Indra’s Drishtikona (Viewpoint)

With US Some Good Deal For India

Posted : July 28, 2006 at 7:39 pm [IST]

The US House of Representatives convincingly passed legislation to exempt Washington’s nuclear cooperation with India from the purview of America’s restrictive Atomic Energy Act. The 359-to-68-vote approved the nuclear deal. It showed how interested the representatives of US are to have the benefits of and from the bill for their country. The marathon debate showcased an across-the-board awareness among lawmakers in US of an emerging India’s strengths and the role it can play in the 21st century on global issues. The Indian lobbyists and the Indian American community - with the Indian embassy quietly worked in the background - with US lawmakers and political pressure groups through networking and various engagements. The US Senate is still to separately approve similar legislation. That may be sometime in September.

Notably, two amendments of significance were decisively defeated on the floor. While one wanted India to halt all fissile material production for its nuclear bombs before the US could export any uranium to India under the deal, the second required the US President to certify and ensure that India did not increase the level of its domestic uranium production for use in nuclear weapons.

One of the most remarkable moments in the debate came when Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, head of the Pakistan Caucus on Capitol Hill, took the floor and offered her support for the deal. A face-saving amendment as a quid-pro-quo for such support, which was unanimously accepted by the House, urged the US to continue its engagement “with and between” India and Pakistan. Can’t the Indian community work with the influential people of Pakistan origin to make their government and the people understand the need to forget the history and its legacy of pre-partition or partition era and work together? Pakistan treats India as only the least favoured nation in trade, while India treats Pakistan as most favoured.

And then Henry Hyde, the HIRC chairman after whom the bill will be named, said: “It clears the way for the US and India to reinforce an already strong, strategic alliance. The world has known that India possesses nuclear weapons, yet India has not had a seat at the table of nuclear stakeholders.”

I wish the politicians and the statesmen of US could somehow dissuade Pakistan to move away from the manner it goes on spending in its arm race with India and switch over to the task of economic growth. Pakistan has not China as potential threat that India has. This is possible unless US treats Pakistan and India only as a good market for its high end arms and defence equipment.

And back in motherland, CPM had almost decided to collaborate with even NDA to embarrass the government. A voluntary statement by the Prime Minister on the Indo-US nuclear deal could not be good enough. It wanted the parliament to adopt a resolution to lay down the parameters on the nuclear deal. However the Congress party after a long time showed it toughness to indicate to CPM that such a resolution would virtually mean the “end of the day” for the UPA government. I fail to understand NDA’s opposition, as it would have taken the credit of this success of N-deal as its own initiative.

Some Other Views;
‘Nuclear India in America’s interest’
Clearing the cloud around the N-deal by C Raja Mohan

- Indra

Category: Government Policy/Administration |