A defining moment

INDO-US RELATIONS

Though the deal becomes operational only after the US Congress ratifies it, there is no denying that it is historic.

When President Bush landed in New Delhi last week, leaned forward and whispered in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's ear, "I want that deal", he was communicating to India how badly the US needed the civilian nuclear energy deal that the two sides eventually sealed after all-night negotiations.

Earlier this year, the US India Business Council (USIBC), which has nearly 100 Fortune 500 companies among its members that do business in India, hired Patton Boggs, a lobbying firm, to convince US lawmakers it was in the US's interest to ratify the Indo-US nuclear deal.

The Indian government hired two other firms"" Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, headed by former US ambassador to India Robert Blackwill, and the Venable Law firm"" at an annual cost of over $1.3 million for the same purpose"" to launch a campaign to convince US lawmakers that the nuclear deal was not intended to encourage proliferation, but to help India set up a civilian nuclear power industry and in the process, help the US revive its nuclear power industry.

The US's 103 nuclear reactors meet 20 per cent of its energy needs. The 1979 meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania was a near-deathblow for the industry, and even though it is now being rehabilitated, no nuclear power plant has been licensed in the US since 1978.

In 2005, recognising the limits to fossil fuel, and the need for alternatives, Congress and the Senate passed a new energy bill containing incentives (federally-backed insurance and loan guarantees for "innovative technologies" and tax credits) to encourage investment in nuclear power.

Small wonder that the power-from-nuclear-energy lobbyists invested so much in the Indo-US agreement. Here was a sector, just waiting to be developed, given the Indian market's hunger for energy and its capacity to absorb investment.

If the US needed to be persuaded, there was also pressure from Russia and France, the two other pioneers in the area of civilian nuclear power.

But why did it take so much time and effort for India and the US to clinch what is clearly a win-win deal? The reason is simple. In 1974, when India exploded its first nuclear device and became a state with a nuclear weapon without signing the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the world got at New Delhi's throat.

The assumption was that CIRUS, (Canada-India-Reactor-United States) which Canada agreed to supply to India in 1956 only for peaceful purposes, was India's main facility producing plutonium for its nuclear weapons programme until the 1980s.

If India had diverted the harvest of a civilian reactor earlier, it could do so again, went the refrain. So why should it have the best of both worlds"" not commit itself to non-proliferation and yet enjoy the gains of nuclear energy?

The US Congress said India must agree to cap its military nuclear programme, to ensure that there was no diversion between military and civilian nuclear facilities. Concerns covered transfer of nuclear technology (and fuel) to third countries.

The Nuclear Suppliers' Group, which tracks the ebb and flow of fissile material, also began asking questions about the dangers of proliferation for the rest of the world from a possible India-US civil nuclear agreement.

So the question was: How would the United States accommodate the legitimate right of the world's largest democracy to continue its economic development without undermining the non-proliferation regime that is regarded as a key element of global security?

There was an additional problem. Having faced global denial, Indian scientists who claim ownership of India's nuclear programme as being entirely indigenous, reminded India about the dangers of dependency, once the civil nuclear agreement was signed.

They warned that a separation plan, unless done with foresight, would have the effect of putting a cap on ongoing military programmes, like the Advanced Technology Vehicle, a nuclear-powered submarine. If the production of fissile material was cut short, how would future military needs be met ?

This is why the Indo-US nuclear deal is so important. Because India has made a courageous and historic choice. It has decided that it will continue to be part of the debate on nuclear theology, but will also ensure that its citizens are not denied the benefits of modern science"" that is, electricity generated through nuclear power.

That said,it is crucial, if Indians are not to see their government as having turned the country into a principality of the US, that the gains of the agreement should reach them quickly. This means two things: availability of more, safe power quickly; and creating conditions that show a visible decline in atmospheric pollution.

Having established itself as a friend and strategic ally of the United States, the Indian government has to leverage this for its common man. Currently he is asking the government: "what's in it for me"? When the government can answer this question, it can claim it has negotiated a successful deal.