By Debajyoti Mal
The signing of the 123 nuclear deal between U.S and India is no doubt a landmark agreement but the deal is marked with possible frailties. The fact that U.S is making a special concession for India alone raises many more concerns than what can be seen on the surface. A lot has been said on the positive aspects of this deal by both Governments on either side and also by the media. In India the leading English newspaper, Times of India which favors the Congress has gone all out supporting the deal as expected. Let’s get into the negative aspects of the deal as this is an area hardly explored.
Firstly, India no longer reserves the right to test a nuclear weapon without taking the permission of the U.S or even more dangerous is the fact that that U.S most probably will scrap the nuclear deal. Testing of a nuclear weapon is a primary requirement in the event of maintaining a deterrent against other nations especially in the current world scenario when other countries in the region are in the process of going nuclear. Iran, North Korea all are moving towards going nuclear. More contradictory is the fact that U.S reserves the right to do as many nuclear tests as it may want but other countries can’t.
The deal can be seen as means of harboring an emerging super power like India on its side. That helps U.S from preventing India from getting close to China and also tilting the balance in Asia towards U.S by having India on its side. The other aspect is that it also helps in ruining long term strategies ties of India with countries like Russia and France. These countries are largest suppliers of military hardware to India and in case strategic ties with these countries are spoiled U.S is directly benefited by it. We have already seen the keen interest shown by U.S military firms like Boeing and Lockheed in the mother of all defense deals – the 126 multi role aircraft multi billion dollar deal.
Signing the deal also opens up India’s nuclear reactors to frequent visits by U.S nuclear safeguards and those from IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). This is highly detrimental to India’s future security prospects. India has reserves of Uranium but has abundant reserves of Thorium from which Uranium can be derived and used. India had recently successfully produced Uranium from Thorium after building a unique and the world’s first Thorium reactor. It remains a closely guarded secret for security reasons but may not be so for long in the wake of this deal. This brings us to the necessity of this deal when we already have indigenous technology and the infrastructure to produce Uranium. Hence it seems that there are more political reasons for the 123 deal than future energy security as the government would like us to believe. The left (CPI(M)) seems to be the only party to have kept its eyes and ears open and acting appropriately. As recent television news channels have shown that 95 percent of our esteemed politicians don’t know what is the 123 nuclear deal. Shatrughna Sinha (present Member of Parliament and former union health minister) said in an interview to CNN-IBN (Dated 26th August, 2007) that the 123 deal refers to a nuclear bomb. Yet this amount of knowledge does not stop our MP’s from stopping parliament sessions and staging walk-outs in protest of India signing the deal. So much money and time could be actually used for more constructive purposes.
Hardly anyone understands the complex clauses of the deal and its possible repercussions in the future. The U.S has never been a trust worthy ally, then why do we trust them so much now? The question stares at us and the government at the centre which has gone ahead with the deal in such a hurry.
