US-INDIA NUCLEAR DEAL GENERATES VEHEMENT OPPOSITION IN INDIAN PARLIAMENT & PUBLIC DEBATE: An Analysis

US-INDIA NUCLEAR DEAL GENERATES VEHEMENT OPPOSITION IN INDIAN PARLIAMENT & PUBLIC DEBATE: An Analysis

By Dr. Subhash Kapila

Introductory Observations

The US-India Nuclear Deal Agreement unveiled by the Congress Government in India under suspicious circumstances after freezing the text and keeping it in wraps for some time has raised an unprecedented but expected storm in the Indian Parliament and in public debate.

In the Indian Parliament, the opposition to the US-India Nuclear Deal Agreement as finalized by the Government cuts across political parties lines and the Congress Party stands isolated. The Leftists as the main coalition supporter of the Congress Government have given an ultimatum that the Government should press the “pause button” and not proceed further on the Agreement and that the Agreement may need renegotiation. An explicit threat is implied that they could withdraw support to the Congress Government.

The Indian Prime Minister’s obdurate fixation to go ahead irrespective of the Leftists warning not only imperils the continuance in office of the Congress Government but also imperils the future of the US-India Nuclear Deal. A new political dispensation in India may not agree to go through with the Deal in the present form.

The issue that has presently acquired salience is not the Deal itself per-se, but the wider issue of the conduct of India’s foreign policy and the content of the US-India Strategic Partnership. The US-India Nuclear Deal as a purely “energy security initiative” should have been kept separate from the wider issues of US-India Strategic Partnership. What has happened is that concurrently with the US-India Nuclear Deal negotiations, the Indian Government allowed itself to be drawn into US – sponsored security initiatives like the US-Japan-India Trilateral and the US-Japan-Australia-India Quadrilateral. This rang alarm bells across India’s political spectrum.

Regular readers of papers by this author on the subject would recall that the Deal as originally conceived in July 2005 was welcomed by this author and others writing on this web-site. Readers would also recall that after the first six months itself, this author had begun injecting assessments and analyses that the future of the Deal was in doubt. In this connection besides other papers of this author, the following need particular highlighting with reference to what is happening today:

“US-India Nuclear Deal Reviewed "(SAAG Paper No. 1670 dated 10.01.2006)
“US-India Nuclear Deal Generates “Great Indian Divide” (SAAG Paper No. 1701 dated 14.02.2006)
“US Congress at Critical Crossroads with India: A Plain Speaking Analysis” (SAAG Paper No. 1766 dated 12.04.2006).
More than a year ago, not with any hindsight, but with prescient foresight, the above papers of the author had made the following observations:

“The dramatic change from high Indian expectations of the deal to a wide Indian divide now opposing the deal, in a matter of six months, needs serious analysis”.
“What can be stated straightaway is that the blame rests both on US Administration and the Indian political establishment in the manner both have managed the ensuing negotiation process.”
“The Indian Prime Minister and his establishment, generated by their lack of transparency and unwarranted security, that a “Strategic sell-out” was taking place”.
“An impression was taking shape in India that the Indian Prime Minister and a very strong Pro-American lobby in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was riding rough shod over the contrary views in the Indian political, scientific and strategic community”.
But why should Indians blame the United States? The United States was pursuing its own national security interests and strategic agenda. It is the present Indian Government of the Congress Party that was responsible to the nation that Indian National Security interests were protected and the impression not given that India was allowing itself to be put in a “nuclear strait jacket” by the super-imposition of the Hyde Act on the US-India Nuclear Deal.

In the Indian Parliament today and in public debate it is not the United States that is being pilloried but the present Indian Government of the Congress Party and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The reasons for the above and discussed further below are:

Indian Prime Minister’s Domestic Mishandling of the US-India Nuclear Deal
Indian Policy Establishment’s Dismissive Responses to Domestic Criticism of Nuclear Deal
India’s Foreign Policy Issues Need National Consensus
United States: Some Sobering Thoughts
Indian Prime Minister’s Domestic Mishandling of the US-India Nuclear Deal

The Indian Prime Minister for some uncanny reasons was not really forthcoming on the progress of negotiations of the Deal as they became more complex and vexing. The whole process was mishandled in the sense that on such a sensitive issue as “nuclear programs” which are India’s lexicons of power, the Indian Prime Minister should have widened the spread of consensual discussions with political parties, the scientific community and the strategic community. He did not do so.

The whole process was confined to the precincts of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) generating an environment where more details were available in Washington than in New Delhi. Differences and pressures had commenced in early 2006 itself on the separation plan and the issue of including FBR program in the civil list.

India at large was sensing something was amiss and this generated three significant events:

President Kalam’s statement that India should safeguard the FBR program
Chairman IAEC Dr. Kakodkar going public on the issue and his charge of US “shifting goal posts” on the Deal
Letter to Prime Minister by eight senior retired Indian diplomats which brought into public domain the lack of Prime Ministerial transparency on the Deal
In the preceding weeks to the current crisis, the pattern has remained the same, even after the text of the Deal has been unfrozen. New Delhi’s interpretations of the Text of the Deal have been selective and at variance with the interpretations being given in Washington. Obviously, the Indian and US perceptions and interpretations of the Text of the Deal varied significantly to generate contrary responses in both capitals.

The current crisis would not have taken place had the Indian Prime Minister and the Congress Government had taken the country into confidence right from the outset and not imparted an undue secrecy during the negotiations. It seems to have been forgotten that the Deal was between the United States and India and not between President Bush and Dr Manmohan Singh. and that therefore the widest possible political and scientific spectrum should have been involved by the Congress Government. in arriving at the Deal.

Indian Policy Establishment’s Dismissive Responses to Domestic Criticism of Nuclear Deal

The paper quoted above carried detailed excerpts of a very dismissive response by a junior PMO bureaucrat to Dr. Kakodkar going public on the “shifting of goal posts” by USA. This was unwarranted as the Indian public reposed greater trust in the Indian nuclear scientists who brought about independently India’s nuclear weapons program. The Prime Minister should have restrained the PMO bureaucracy from such dismissive responses as it is not the sole repository of India’s strategic wisdom and foresight.

Symptomatic of the above has been the uproar in Parliament today generated by statements by the Indian Ambassador in USA Ronen Sen alluding to the opponents of the Deal in India and the Parliament as responses made by “headless chickens” etc and other disparaging remarks.

The scribe who quoted Ambassador Sen has stood by his remarks and disputed the Ambassador’s contention that he was misquoted.

India can do without “committed diplomats and bureaucrats” delving into domains that do not fall within the purview of their official duties. It is not their duty to defend the Deal and they should have left it to the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister to defend it.

India’s Foreign Policy Issues Need National Consensus

In the last two years this point has been consistently made in this author’s papers and this was in response to periodic statements from the present Government that the Cabinet has the sole power to enter into external agreements and that no constitutional provisions exist to do otherwise.

Technically this may be correct, but this assertion is politically untenable. With foreign policy issues increasingly figuring in domestic debates, no government and especially a coalition government can ignore the imperatives of a national debate and consensus on critical foreign policy and national security issues.

The last time a Congress Prime Minister personalized such issues it led to his fall from the iconic pedestal on which India had placed him besides the unwarranted military debacle of 1962.

In the current crisis, the Congress Government is still fighting shy of a debate in Parliament. If it is convinced that what it has agreed on the Deal is right, and that they have secured India’s national security interests, economic interests and energy interests then why is it fighting shy of a vote on Parliament on the issue under Rule 184.

The Congress Government and the Prime Minister should have the courage of conviction to face a Parliamentary vote. That is the right and appropriate democratic process.

United States: Some Sobering Thoughts

These last two years would have provided the United States some sobering thoughts on how to engage India and the contextual factors operative in any negotiations with India with any political dispensation in power.

The United States must not adopt with regard to India the negotiation approaches which it adopts with Pakistan.

It seemed that the United States took it for granted that as long as PM Manmohan Singh was in their pocket and his policy establishment was fully aboard the Deal was a ‘done thing’.

In India, public opinion counts and public opinion matters even more than in the United States. India unlike Pakistan is not a dictatorship where one man counts and one man takes the decisions.

In 2006 itself, the United States should have judged that a wide cross-section of India was not with PM Singh and the Congress Government on this Deal. They should have nuanced their approaches accordingly and gently advised the Indian interlocutors that the Indian Government should strive for a wider consensus embracing the entire political spectrum, the scientific community and the strategic community.

Concluding Observations

The US-India Nuclear Deal finalization should have been a landmark event and a watershed in US-India relations. Regrettably, the way it has been mismanaged by an obdurate Indian Prime Minister with total disregard to consensual national approaches has robbed it of its sheen.

There was no logical reason for the Indian Prime Minister to indulge in undue secrecy during the negotiations of the US-India Nuclear Deal. Some suggest that cloaking it with a veil of secrecy was an Indian suggestion.

The negativities that have been generated in the last two years in India’s official handling of the US-India Nuclear Deal and connected foreign policy issues may affect the future course of US-India Strategic Partnership, too.