The choice for India

The US Congress has had its say on the Indo-US nuclear deal; now it is up to India to make up its mind on whether it can live with what it reads. Then it is for the two governments to negotiate the bilateral agreement, and for India to parley with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group. At this stage, what can be said is that India is not going to get everything that it wanted; it will have to live with some compromises if it wants to proceed. Manmohan Singh must regret having asserted that the agreement puts India on the same footing as the Nuclear Five, since it manifestly does not. The Prime Minister will also, it is clear, have to accept something less than the full package that he said was the minimum acceptable, when he last spoke on the subject. On present reckoning, and if the atomic energy establishment does not wave the red flag, the government will be willing to make the compromises even as it negotiates hard in the weeks ahead.

Meanwhile, readers of Indian newspapers will be mystified by what they read; some present this as a shining moment for the country, others as a great betrayal. Indeed, it is hard sometimes to recognise that the two are talking of the same subject. Since the anti-nuclear proliferation lobby abroad is opposed to what the Bush administration proposes, it is safe to assume that the deal is not the Indian sell-out that critics allege. However, it is also not the case that Washington has given India a perfect gift horse: a civilian nuclear deal that implies no cost to India if New Delhi follows an adventurous nuclear policy on the military side. The Americans see this as trying to ensure "good behaviour" on India's part in order to assure itself of uranium supplies and technology flows for its power programme. The choice is between strategic initiative and the economy.

The leverage for good behaviour is simple: the US will cut off all cooperation if India oversteps the line on the strategic side. It will also persuade other members of the NSG to do the same. If India has not been able to stockpile enough uranium supplies for the life of the power reactors (and the intention is to prevent such stockpiling), then this could act as a severe deterrent when it comes to considering strategic options. The other Damocles sword is refusal to take back spent fuel from the power stations""and since under the agreement this cannot be reprocessed in India, stockpiling it on a permanent basis could become a headache. In other words, India is allowed to be a nuclear weapon-state and stick to its doctrine of minimum deterrence; but it must not only accept a complete separation of its strategic and civilian nuclear programmes (which is fair enough), it must also avoid further nuclear testing and other such unacceptable behaviour so that the civilian cooperation can proceed unhindered.

That last bit is the bone that India's negotiators were hoping they would not have to swallow. What they must decide now is whether it places an unacceptable constraint on the military options, or whether some freedoms can be given up on the military side so that the rest of it can go forward. The larger strategic trade-off is between nay-saying the deal at this stage (which will have costs) and exploiting the strategic advantages and diplomatic leverage provided by a stronger relationship with the United States.