What’s the real deal?

Excitement is running high in South Block over the visit of US Deputy Secretary of State, Nicolas Burns’s visit to New Delhi on May 31. This is being widely speculated as the ‘final push’ by the Americans to clinch the final conclusion for the ongoing discussions on the 123 agreement to officially seal the Indo-US Nuclear Accord. The parleys between Burns and foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon will constitute an important phase in the run-up to the summit engagement between Manmohan Singh and George Bush on the margins of the G-8 Summit. 

It is now clear that major differences do exist over the proposed Indo-US Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.  But Burns has tried to run roughshod over the protestations of Indian negotiators. In the aftermath of the negotiations between the two technical teams, Burns was emphatically dismissive of the persisting concerns. Without spelling out the details of what will be the nature of give and take, he had observed — “it is going to be hard work on the part of both the United States and India” and added “both sides need to compromise in order to reach a final agreement.  Both of us are responsible for this agreement.” 

Unfortunately, the Indian government is reticent about the content and progress of the negotiations. For the kind of stakes involved and given that we have only recently legislated to make ‘Right to Information’ a statutory provision, this is most extraordinary. 

The Indo-US nuclear deal has been one of the most controversial accords and hence from day one, a huge public debate has taken place in the country. This is not surprising.  The magnitude and the sweep of the implications of the agreement would invariably have repercussions on the entire gamut of the Indian nuclear and strategic policy.  At stake is the very independence and integrity of the largely independent nuclear programme which the country has developed assiduously since independence. 

In India, the political debate has been remarkably well-informed. The progress of legislative changes in the concerned US laws have been studied and analysed right from the draft stages both in the House Committee of International Relations and the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations. Incongruities in the versions of the bills that were passed by the two Houses of US Parliament and the reconciled document which resulted, in contrast to the text of the joint summit agreement, came under close public scrutiny. 

But the attitude of the Indian government has been cavalier. By constantly postponing important considerations, the foreign policy establishment wishfully thought that the rough edges can be smoothened out at the time of working out the 123 Agreement. 

The Indian government today is a minority and is formally premised on a National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) which is committed to pursue an independent foreign policy. True, the Indian government does not require a parliamentary ratification for the international agreements they sign, but it is also true that given the nature of the polity the government also had to make commitments to the Parliament of the specifics of the deal. A solemn commitment by no less than the Prime Minister on the floor of the Parliament is as a binding as parliamentary accountability can get. 

It is now clear that the commitments of the PM is at odds with the provisions of the US Atomic Energy Act that mandates the incorporation of a “nuclear test penalty clause in any bilateral agreement with a country that is not a nuclear weapons state under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”  The fact is that the US administration never intended to amend this provision. The negotiation has reached such a stage where India’s insistence that it cannot be treated as a non-nuclear weapon state even though it has not signed the NPT is not tenable. The negotiations have also not been able to secure India’s right to reprocess spent fuel. 

In this background, the visit of Burns and the way the Indian establishment responds to him is going to be a litmus test for its commitment to the NCMP and the Prime Minister’s commitment to the Indian Parliament. Surely, the agreement cannot be at odds with the Prime Minister’s assurances. That course of development will not be acceptable to the Parliament and its sovereign right of representing the national opinion.  

The writer is a member of the CPI(M) Central Committee.