

In July, senior American officials accompanying General Jim Jones, who was Mr. Obama's National Security Adviser at the time, told members of the Indian strategic community at an informal interaction that any decision to endorse India as a permanent member of the UNSC would depend on “our assessment of the extent to which India is likely to play a responsible role [there].”

Among the areas where President Obama expects India to demonstrate responsibility are sanctions on Iran and democracy and human rights promotion in places like Myanmar. If his exhortations left MPs unimpressed, this was not because anyone in the House supports a nuclear-armed Iran or the generals in Nay Pyi Taw. Rather, it was because of the double standards involved in the formulation of this checklist.

And yet, it would be churlish to deny the step forward that Mr. Obama has taken in signalling his support for an Indian permanent seat. Even if he has essentially handed the Indians a cheque that cannot easily be cashed, the U.S. President's words will strengthen India's hand as it seeks to press for reform of the U.N.

Until now, Washington had spoken only of a “criteria-based approach” to the selection of potential members of a reformed and expanded Security Council. In 2005, the U.S. said it “unambiguously supports a permanent seat for Japan” in the UNSC but the furthest it was prepared to go on India was this vague promise made by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns earlier this year: “We're open to expansion of permanent membership of the Council and we believe India's going to have a central part to play in the consideration that's going to come.”

This endorsement is less fulsome than what the U.S. has given the Japanese but the political impact of Mr. Obama's statement in other capitals around the world will be enormous. Russia, which has slowly backed away from its earlier unqualified support for India, will now come under pressure to abandon its insistence on “consensus” as a precondition for UNSC reform. That will leave the Chinese — who have not gone beyond stating their “understanding” of India's desire to play a greater role in world affairs, including at the U.N. — as the last among the five current permanent members to fully reveal their hand.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has often noted that the P-5 will not give up the powers they currently enjoy. Even a dilution of power would be unpalatable to them. The U.S. knows the P-5 will never lose their veto power and that any new permanent member will have to come in without the veto. What Mr. Obama is proposing, therefore, is not the dilution of power but its diffusion, that too over an unspecified time frame and with the unstated advisory that India would be on probation till the as-yet undefined process of expansion is complete.
Challenge to leadership

Dr. Singh is right in welcoming Mr. Obama's long-term affirmation of India's place in a reformed UNSC. But the challenge to the Indian leadership is in reconciling the political price Washington will demand for supporting its candidature with the expectation most U.N. members have from India's independent line in foreign policy and global security matters. If that independence flags, the world may see little merit in giving India a seat around the horseshoe table at Turtle Bay. But if that independence is asserted, a future American President may quietly drop Mr. Obama's less-than-ringing endorsement.

In a first, India, U.S. for dialogue of all nuclear weapon states

At stake, a symbolic erasure of the distincion between NPT-recognised nuclear weapon states and NWSs outside the treaty...

9 November 2010
The Hindu

In a first, India, U.S. for dialogue of all nuclear weapon states

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: The United States has become the first nuclear weapons state (NWS) as defined by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to endorse the idea of talks between the five NWSs and the three nuclear-armed nations outside the NPT, i.e. India, Pakistan and Israel.

In their joint statement issued on Monday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and U.S. President Barack Obama “affirmed the need for a meaningful dialogue among all states possessing nuclear weapons to build trust and confidence and for reducing the salience of nuclear weapons in international affairs and security doctrines.”

The statement adds: “They support strengthening the six decade-old international norm of non-use of nuclear weapons.”

Until now, the U.S. has remained firmly wedded to the NPT framework and structures — or to bilateral forums with other NWSs like Russia — for all dialogues related to nuclear weapons. Others like China have also been reluctant to engage in any discussion with India on nuclear strategic issues such as no first use, risk reduction and confidence-building measures.

What Mr. Obama and Dr. Singh envisage, however, is a framework which will bring all eight countries possessing nuclear weapons together for a dialogue on building trust and confidence, a major step in the direction of harmonising the NPT, which the three outsiders will never sign, with the wider aim of “universal and non-discriminatory global nuclear disarmament in the 21st century.”

In doing so, India and the U.S. have assembled the basic building blocks of a framework which has the potential to transcend the NPT, while remaining faithful to the twin goals of non-proliferation and the elimination of nuclear weapons.

The joint statement also says the U.S. intends to support India's full membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group and Missile Technology Control Regime in a phased manner “and to consult with regime members to encourage the evolution of regime membership criteria, consistent with maintaining the core principles of these regimes,” as the Indian government simultaneously moves ahead with coming into conformity with these regimes' export control requirements.

The Hindu has learned that in the course of the negotiations, the U.S. side confirmed to India that NPT membership would not be one of criteria for India's membership. Moreover, a commitment to this effect was read into the official records.

India, which is pushing for an international no first use agreement and a Nuclear Weapons Convention outlawing atomic arms, considers its position on doctrinal issues to be far ahead of that of the U.S. Although the Obama administration has spoken of reducing the salience of nuclear weapons in its military doctrine in the latest Nuclear Posture Review, this is the first time the U.S. is committing itself to a dialogue on the issue with all other countries possessing nuclear weapons.

Manmohan's dinner diplomacy a hit with Obama

In which the Obamas get to find out who's who in Delhi ...







8 November 2010
The Hindu

Manmohan's dinner diplomacy a hit with Obama

Siddharth Varadarajan

Any doubts Barack Obama might have had about the political pecking order in India is likely to have been settled by the seating arrangement at the private dinner Prime Minister Manmohan Singh threw for the visiting U.S. President at his residence on Race Course Road on Sunday night.

The 50 Indian and 20 American invitees were sprinkled across 10 tables arranged under a high-domed, open tent on the lawns just outside the bungalow once known as “7 RCR” that serves as the Prime Minister's residential camp office.

Among the high-profile invitees were Ministers, politicians, film stars, captains of industry, bureaucrats and the odd academic, environmentalist and even journalist. And at the head table, alongside the two principals and their spouses, pride of place was given to three politicians whose importance for the current and future state of the government is just a notch below that of Dr. Singh: Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and the member of Parliament from Amethi, Rahul Gandhi.

If Ms. Gandhi's place at the high table needs no explanation or comment, Mr. Mukherjee's presence there — especially when his American counterpart, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, was seated elsewhere — sent a clear message about his status as the primus inter pares of senior Ministers, several of whom (S.M. Krishna, A.K. Antony, P. Chidambaram) were also present at the dinner . As for Mr. Gandhi's slot on the high table, Mr. Obama could be forgiven for thinking this was part of some sort of grooming exercise. If I win a second term as U.S. President, he must surely have asked himself, is this the man I might be dealing with in India in 2014?

Whatever the future portends, however, Mr. Obama knows Dr. Singh is the man who calls the shots on the bilateral front for now. The two leaders spent nearly an hour closeted together in a meeting without aides or note-takers, giving the assembled guests a chance to freely mingle over endless glasses of pomegranate and mousambi juice. What they discussed is not known. Shortly after 8 p.m., everyone was asked to get into a U-shaped line by the SPG chief, B.V. Wanchoo. The Prime Minister and the U.S. President then walked in with their spouses. Mr. and Mrs. Obama proceeded to shake hands and exchange a few words with each of those present.

No one from the Left parties appears to have been invited. But the Prime Minister did invite Arun Jaitley and L.K. Advani from the Bharatiya Janata Party, as well as the former National Security Adviser, Brajesh Mishra. The other Ministers present were Sharad Pawar, Kapil Sibal, Salman Khursheed, Anand Sharma and Prithviraj Chavan.

The tables at which guests were seated were named after prominent Indian-Americans or American individuals with a strong India link like Dalip Singh Saund (the first and only Indian to be elected to the U.S. Congress) and Norman Borlaug of the Green Revolution. Live entertainment was provided by the Navy band and the BSF's camel band.

Apart from Mr. Gandhi, the Prime Minister invited several young MPs to the dinner including Meenakshi Natarajan, Priya Dutt, Harsimrat Kaur and Kanimozhi. The Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, suggested Mr. Obama take the time to visit his State, an invitation the U.S. President said he would take up when he was able to find time to travel a bit more in the region. Among the film personalities present were Aamir Khan and Shabana Azmi. Chess wizard Viswanathan Anand was also there, as were atomic energy stalwarts Anil Kakodkar and Srikumar Banerjee. The industrialists present included Anu Agha of Thermax, Ratan Tata, Azim Premji, Swati Piramal and N.R. Narayana Murthy. Top bureaucrats included National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, Principal Secretary to Prime Minister T.K.A. Nair, Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, Media Adviser to Prime Minister Harish Khare and Culture Secretary Jawhar Sircar.

U.S., India ‘constructing paradigm beyond the NPT'

America has decided to support India's membership in the NSG, the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Australian Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement ...

7 November 2010
The Hindu

U.S., India ‘constructing paradigm beyond the NPT'

Siddharth Varadarajan

In committing itself to supporting India's full membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group and other multilateral export control regimes, the Obama administration has finally opened a door for the country to transcend the legal confines of a treaty that has defined global attitudes towards nuclear weapons for over four decades: the NPT.

The American decision to support India's membership in the NSG, the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Australian Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement was made public on Saturday by Deputy National Security Adviser Mike Froman and is conditional on these clubs deciding, by consensus, to change their rules on who can join.

“As the membership criteria of these four regimes evolve,” said Mr. Froman, “we intend to support India's full membership in them. And at the same time, India will take steps to fully adopt the regime's export control requirements to reflect its prospective membership.”

The current membership rules of the NSG, though not formally stated, require adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or a regional nuclear weapons free zone (which in turn requires NPT membership). And the same treaty requirement applies in the case of the MTCR and the Wassenaar Arrangement — a cartel of 40 states which governs the export of conventional weapons and dual-use goods and technologies. But Mr. Froman said the U.S. would “encourage the evolution of a membership criteria of these regimes consistent with maintaining their core principles.”

Asked how the United States and India hoped to square the circle of compulsory membership of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that the NSG and other cartels insist on, a senior Indian official told The Hindu: “We are constructing a paradigm beyond the NPT.”

Though President Barack Obama and his senior officials had upset India over the past year by signing on to calls at the United Nations and elsewhere for the universality of the NPT, Washington is acutely aware that India's accession to a treaty which would require it to give up its nuclear weapons is an impossibility. It is in this light that Mr. Froman's reference to new membership criteria acquires enormous significance.

The Bush administration's initiatives from 2005 to 2008 saw the U.S. helping to peel away export restrictions that were never originally a part of the NPT itself. That is why the NSG was able to give India an exemption from its export restrictions without getting into the trickier issue of what India's legal status in relation to the treaty actually was. But with NSG membership essentially tied to the NPT, any new joining criteria will effectively establish for nuclear-armed India — in clearer legal terms than anything else so far has done — a parallel status equivalent to that of the five nuclear weapons states which are part of the NPT.

Apart from easing Indian access to sensitive high technology items, membership of these clubs — “which will come in a phased manner” — will give New Delhi a say in their rule-making process. Under the terms of the NSG's 2008 waiver, India is today in the anomalous position of being obligated to abide by future guidelines that NSG and even MTCR members may adopt without being part of their formal decision-making process.

The MTCR deals the export of missiles with a range greater than 300 kilometres while the Australian Group regulates the export of materials that could be used for manufacturing chemical and biological weapons.

A partnership built on flawed assumptions

If the big ticket arms and nuclear purchases the U.S. expects India to make do not materialise, much of the warmth in the relationship will evaporate...





5 November 2010
The Hindu

A partnership built on flawed assumptions

Siddharth Varadarajan

For all its appeals to “shared values” like democracy as a counter to China, the United States has not fully understood the meaning and significance of Democratic India's emergence as a global player.

At one level, this is hardly surprising. The U.S. itself developed a full-blown capitalist system and rose to global pre-eminence at a time when a large section of its population did not have the right to vote. The same is true of Great Britain and Japan and Europe. In the post-World War II period, countries which registered the greatest success in establishing a free market system tended not to be democratic. If capitalism and multi-party democracy come as a package in many countries today, it is capitalism which got off the starting block first in virtually all of them, leaving its imprint on democracy.

India's ruling class, on the other hand, was handicapped by the need to harmonise in real time the anti-democratic consequences of a market-based economy with the procedural and substantial requirements of a democratic polity. Of course, economic elites have had the greatest influence in policymaking but their power has always been contested. As a result, universal adult suffrage — and the wider deliberative process that comes along with it — has had more of an impact on the development of capitalism in India than in the rest of the “free world”. Unsurprisingly, the country's global outlook has also been tempered by this aspect of its polity.

The U.S. sees the macro growth data and has a fair idea of where India will be in economic terms two decades from now. It sees the rise and wants to get in at the ground floor. This was the meaning behind the gratuitous promise, made during the presidency of George W. Bush, of helping India emerge as a world power. But India is not in need of that “help”. Its rulers have their own global ambitions and they are not interested in becoming a client state or even a military ally or partner. Those are the two kinds of relationships the United States is used to having with countries around the world. That is why early signs that India will play the power game differently have been greeted in Washington with bewilderment, consternation and even anger.

In the countdown to President Barack Obama's visit to India, American officials have expressed their frustration over the new nuclear liability law. They are also upset with India's reluctance to sign “foundational” defence agreements like the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA) and the Communication and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA). Having done the heavy lifting at the Nuclear Suppliers Group to win an exemption for India from the cartel's export ban in 2008, the U.S. fears its own companies may not be able to benefit from the multi-billion dollar Indian nuclear market. Westinghouse and GE are squeamish about selling their reactors because the new Indian law opens a door for them to be held liable in the event of an accident caused by defective equipment. The executive branch may have wanted a more lenient law but Parliament thought otherwise. Despite this, the American side is looking for ways to undo the legislation.

If the Indian liability law goes beyond the international norm in insisting that suppliers too shoulder a part of the risk involved in the nuclear power generation business, this is because India is the first democracy to go in for a massive expansion of nuclear capacity in recent years. If the U.S. administration is unable to appreciate the sensitivity of the question in a country which experienced the Bhopal disaster, it could at least look at how the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has forced a rethink of liability limits in the United States. Instead, suggestions are being made that the Indian nuclear operator contractually take on the entire liability burden of its supplier even when an accident is traced back to faulty equipment. The end result of this pressure, of course, is that Parliament is likely to demand the right to scrutinise any reference to liability in the commercial contracts the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) signs with American vendors.

On the defence side, the LSA and CISMOA aim to boost interoperability between the Indian and American militaries, and pave the way for more arms sales from the U.S. Washington has both commercial and strategic reasons for developing a close military-to-military relationship with India. Billions of dollars of business and thousands of American jobs are riding on the weapons choices India will make over the next few years. But the U.S. is also keen to use its intimacy with the Indian armed forces to outsource low-end operations in the region, particularly in disaster management and counter-piracy.

India, on the other hand, is reluctant to sign these agreements because it is wary of the wider strategic implications. The U.S. has been an expeditionary and even belligerent power in Asia and though the Indian government supports the American war in Afghanistan, the 2003 invasion of Iraq had disastrous consequences throughout the region. With many in Washington speaking of a looming confrontation with Iran over the nuclear issue — a confrontation that would make the Iraq war look like a tea party — why should India do anything to facilitate American military deployment in the region?

Confronted with the Indian refusal to sign on the dotted line, American officials say the LSA and CISMOA texts on offer are identical to what dozens of countries have had no problem signing. In making this argument, the U.S. forgets that India is not an ally or a subordinate partner. Washington cannot hope to simply replicate the way it does business with Australia or Japan. Even if there are sections of the Indian establishment that would like to go along with these agreements, the political implications are far too complicated. This is a reality the U.S. will have to live with.

One test of the Indo-U.S. “strategic partnership” will be if it is able to survive an Indian refusal to spend billions of dollars on American military hardware. Though the technologies on offer seem tempting, India needs to proceed with caution given the end-use restrictions and the ban on modifications that America has imposed on all weapons it sells. Given the fickleness of the U.S. political system and the almost whimsical way in which technology and supply restrictions are imposed and lifted, India will place itself at risk by getting too dependent on American supplies for major weapon systems.

While the “unreliability” of the Americans is not in dispute, there are some in India who see this as a small price to pay in order to buy U.S. support against the “unpredictability” of the Chinese. It is true that the increasing assertiveness of China has rung alarm bells in many parts of Asia and that New Delhi needs to develop an effective strategy to manage what is likely to be an increasing complex relationship with Beijing. The White House has made much of the fact that Mr. Obama's visit to India will be followed immediately by visits to three other Asian democracies — Indonesia, South Korea and Japan. “There is a message in this to China,” a senior U.S. official said in Delhi last month. After fantasising in 2009 about a joint condominium with Beijing, Washington today appears slowly to be moving to the other extreme. In a few years time, it will be ready to move right back. It is essential that India have excellent relations with the United States. But these relations have to be free-standing, built with all the confidence that a rising, democratic power can muster, our eyes looking forward rather than sideways at the constant swings of an American pendulum.