Anand K Sahay

The nuclear energy agreement signed between the United States and India during Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh’s recent visit to Washington—which the Americans decided to make a “grand” event—is perhaps best seen in terms of a significant point of departure.

The perspectives contained in this document put behind in one stroke the negatives that dogged ties between New Delhi and Washington right through the latter part of the last century, a long and eventful era, and spell out the intent for the world’s largest multi-cultural democracies to start afresh in the new century. This is what the Americans have officially called a “global partnership” agreement, which far better describes the situation than the tired cliché of “strategic partnership”. Such a concord does not mean necessarily that the two countries are obliged now to develop a close identity of views on the politics of the world. Indeed, that cannot be a realistic expectation so long as the US adheres to the doctrine of unilateralism in world affairs and pre-emptive military action, as Iraq showed.

However, close cooperation in dual-use high technology in the civilian field—across the board—does indeed mean working together in key areas of international activity. Otherwise, a partnership in the civilian uses of nuclear and space sciences is just not feasible. The nuclear energy agreement has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. India continues to keep out of the discriminatory non-proliferation treaty (NPT), and remains firm on not brooking interference from any source on its autonomy in the area of nuclear weapons, though it unilaterally committed itself to a moratorium on nuclear testing and the ‘no firstuse’ doctrine right after testing its nuclear bomb back in 1998. Washington was impressed with this, and also with India’s record in scrupulously avoiding the spread of nuclear weapons or technologies associated with it. It is now assured by the fact that the Indian practice of nuclear restraint has been written into the nuclear energy agreement. This answers vital US concerns on non-proliferation.

What is unique, however, is that this is the first instance that the US has agreed to provide nuclear technology, equipment and nuclear fuels for the civilian reactors of a country that has declined to sign the NPT. To do so, it has undertaken to change its domestic laws and to lobby friendly countries that also supply nuclear materials under NPT provisions. The condition is India should agree to place its civilian reactors under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. In the past, it had refused to do so because that wouldn’t have brought much-needed civilian nuclear technology since this country was not a NPT signatory. The provisions of the agreement indeed suggest that in practice the US is adapting the NPT to meet a specific situation without breaking the treaty. Surely these are historic times. None of this would have been possible if India had not been a fast growing economy within the framework of a stable democracy of long standing.

Sahay, a journalist, writes for THT from New Delhi