Such a long journey from Pokharan

INDO-US NUCLEAR DEAL

The fury of world reactions eclipsed the blistering heat of the summer day in 1998 when India conducted five nuclear tests at Pokharan.

Then, the US showed its anger by clamping tough economic sanctions against New Delhi.

Eight years later, the US Senate has voted in favour of civil nuclear cooperation with India in a spirit of bipartisanship that was reflected in the 85-12 vote.

Symbolic of the bipartisanship was the vote of Senator Hillary Clinton (Democrat, New York). She supported one "killer amendment" that sought to cap India's fissile production.

But she was forced to change her mind and went on to vote in favour of the Bill. The increasingly influential Indian-American community, with strong links with Democrats, clearly weighed in favour of the deal.

Non-proliferation critics in America had argued that this deal would allow India to continue making nuclear bombs in secret, drive a nail in the coffin of the international non-proliferation regime, and effectively reward India for having gone nuclear.

Conscious of the unease at home, David Mulford, US envoy in New Delhi, shied away from describing India as a nuclear weapon state. Instead, he put a positive spin: that the US had helped India assume her place as a world power, ending her isolation.

Considering that eight years ago, soon after Pokharan, the then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (in Bill Clinton's presidency) had declared, "India has dug itself into a hole," today's vote was music to India's ears.

Strategists said the signing of the deal could be perceived as a signal that America was serious about making India a counterweight to China.