N-deal: Its implications for India

The Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) comprising 45 nations reached a consensus on India’s specific waiver on nuclear trade on Saturday afternoon. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's statement on Friday proved the key of India’s commitment to Nuclear Non-Proliferation that convinced the skeptics at the NSG. On the other hand, there was no apparent mentioned of testing in the specific waiver document.  

CNBC-TV18 spoke to experts like Kapil Sibal, Minister of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences in the government of Dr Manmohan Singh, D. Raja, CPI National Secretary, TP Sreenivasan, Former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Governor and G Parthasarathy, Former Diplomat, someone who has really dealt with nuclear negotiations for the last 30 years, to get a ringside view of the whole issue.

John Rood, US Undersecretary, Arms Control sees the waiver as a historic moment for the Nuclear Suppliers Group, India, US-Indian relations and India’s relations for the rest of the world. Yesterday, India’s External Affairs minister released a very important statement which spoke of India’s commitments in the non-proliferations round. This statement played a major role in the discussions at NSG, he added.   

Kapil Sibal, Minister of Science, Technology and Earth Sciences said, “It is not just the biggest policy initiative but perhaps the biggest foreign policy breakthrough which has maximum impact on the future - not just of Indo-US but also Indo-global relations. It will impact the lives of ordinary people in this country by allowing us access not just to energy but new technologies. It will allow trade in nuclear technologies, access to dual-use technologies which were not available to us before. In other words, it opens up a vista of opportunities which no other foreign policy decision has ever opened up in the history of this country.”

"This has not been a huge issue but has been a quite a breakthrough diplomatically. Everybody in government at United Nations center and people who are concerned with nuclear matters has been tracking this very closely. There has been some trepidation - doubts whether this will come through; it finally did and is now a clear deal," Sibal said.

D Raja, National Secretary, CPI feels that it isn’t a very significant foreign policy initiative. He said, “If you call it as a foreign policy initiative, it should be about US because it is the US imperialism which was trying to drag India into its global strategy. They have succeeded to drag India into its global strategy. The US has a grand design for South Asia.”

Walter Anderson, South Asia Expert, Johns Hopkins University said, ”The original high-deck was passed by a large bi-partisan majority. So, there was a general political consensus in United States that improved relationship with India. Part of the improvement was due with the Bush Administration’s decision that the nuclear problem had to get behind us to really improve the relationship. Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State moved in a manner to get some kind of a bilateral agreement that will actually have international implications and today we see the result of all those efforts.”

G Parthasarathy, Former Diplomat said, “The diplomacy that followed the Parakaram test - the effective way was the one in which Brajesh Mishra operated to get international sanctions. It ended within seven months. This is a continuum not of credit to anybody but of a credit to the people of India and democratically elected governments. The sanctions by Dr. Manmohan Singh are very skilful and timely.”

Chandan Mitra, Editor of The Pioneer, Member of Rajya Sabha BJP said, “I have been certain ever since the NSG talks had began that this is going to end up in a historic way, but historic in a negative sense. We have battered away our rights and have sold out for almost nothing. The point is that when we went into the 123 Agreement, the Prime Minister solemnly promised that it is going to be the cornerstone of any agreement. Now we have gone beyond Agreement 123 quietly and surreptitiously; it has been agreed that anything that happens uninterrupted like fuel supplies will not be assured by the US. It will not even help us with Russia, France, UK as it is promised in the 123 Agreement. But, everything will have to go through the NSG and we will have to have agreement from all 45 members.”