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The bunch of anti nuclear activists celebrated the punishment meted out to India with great enthusiasm. Some of them became key members of the non-proliferation regime with President Carter in 1976 and prepared the toughest possible rules and international treaties, approved by the U.S. Congress, all in a bid to stop India’s nuclear energy projects. Hardly did they know then that the non-proliferation regime they created would become a roadblock when strategic equation would change in thirty years, when India would be one of the worlds’ top economic power.
Thirty years and four presidents later, the U.S. is working hard to undo the work of those who created barriers to India’s nuclear energy program. It was in 2005, when the U.S. was on the lookout for a strategic partner in the Indian Ocean and worried at the prospects of the growing Indian economy belching out huge amounts of greenhouse gases, that it offered nuclear energy as an alternative to coal.
Also, India buying natural gas from Iran was another factor that made the U.S think of reviving its nuclear deal with India. In turn, India could not refuse the U.S. offer despite much internal opposition and opposition from international nuclear watchdog groups. Besides, India’s benefit was also the world’s benefit – lesser greenhouse gases.
Three prime places where the nuclear deal hit roadblocks were the U.S. Congress, where ex-Carter administration officials still hold sway in non-proliferation matters, India’s parliamentary opposition opposing the U.S. partnership and international groups like the Nuclear Supplier Group, and NGOs in 23 countries. The latter are political forums who oppose nuclear trade to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, although they have been highly unsuccessful at preventing it. Pakistan, Iran & North Korea acquired their nuclear hardware through alleged covert international trade.
President Bush realizing the importance of the Indo-U.S. Nuclear deal managed to ramrod the India specific waiver in the U.S. Congress in a difficult and acrimonious debate. He gave Congress one concession that he will come back for final approval of the deal, once all international approvals are completed.
India’s internal parliamentary debate was a different matter. The danger of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government loosing out was so real that internal re-alignment of political parties had to be done before the deal could get the Indian parliamentary stamp of approval.
It is the NSG, which presented the worst-case scenario. After so much acrimony in the U.S. and in India, minor countries like Austria, New Zealand, Norway and Ireland with hardly any great amount of economic clout, diplomatic sway or political or military influence began to hold up the deal.
How did NSG come to wield so much power?
India was not a member of the nuclear club. This honor belonged to the U.S., Russia, United Kingdom, China and France. China joined this select group by exploding its bomb in 1964. India waited too long till 1974 and lost out on becoming a founder member of this exclusive club. Only the above five countries were recognized as nuclear powers by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which opened up for signatures on Jul. 1, 1968. All future budding powers were disbarred from becoming either a nuclear military power or using benefits of tamed nuclear energy for commercial purposes.
This treaty stayed as a political and diplomatic pressure tool to prevent any other nation from acquiring nuclear power technology. It had no teeth except moral pressure and veto power for international trade on nuclear materials. India broke that monopoly by exploding a nuclear device in 1974. Non-proliferation enthusiasts got stung by India’s action and began their campaign to punish India and all kinds of legislations and treaties were enacted in 1978.
NSG was an offshoot of that effort to limit the spread of nuclear technology and materials. The U.S played a dominant role in its creation. It began with seven founding nations, who met secretly in London in 1975 and many times thereafter to chalk out plans to stop nuclear commerce. These founding members included the original five nuclear powers joined by Japan and Canada. A little later, West Germany also joined it. These nations were the only countries, which had nuclear technology fit for export at that time.
Not only were nuclear technology and equipment exporters roped into this select club but later all countries with dual-purpose equipment supply capability and basic raw material supply were cajoled to join the group. Today there are 45 such countries that are members of this group. It has been renamed the Nuclear Supplier Group, since.
Surprisingly, countries like Austria, Belarus, Croatia, Lithuania, Latvia, Portugal, and Malta are in this group. Some of these member counties did not even exist fifteen years back. Today they have tremendous power at their disposal to approve or disapprove any application, which requires waivers or approvals. They are unmindful of the changing strategic equations in the world and the harm that greenhouse gases can cause to the environment.
NSG works by consensus, which agrees to opinions reached by the group as a whole. Even one holdout with idealism in mind can put a spanner in the works. This is what a group lead by Austria, including New Zealand, Ireland, Netherlands and Norway did to India’s recent application for waiver. They held out for two consecutive NSG meetings and five rounds of negotiations. Idealism was the motive behind their moves. Under pressure from India and the U.S., they finally withdrew all objections and consented to the waiver of the U.S. prepared revised draft.
China played a negative role. They unenthusiastically supported the waiver, knowing fully well that the U.S. was hundred percent behind the move. They walked out of the meeting once in support of Austria, Ireland and New Zealand. In a bid to scuttle the deal, they demanded an airtight commitment from India to ban testing of any nuclear bombs, although they would not give any such commitment from their side. In addition they made a fresh case for Pakistan to be awarded the same special waiver, given to India. They knew that Pakistan is a nuclear proliferator, yet pleaded their case to endorse the Pakistani government’s support of their strategic plans in Asia. This last minute treachery from China, who earlier supported India, will never be forgotten.
If the NSG had not given the waiver, India still has adequate resources to power its growing economy with local coal and natural gas from Iran. However, this would have quadrupled India’s greenhouse gases emission from the current 1.1 billion tons a year to about 4 billion tons in 20 years and its impact on earth’s fragile environment would have been catastrophic. Nuclear energy will, however, cut India’s emissions by half.
The battle is not cover yet as the Indo-U.S. deal has to face the U.S. Congress one more time. This time around it is a yes-no vote with no debate. With President Bush still in office, it is believed to definitely get Congress approval.
India can now import uranium, lack of which is keeping existing nuclear power plants running at half capacity. In the next four years, new green field nuclear sites will be in operation. Completion of the deal will see more foreign investments flowing into India. Indian industry can now rely on a reliable source of energy.
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(Hari Sud is a retired vice president of C-I-L Inc., a former investment strategies analyst and international relations manager. A graduate of Punjab University and the University of Missouri, he has lived in Canada for the past 34 years. ©Copyright Hari Sud.)
