Big boys' club

Having got the government on the back foot on the issue of disinvestment, it was always obvious the Left parties were going to step up the pressure to scrap the recent Indo-US security pact, for nothing can be more terrible, from their point of view, than India formally tying up with the US.

But what the pact really does is to underscore the fact that the US has finally come around to India's point of view on various issues, mainly that India is the natural dominant power in this region, that the US policy of balancing India with Pakistan was an unwise one, or that nuclear proliferation was being helped along by US allies like Pakistan and China.

That it is not India's persuasive reasoning, but the fear of nuclear material falling in the hands of extremists, or the need to develop a countervailing power to China that convinced the US to take such a step, is another matter.

The issue is not, as is being made out by various people, about tying India to buy US military technology (more specifically the F-16s, as compared to the Sukhois), as India is always free to buy whatever equipment she wishes to.

But it would be foolish to ignore the offer of transfer of technology that comes along with it, and the offer of joint production, especially given the long delays in developing equipment like the Light Combat Aircraft indigenously.

Getting into a missile umbrella with the US, it is true, will be a costly affair and so should be looked at cautiously, but it would lower the nuclear blackmail power that Pakistan has begun to use with great facility over the last few years.

More important, being part of a Proliferation Security Initiative of 11 countries that will jointly stop and search ships on the high seas that are suspected of carrying nuclear material can only help in a security environment where countries or groups hostile to India are increasingly desperate to get such leverage, and are indeed getting it.

That said, the devil is in the detail. So when India begins to operationalise the pact, it needs to be able to withstand the pressure that will invariably come from the US to toe its line.

Transfers of technology, for instance, may be of limited use, if there are going to be unduly harsh end-use restrictions (in the post-Pokharan years, the US stopped Indian scientists from even visiting certain facilities), and the Indian side needs to ensure it puts its foot down firmly enough.

Similarly, there could be a tendency to feel that since the US wants India to buy F-16s (of course it does!), this is what we must buy, and so in spite of the strong view that the Sukhoi is more suited to our needs, the Air Force will then be told to fall in line, and chances are it will.

The same applies to sending troops to places where the US goofs up, as in Iraq""there is no compulsion to do this under the pact. Ultimately, unless India's politicians see the pact as one between equals, there is the danger we will commit ourselves to doing exactly what the Left parties are afraid of""of behaving like a satellite state.