A worrying development

“THIS is a unique agreement for a unique country” is how US Under-Secretary of State Nicholas Burns sought to justify the US-India nuclear deal. The truth is, however, that whatever it may or may not accomplish, the agreement has certainly damaged the global non-proliferation regime and made it that much more difficult to promote the advantages of non-proliferation.

When first mooted in 2005, the US-India deal was viewed by most analysts as far too ambitious and extremely difficult to achieve. Even some of my senior colleagues in Pakistan mistakenly believed that the understanding was so destructive for so many US laws that it would not pass muster in Congress. Now that the agreement has been finally negotiated, there is a considerable wringing of hands in Islamabad.

According to the State Department, the deal with India was “a clear recognition that there is a real difference” between the two countries. Hopefully, this observation will help to take the blinkers off the eyes of the regime’s apologists in Pakistan, who, convinced of the importance of their country’s exaggerated role in the global war on terror, expected US policy on this critical issue with regard to India and Pakistan to be non-discriminatory. If only they knew that great powers do not base foreign policy decisions on sentiments and emotions, but on narrow national interests.

In this context, it would be recalled that the idea of an agreement on the nuclear deal that was finalised recently emerged for the first time during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington in July 2005. It received fresh endorsement by the two sides during President Bush’s visit to New Delhi in March 2006. The US Congress approved it in December 2006 in the form of the Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act 2006.

The Indians, however, made it clear that they were not happy with some of the provisions of the act and insisted that unless their concerns were met, they were not prepared to consider the deal as final. For one, it did not amend some sections of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which limits cooperation with countries that are non-signatories of the NPT, or have conducted nuclear explosions as India did in 1998.

Bush was, therefore, constrained while signing the act into law to qualify it with a “presidential signing statement” meant to signal his willingness to reach a bilateral understanding with India. It was called the 123 Agreement because it would amend Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act.

The protracted negotiations were described as tough and occasionally contentious, but neither country permitted the limitations of national laws or the obligations of international obligations to deter them from pursuing their bilateral understanding.It is also a fact that the Indian diplomats were able to take full advantage of the Bush administration’s publicly proclaimed eagerness to build strategic relations with India, of which the nuclear deal was to be an essential building block. Even US officials admit that the Indian negotiators showed remarkable grit and resilience in pursuing their strategic objectives.

The two governments are, however, aware that their understanding is going to upset many people in both countries — primarily the non-proliferationists in the US and the nationalists in India. They are, therefore, keeping the details under wraps, but there can be no doubt that the Manmohan Singh government has every right to feel satisfied with its success in safeguarding India’s core interests.

If reports from New Delhi are to be believed, the US has agreed to India’s demand that it retain its right to reprocess spent fuel to be used in its fast breeder reactor programme. New Delhi’s only concession on this has been to offer to build a dedicated reprocessing facility for imported fuel and to place it under IAEA safeguards.

The other issue of contention related to guarantees that the US would continue to supply nuclear fuel to India even if it were to conduct a nuclear explosion. This was considered an outrageous demand even by some of India’s friends, but New Delhi stuck to its guns.

It got the Bush administration to concede this by agreeing that in such a scenario, while it could demand the return of equipment and material exported to India, it was not obligated under law to do so as the whole issue would go for presidential review. In any case, there would be no sudden and complete suspension of nuclear cooperation with India.

Many US experts view this latest bit of evidence of the Bush administration’s trashing of US non-proliferation goals on the altar of “strategic relations with India”, as dangerous and provocative for states with nuclear ambitions.

David Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, accused the administration of departing from recognised policy on more than one count. He lists these as the following: One, in July 2005, the US dropped its long-standing policy of restricting nuclear cooperation with states that have nuclear weapons or that tested them or that refused to allow full IAEA safeguards. Two, the US gave up its demand that India suspend production of fissile material for weapons purposes. Three, in March 2006, despite a US request to do so, India refused to include the fast breeder reactors in its list of civil nuclear facilities slated to be placed under safeguards.

The latest concession is that India is permitted to reprocess imported spent fuel. In any case, the reprocessing facility would further free up India’s limited fuel supplies for weapons purposes.

In my conversation with disarmament experts and anti-nuclear advocates in Washington recently, I was made aware of their outrage at the manner in which the Bush administration bent over backwards to please India.

John Burroughs, executive director of the New York-based Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, said that the deal would undermine prospects for global agreement on nuclear restraint and disarmament. He also feared that it would “promote an arms race between India and Pakistan and between India and China.”

Jayantha Dhanapala, the former UN Under-Secretary for Disarmament Affairs was equally critical of the agreement. He charged that it had “the dangerous potential of triggering a nuclear arms race among India, Pakistan and China, with disastrous consequences for Asian peace and security.”

Hopefully, the finalisation of the US-India nuclear deal will awaken our policymakers to its dangerous consequences. I still remember that in July 2005, when it was first announced by Bush and Singh that they would strive to reach an understanding on nuclear cooperation, many of our experts viewed it more in terms of a public relations exercise by the two countries. The government, too, was oblivious of its potentially negative fallout, claiming that we need not worry about what these two countries intended to do, for whatever Washington offered India would come our way as well.

By the time they woke up to what the deal was all about, it was too late. When Musharraf tried to raise the matter with Bush during the latter’s visit to Islamabad in March 2006, the US president not only gave him short shrift, but humiliated him in public by making the ridiculous claim that “Pakistan and India are two different countries with different histories…”

Of course, they are different countries, but US non-proliferation laws are meant to be applied fairly and without discrimination. However, as a sop to a visibly embarrassed Musharraf, the US president sent his energy secretary to Islamabad who advised us to exploit the bounteous sun shining over Pakistan to meet our desperate energy needs — while India would be receiving US nuclear reactors.

Fortunately, the Chinese have reportedly come to our rescue and agreed to build more nuclear reactors in Pakistan. While this is a welcome development, we need to coordinate our position much more closely with that of China. The latter may be the only country in the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group that has reservations regarding the manner in which the US has gone about trashing domestic as well as international laws in its desire to help India.

While Russia and France are supportive of the US-India deal, largely for commercial purposes, China has expressed misgivings about it, pointing out that global non-proliferation laws should not be changed for any one country and that any change must be criteria-based. Is it possible that with China’s assistance, Pakistan can get the same “benefits” being offered to India? It will be extremely difficult but is certainly worth the effort.

It is relevant to note that it is not only in the nuclear field that the US and India intend to cooperate closely. In fact, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, while hailing the “deal” stated that “civil nuclear cooperation between the US and India will offer enormous strategic and economic benefits to both countries.” According to the US Chamber of Commerce, the deal could open up economic opportunities worth $100 billion for American business houses.

It is not a mere coincidence that as the two countries were finalising the nuclear deal, they were also discussing massive arms transactions. According to the Indian Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry, India’s import of military hardware and software will reach $30 billion within the next five years. The big deals include 126 multi-role fighter jets (valued at $10 billion) and a variety of helicopters and long-range maritime spy aircraft.

In the past three years, India has spent over $10 billion on radars from Israel, submarines and helicopters from France and tanks from Russia, making it the largest arms importer in the developing world. It goes without saying that US arms manufacturers do not intend to allow their European competitors to deny them a share of the pie. Under Secretary Nicholas Burns confirmed this when he said that the administration expects a breakthrough in bilateral defence relations with India next year.

Meanwhile, it is important that we draw the right lessons from the US-India nuclear deal. First of all, we must not get too carried away by American largesse. True, the Bush administration is providing us annually over a billion dollars outside the Congress-sanctioned budget which may be a more effective means of influencing those in Pakistan who truly matter than the roughly $700 million that Congress appropriates for us.

It must also be noted that the manner in which India negotiated with the Bush administration showed the skill and intelligence of its diplomats, but this was not the critical factor in its success. Instead, it was the fact that these diplomats were negotiating as representatives of the world’s largest functioning democracy whose economy is also growing at a most impressive rate.

Speaking on behalf of a civilian democracy is an altogether different matter from being the interlocutors of an unrepresentative, authoritarian regime, whose legitimacy is questioned every day.

The writer is a former ambassador

South Asia’s men of straw

AT the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, India awoke to freedom. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru assured the nation that “long ago, we made a tryst with destiny and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge.” The pledge he spelled out meant the ending of poverty, ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. Mahatma Gandhi had promised earlier to wipe out every tear from every eye.

Yet, after 60 years of independence, we have not been able to provide clean drinking water to our people, in fact, not even a regular supply of water. And our official admission is that 260 million in the population of one billion are destitute and 390 million are illiterate.

Independence has not improved the plight of the poor in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal either. The deprivation of the lower half increases as the region further adopts western (should one call it the World Bank?) model of development. The growth rate may be impressive, but it leaves an ordinary person way behind and helpless.

The difference between low and high salaries was generally in the ratio of 1:15. It is now 1:500, and even more. The worst part of this type of development is that it has squeezed out sympathy and consideration from our society that has ceased to care and which is no longer sensitive to the misery of the neglected, the ousted or the victims of disease or disaster.

Funds are collected out of pity, not because of real feeling. Not long ago, people talked about the poor. There was compassion in their approach. Civil society has lost this in its focus on the growth rate. Even liberal elements have been ossified into pragmatism. What was once the Left is today part of the establishment. Its revolution is confined to appointments and transfers.

On the other hand, vulgar consumption is rationalised in the name of entrepreneurship. The poor are seen as lacking in initiative and hence as a suffering lot. The value system has changed and ethical behaviour is absent. Big is as in big building, big dam or big bank balance. Everything has come to revolve around money.

Success is assessed in terms of the assets one has. In this race, where the ends justify the means, the common man has been crushed. There doesn’t seem to be any hope of his coming up. How can this take place when indiscriminate privatisation is edging out the small and the weak from the system? It is going to be more ruthless in the days to come.

The government is withdrawing from various sectors completely or partially. True, this lessens its liability. But what about the working conditions of those who have been thrown to the wolves? They do not get even a pittance of their salary regularly. The railways are one example.

People in the countryside, still eking out existence from the shrinking tract of land they possess, are suffering the most. Their output has gone down and the price of input has gone up. The support price leaves them with practically no margin. Still, they are a proud lot. Unfortunately, they prefer suicide to the shame of insolvency. In the last few years, 100,000 farmers have taken their lives. These are the travails of development, some argue. But why should all the sacrifice and suffering be the fate of the common man? He gave his all during the independence movement. What about those who wallow in luxuries in every regime and in every clime? Nehru’s pledge of dedication by the nation was not for the betterment of a few.

During the process of transfer of power to India, Winston Churchill said: “Power will go into the hands of rascals, rogues and freebooters. Not a bottle of water, not a loaf of bread shall escape taxation. Only air will be free and the blood of these hungry millions will be on the head of Mr Attlee (then prime minister). These are men of straw of whom no trace will be found after a few years.”

His was a remark of a defeated imperialist who had lost the profit-making empire. Yet, there is no doubt that leaders in South Asia have shrunk in stature. They are small men who have come to occupy big positions. They want power not to advance the public interest but to secure their own personal or party gratification.

In the last few months, I have travelled through all the neighbouring countries. I have found them far from settled. Even after six decades of independence, they are in a flux. They are free in name only and they are the ones who bear the burden the most. Their primary suffering is because the rule of law does not exist and the police have been contaminated. Minorities in most countries are insecure.

All nations in the region swear by democracy but they have lost it in essence. Some have only a semblance of it. Some are regretting its loss and some have a sturdy shell, without substance. Their jingoistic nationalism is their pride. What was common to all these countries is the violation of human rights and an array of draconian laws to chastise critics and opponents.

Protection of rights of individuals is the central edifice in which the concept of democracy is based. But the very right has become a relative term. Rulers use the police and the bureaucracy — now an instrument of tyranny and terror — to suppress the people. They were the ones whose lot Nehru promised to ameliorate.

The most disturbing factor is that these countries spend more on armament than all the European powers put together. One fighter plane costs as much as the building of 1,500 schools and 500 health centres.

India is purchasing some 70 fighter jets, apart from other weapons. Pakistan has a long inventory which the US is processing in addition to the F16s which have been delivered. Sri Lanka is feverishly buying big or small weapons from China after having failed to procure them from India.

No doubt, the countries in South Asia have made progress. Some fallout of development has trickled below, but very little. The task of building is stupendous. But the rulers are doing the opposite, permitting the speculative builder and greedy landlord to create hideous scars across our countryside. The people did not fail the rulers. The latter failed the people. They still do not know how to govern, how to stay clean and how to fulfill the pledge that economic independence will follow political independence. They have turned out to be men of straw.

Maybe, Gandhi had a premonition. When the independence celebrations were at their height on the night of August 14-15, he was sound asleep in a smashed-up mansion in a riot-torn Calcutta suburb.

The writer is a senior journalist based in New Delhi

Congressional privilege has its limits

REP William J. Jefferson (D-La.) isn’t the only beneficiary of a ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that the FBI overreached when it searched his offices on a Saturday night in May 2006. The ruling is also a victory for congressional leaders of both parties who complained — unreasonably — that the search was a violation of the constitution’s separation of powers and an insult to Congress’ dignity.

The appeals court agreed that allowing FBI agents to view legislative materials — even for the purpose of separating them from incriminating evidence — created a chilling effect on conversations between members of Congress and their staffs. That chill, the court said, ran counter to the protection for legislative independence contained in the constitution’s speech and debate clause, which says that members of Congress “shall not be questioned in any other place” for what they say as legislators. Less clear is whether this decision will provide cover for corrupt members who seek to hide evidence of their wrongdoing among their official papers. But we’re encouraged by two aspects of Judge Judith W. Rogers’ opinion.

First, she quotes approvingly from a 1972 decision in which the supreme court held that the speech and debate clause did not bar the prosecution of a senator for accepting bribes in connection with an official act. In that case, the high court said the clause “does not prohibit inquiry into illegal conduct simply because it has some nexus to legislative functions.” Second, Rogers seems open to a procedure in which Congress and the executive branch might agree to seal the office of a member of Congress before a search begins, preserving possible evidence of wrongdoing while allowing the member to assert privilege in connection with particular documents. The final decision might then be made by a judge.

Congressional privilege — like executive privilege — is an important aspect of our governmental scheme. But it shouldn’t provide a “get out of jail free” card for members of Congress who have committed crimes.

— The Los Angeles Times