Musings on the Indo-U.S. ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ Deal
Is the nuclear ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal going nowhere?
Indian mangoes have arrived in the U.S.
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - The eyes of every Indian jingoist (and peace-loving Punjabi worried about his survival under an Indian nuclear cloud) are on US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns's visit to New Delhi next week where he will again – for the last time it is hoped in Washington - discuss the U.S./India ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal.The Burn visit is meant to explain to New Delhi that Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act (currently under discussion) must conform in letter and spirit with the provisions of the Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act 2006 which was signed into law, by President Bush, in December 2006. What the Indian rulers do not want to understood is that, any modification of the requirements under the Henry J Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act 2006 cannot be brought about through merely word-engineering a cleverly drafted agreement to be settled between the two executive branches of government. As long as the Hyde Act remains what it is today, no Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act can be used to override its legal provisions. In case of an override this new understanding will have to be presented to both Houses of U.S. Congress and approved by each before it becomes part of the overall ‘Nukes for Mangoes’ deal.
The recent discussions between the two governments have helped to clarify the Indian ambition. It will entail the US administration presenting a revised case based on Delhi’s stand – its right to nuclear tests among other things - to US Congress. And then seek appropriate amendments to the Hyde Act. Knowing how difficult this is going to be, the US is trying to convince India to agree to positions in conformity with the Act's current provisions, rather than take the legal route of getting the Act amended to accommodate the Indian prime minister's assurances to Parliament. Most jingoists in India forget that China (which country can now sign a similar ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal with Pakistan or Saudi Arabia) understands India’s negotiating tricks and has called, and we quote verbatim, the U.S. ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ legislation as, “a contradiction to the obligations of Washington as a lead signatory to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty. The NPT obligates its signatories not to provide assistance to the nuclear programs of states (like India) that did not sign the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty. The U.S. Atomic Energy Act also prohibits nuclear sales to non-NPT countries. There are still several legal hurdles to be removed before the U.S. and India start civil nuclear cooperation, including a comprehensive agreement on technical elements of the bill, which again needs Congressional approval.” End quote.
A detailed reading of the the Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act 2006 brings out clearly the Congressional thinking and motivation in passing the Hyde Act. The broad objectives of the Bush administration are no different, as confirmed by various statements of top US officials. Two principal US objectives stand out. The first U.S. objective, perhaps the more important one, is to ensure that India's foreign policy is 'congruent' to that of the US, with this deal expected to 'induce greater political and material support to the achievement of US goals. India's growing economic and political role in the world is seen as a 'new strategic opportunity to advance US goals. Iran gets a specific mention, with the US expecting India's 'full and active cooperation to dissuade, isolate and if necessary sanction and contain Iran.' There is also talk of India as an 'ally' or at least a 'strategic partner.' The second objective relates to non-proliferation, through strengthening and sustaining the implementation of the NPT. India remaining outside the NPT poses a 'potential challenge to the goals of global non-proliferation.' A corollary American objective is to curb India's nuclear weapons capability. In a semantic concession to the earlier U.S. policy of 'cap, rollback and eliminate', the objective now is to seek to halt the increase in nuclear weapons arsenals in South Asia and to promote their reduction and eventual elimination.
The Indian position (as trumpeted, from time to time, by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Parliament; > http://www.rediff.com///news/2007/may/16ndeal.htm <) is that the objectives of full civil nuclear Indo/U.S. cooperation is enshrined in the Joint Statement issued, in Washington, by President Bush and PM Manmohan Singh, in July 2005, as if a routine ‘joint statement’ is heavier than U.S Law. India is hoping to trump – in a typical Bania approach - the U.S. Law by waving the so-called Indian Air Force’s single biggest $ 8 billion order for 126 multi-role combat aircraft – which has been talked about in New Delhi for over a decade - in front of US aircraft Manufacturers. Both Lockheed Martin and Boeing (US Companies with powerful lobbyists in Washington DC) are vying with each other (and are lobbying for the ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal on the Hill in the process) to bag the fighter planes order. These two American companies have not realized that the Russians armament companies were there first, have many influential commission agents on their payroll and have a strangle-hold on spare parts for the three armed services of India and are not about to let this fat 126 planes order, go to the competition unchallenged without an under-the-table bid and some old fashioned Russki arm-twisting.
Then there is the little matter of non-proliferation ‘hawks’ in the U.S. who think that (> http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070517/main10.htm <) President Bush has already conceded too much to India. A group of scientists and Nobel laureates has urged the US Congress to disapprove the deal in its present form. The latest is a letter, (written by Democrat Tom Lantos, the powerful Chairman of the House International Committee, and a few of his colleagues) to Prime minister Manmohan Singh, (> http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/04pmletter.pdf <) asking India to toe the US line on Iran, in particular, if it wants the benefits of the nuclear deal – no Iran-Pakistan-India Gas pipeline for one.
Maybe India is engaged in a typical Indian ‘Nura-Kushti’ (‘match-fixing’) with the United States – a typical Bania haggling tactic - and at the last moment will agree, we think, to any crumbs the United States throws in its direction to clinch the ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal which the Indian rulers want desperately – it has already dispatched crates of mangoes to the United States.
The three million strong Sikh diaspora (which includes half a million Sikh/Americans in the United States) is in with non-proliferation lobby and is hoping that the ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal falls through. They fear for the 22 million Sikhs captive in India, living dangerously and unhappily in their South Asian homeland of Punjab, Khalistan, which is sandwiched between two nuclear armed rivals, India and Pakistan. As a result the Sikhs have been demanding a nuclear free South Asia and hope the ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal goes away as it is a question of survival of the Sikh people and their historic holy shrines located in both India and Pakistan. The Sikhs want a South Asia free of missiles and Nuclear weapons and nuclear tests – they want peace in order to survive. That is why the Washington-based Khalistan Affairs Center made a heroic effort in November/December last year (> http://khalistan-affairs.org/home/khalistancalling/2006/december13.aspx < ) to lobby against the U.S.-India ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal as the half million strong Sikh-American community senses grave dangers in the current situation, where India and Pakistan, have nuclear missiles pointed at each other with the Sikh Homeland of Punjab, Khalistan, (with its 22 million Sikhs and numerous holy shrines) sandwiched as it is, between the two. The November 2006 advocacy appeal to U.S. Law Makers by the Washington-based Khalistan Affairs Center, published in the Washington Times newspaper, against the Indo/U.S. ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal is appended below as it remains as relevant and valid today as it was then:-
Appeal to all U.S. Law-makers
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Do Not Approve US-India nuclear deal
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An Appeal from 25 million Sikhs
Honorable Law-makers:
The world’s 25 million strong Sikh nation has a hard time believing the alarming media reports that Senate Foreign Relations Committee is willing to approve, in the lame duck session, the US-India nuclear deal, under section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, without making it conditional on an end to fissile material production by India.1. Apart from the fissile material issue, how is it possible that worldly wise and well-informed U.S. Law makers are planning to give a ‘wink and a nod’ to the U.S. nuclear deal with India without any powers of oversight in terms of requiring the usual annual certification of Indian good behavior? What if India tests a thermo-nuclear device, sometime in the future, at its’ Test site, which is being kept ready near Pokharan in Rajasthan, and repeats what it did in 1974, by pilfering from its safeguarded civilian nuclear reactors provided by the U.S. and Canada?
2. The latest U.N. Human Development Report-2006, released last week, reveals (Table 21;Energy:> http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf <) that India’s electricity consumption demand projection – the raison d`etre for the deal – is 594 Kilowatt hours per capita – a paltry increase of 421 Kilowatt hours per capita in twenty three years. Electricity demand per capita in India (where over seven hundred million human beings have no access to clean water and sanitation – no latrines) is increasing at a snail’s pace as compared to the galloping demand in countries like S. Korea (7,338 Kilowatt hours per capita), Saudi Arabia (6,749), South Africa (4,595), Malaysia (3,196), Argentina (2,543), Brazil (2,246), Mexico (2,108), Turkey (1,979), Thailand (1,896), Egypt (1,340) Algeria (929) and others. These countries having all signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT was also ratified and proclaimed by the U.S. on March 5, 1970) have a far stronger argument for a nuclear cooperation deal, to meet their energy needs, than hegemonic, dirt-poor, brittle, caste-ridden India, at war with its minorities and sinking under the weight of a thousand mutinies. India has not signed the NPT because its’ hallucinative rulers have always treated the treaty with contempt. The three million strong Sikh diaspora (including half a million Sikhs in the United States) fear for the 22 million Sikhs captive in India, living dangerously and unhappily in their homeland of Punjab, Khalistan, which is sandwiched between two nuclear armed rivals, India and Pakistan. Sikhs demand a nuclear free South Asia. It is a question of survival of our people and our historic holy shrines located in both India and Pakistan.
3. Ladies and Gentlemen, please DO NOT approve the U.S.-India Nuclear deal. Even Republican columnist, author and TV personality, Pat Buchanan, has rightly described it as a ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal about which, he says, the U.S. has, “traded a horse for a rabbit, and some of us are wondering as to the whereabouts of the rabbit.”
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