Indo-US nuclear fallout

 

 

Dasu Krishnamoorty

 

 

Opposition to the deal Manmohan Singh pulled off at Washington with George Bush is reaching a crescendo. Its echo will surely be heard in Parliament’s monsoon session where the learned professor will have to face both his Leftist allies and the official opposition. The media, both at home and in the US, are full of the views of nuclear experts, columnists and political leaders. They discussed the consequences of the deal for both the countries. Media reaction was mixed and varied. While the doctor garnered a lot of coverage he has failed to win a media consensus. The liberal newspapers, the Hindu, the Washington Post and the New York Times, looked at the summit outcome from different perspectives. Media, both in the US and India, felt that their country made gains as well as losses. However, the Hindu alone made the significant point that the entire transaction was negotiated behind the backs of the people.

 

The Hindu said, "Unfortunately, this deal, like so much else in the realm of strategic affairs and foreign policy in recent years, including the Indo-U.S. defence framework agreement, has been sprung on the people of India — forsaking the method of democratic discussion and consensus-building in advance rather than after the deal is done." But it took pains to tell us how it will benefit the people and under what conditions. Its editorial added, "In sum, the Manmohan-Bush nuclear deal is to be understood as a constructive, although clumsily non-transparent, preference exercised by the UPA Government in favour of the civilian nuclear programme." It then drew attention to the bigger worry over the question of whether there are hidden linkages — compromises wrested from India in the realm of foreign and security policies, for example, on the Iranian gas pipeline or in the cooperation proposed in the global `war against terrorism` — that go with the nuclear deal. The other serious problem the Hindu highlighted was that "while `non-proliferation` concerns figure in the Joint Statement, the UPA Government has regrettably failed to show the slightest interest in returning to India`s traditional policy of promoting nuclear disarmament on the world stage. The Government owes it to the country to provide clear and straightforward answers to these caveats, breaking with the secretive manner in which it did the nuclear deal."

 

Even as the New York Times felt that the Bush administration won positive response from its overseas allies and Congressional leaders for the deal, it hastened to quote a former assistant secretary of state John S. Wolf saying, "It’s disappointing that we’ve given something to India and not gotten something in return. This agreement is difficult to reconcile with the international norms advanced by the United States for the last 40 years." The Washington Post’s editorial claimed that the gains could be considerable, and so too the risks. "Start with the potential benefits. As an emerging Asian superpower, India may serve as a counterweight to China," said the editorial even as it cautioned that although India`s rising power might constrain China in a general way, India did not share the U.S. commitment to defend Taiwan and would probably stand aside in other potential U.S.-China rows that do not affect Indian interests. "India`s noisy democracy tends to feature coalition governments that include anti-American voices, just as America`s noisy democracy features protectionist members of Congress who blame India for the loss of U.S. jobs. So the Bush administration is right to want close ties with India, but these will have limits. Now consider the risks in the administration`s gamble. Pakistan, India`s neighbor and rival, will seek a similar de facto blessing for its nuclear status. The administration`s efforts to contain the nuclearization of Iran and North Korea may also suffer," the Post editorial concluded.

 

Differences over the outcome of the talks are as large as the subcontinent. The American media were happy that Bush did not give away much. From our viewpoint, the Prime Minister really lost no face because he never made tall claims. Just before his departure, he told Somini Sengupta of NYT, "It’s too presumptuous on my part to say that I can predict the outcome." But the Financial Times team of Caroline Daniel and Jo Johnson assumed that India would chase three objectives: permanent membership of the Security Council, lifting the ban on the use of dual-use nuclear technology and revoking opposition to the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline. The White House pre-empted Manmohan Singh on the first and third points by ruling out any possibility even before Dr Singh landed in Washington.

 

Writing for the Christian Science Monitor, Howard LaFranchi said, "US plans to broaden India`s access to nuclear technology have their roots in designs from the earliest days of the Bush administration to build India`s stature as a counterbalance to a rising and problematic China." This view is confirmed by Joseph Cirincione, head of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He says, "The crux of this announcement is what it tells us about the US grand strategy, and that behind whatever else is going on here the US is preparing for a grand conflict with China and constructing an anti-China coalition" The White House plan does not formally recognize India as a nuclear power, but some critics say it does grant de facto recognition. Karl Inderfurth, a former assistant secretary of State for South Asian affairs during the Clinton administration, argued that the plan will be controversial among many nonproliferation experts and in Congress. But he adds: "It`s the right call for us and for the world, really. This is a way to bring India into a global nonproliferation regime, rather than leaving it on the outside."

 

Siddharth Varadarajan wrote in the Hindu of how the scientists, former and serving, at the Department of Atomic Energy reacted with anger and disbelief and told the  newspaper that "allowing international inspectors access to all civilian nuclear plants would seriously hamper ongoing research work on the fast breeder reactor (FBR) programme and compromise India`s long-term energy security."

 

C. Raja Mohan of the Indian Express has a different view. He wrote: "The US commitment to supply natural uranium to those reactors India chooses to place under international safeguards was only one of the many positive results from the nuclear pact with the United States." Siddharth also referred to the useful role scientists accompanying Dr.Singh played in wrenching the best for India. The Times of India editorial welcomed the deal in these terms, "New Delhi`s committing in return to place its civilian nuclear plants under international safeguards does not damage our interests, since military facilities are out of their scope. It may, in fact, be a plus, as India`s nuclear plants are ageing and doubts have been raised about their safety. International safeguards will stimulate them to upgrade their standards."

 

Whether the Prime Minister’s meeting with Bush was a media success or not must hinge on the gloss they put on it. This depends on the quantitative and substantive criteria they import to measure it. In terms of column inches, use of pictures and front page display, it was doubtless a success both at home and in the host country. Media coverage in the US was unusual and unprecedented for an Indian prime minister. The same thing cannot be said about what the media had to say. Most of the commentary hardly concealed its target. The views of the American liberal media always reflected a general ideology that supports liberal regimes or supposedly so. The conservative media regard it as their duty to make things easy, Judith Miller style, for the Republican tenanting the White House.  Collectively, they just did that. The conservative media put on their best mask to help the Bush team.

 

The New York Times and the Washington Post did two days of front page display, not to mention a curtain-raiser. The Post also ran an editorial. Bush’s media voice, the Wall Street Journal, carried warm reports two days in a row. The Christian Science Monitor, the Baltimore Sun and newspapers of the provincial press were not far behind. But the joint press conference was a disaster, according to Chidanand Rajghatta of the Times of India and an anonymous Rediff correspondent. At a truncated version of the press conference, the American media pretended India and Manmohan Singh did not exist. They asked Bush questions about Karl Rove, seen as the leaker of Valeri Plame’s name, and Bush’s new nominee for the Supreme Court bench. But Rajghatta was thoughtful to remind us of the plight of all visiting dignitaries at the hands of US media. Australian Prime Minister John Howard was in Washington at the same time as Dr. Singh but failed to tickle the US media radar.

 

A lot of media euphoria greeted Dr Singh at home as he took off for Washington. "Manmohan’s visit to Washington is potentially a moment of history. Matched only by Deng’s American journey in 1979. The Singh-Bush parleys on Monday, July 18, are about the new dynamism in the triangular relations between New Delhi, Washington and Beijing," wrote Raja Mohan. A Times of India report claimed, "It’s nothing like the Harry Potter mania, but Manmohan Singh’s visit to the United States is a sell-out. Not the kind Left parties in India are cautioning about. Tickets, passes and invitations for the Prime Minister’s public events can’t be had for money or influence." According to the UNI, "the Bush administration has pulled out all stops to accord a red carpet welcome to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh." Some newspapers preferred caution. The triangle Raja Mohan referred to clashes with the US media view visualizing a plan to use India as a counterweight to the growing power of China.

 

The Prime Minster did well in not pressing for UNSC permanent membership. The Security Council is a power club set up by the victors in war and a travesty of democracy. Any of its members can veto a resolution of the General Assembly representing almost the entire world. The United States vetoed nearly 300 resolutions to deny independence to the black people in South Africa and Rhodesia. For a long time, it blocked the entry of "communist" China. If it is this kind of power we are after, it goes against the democratic tradition of the Indian people. China is our permanent neighbour and if the nuclear deal is to seduce us into any anti-Chinese strategy of America, the Indian media ought to reject it on that ground.

 

Contact: dasukrishnamoorty@hotmail.com