Nuclear deal: India defied domestic pressure, now faces international pressure
Manmohan Singh let go of his Leftist allies and braved a confidence vote to clinch the nuclear deal with US. But now he faces a bigger challenge of convincing Austria, New Zealand and the Netherlands that India is a safe nuclear power. India’s future will be bright with nuclear power, but what does future hold for her nuclear arms?
A sensible move on Singh’s part to drop the Communist parties in his government like hot potatoes, but he could have attained a lot more political gains if he had done this earlier. The Left believed that inking the India-US nuclear deal will mean bowing to US pressure. But nuclear power is not only important, it is almost necessary for India, which even today suffers from power outages. And in today’s world, the only way to get nuclear fuel is by agreement with the world powers.
India has already given away a lot in getting the IAEA to its side by bringing all civilian nuclear facilities including the power plants under IAEA’s purview. But the deal has got trickier only now. Some countries that are members of the NSG have strong anti-nuclear lobbies that they have to appease. From their perspective, India not being a signatory of the CTBT or NPT is a hurdle. However, India being located amidst a rogue nuclear power such as Pakistan and an unfriendly unclear giant such as China, is unwilling to give up its nuclear arms. Hence the need to convince the NSG members of responsibility.
The US and most other countries have already given in a lot to India’s stance of not preventing itself the opportunity to develop more nuclear arms in the future. This is in lieu of the billions of dollars their economy will gain by selling nuclear power and allied resources to power-hungry India. But a future nuclear test on India’s part could almost immediately ban this trade.
As it is, India is on tricky ground. If it secures the approval of NSG and further that of the US Congress, the issue only becomes even trickier for India. Will it or will it not further test or make nuclear arms? And if it does, how will it secure fuel for all the nuclear reactors it has and is going to build? The answers to these questions will not be clear until India reaches such a juncture. But presently, nuclear power is only a favourable thing to India at any cost.
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