Abridged from an article by Brahma Chellany in ASIAN AGE
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""Whether Obama becomes U.S. president or not, his two 2006 congressional amendments have helped constrain India’s fuel access and room for manoeuvre under the nuclear deal, now in abeyance. """
The 46-year-old Barrack Obama is the black presidential candidate in contrast to his aging opponent John McCain,thus offering a change of a distinctly different vision centred on charting a better future.,as conservatism was anchored in his rival. As a first-term U.S. Senator, Obama had left a distinct imprint in congressional deliberations., about U.S.-Indian nuclear deal. , which is currently in limbo. But if it ever takes effect, Obama’s contribution would have been no small in the constraints the U.S. Congress has imposed on civil nuclear cooperation with India.,
Obama had criticized the ” offer to India through the official waiver legislation introduced by the Bush administration in March 2006." as blank cheque. While he spoke extensively in support of
the U S - India Peaceful Atomic Energy Act,he expressed concerns with potential non proliferation consequences .To quote:
“However, I remain concerned .... A decision by the Indian government to conduct such a test could trigger an arms race in South Asia that would be extremely dangerous and destabilizing.The good news is that the joint statement between President Bush and Prime Minister Singh of July 18, 2005, declared that India’s unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing will continue. I take Prime Minister Singh at his word, but also believe in following President Reagan’s mantra of
‘trust but verify’.”
Obama, not content with the official bill ;,actually attached a legally binding rider to the deal tantamount to dragging India through the backdoor into the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) — .Thus the official bill put India under a permanent test ban by mandating re-imposition of civil nuclear sanctions in the event of a test —an American action that would leave India’s safeguarded power reactors high and dry in a deal-driven paradigm.To further toughen the legislation, Obama introduced two amendments that profoundly reshaped the terms on which India is now being offered the deal.
1. The first amendment was an innovative insertion that imposed fetters on uranium-poor India’s access to fuel, restricting such imports to “reasonable reactor operating requirements.” Obama’s amendment not only undercut the stated raison d'être of the original deal but also busted Dr. Manmohan Singh’s March 7, 2006, assurance to Parliament that India will secure the right to build lifetime fuel stocks to guard against supply disruption. and also shattered the claim that, “The U.S. will support an Indian effort to develop a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel to guard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime of India’s reactor "
Obama’s amendment, later on became as Section 103 (b) (10) of the Hyde Act. The amendment’s avowed purpose was to “clarify U.S. policy in order to deter nuclear testing.”
.
The “deterrent against Indian testing”, Obama sought by keeping India on a tight fuel-access leash, is a goal enthusiastically embraced by the full Congress in passing the Hyde Act. According to the Act’s accompanying explanatory statement, the fuel reserve provided to New Delhi should be restricted to a size that would not allow India to break its commitments, or end its moratorium on nuclear test [” It also records that U.S. officials, contradicting -- Dr. Singh’s lifetime-fuel claim in Parliament, & had testified that America “does not intend to help India build a stockpile of nuclear fuel for the purpose of riding out any sanctions that might be imposed in response to Indian actions such as conducting another nuclear test.”
The intention is clear and was to ensure the access to fuel is limited to bare minimum so as to minimize down time when reactor cores are removed.”
— a far cry from the lifetime stocks Dr. Singh had pledged.
To further crimp India’s fuel access, the Obama-authored stipulations were incorporated in Hyde Act’s Section 104 (g) (2) (H) and Section 104 (g) (2) by which President annually estimate the amount of uranium mined in India during the previous year and let Congress know whether the imported uranium had affected India’s rate of production of unsafeguarded fissile mater
2. Obama inserted another amendment, which later became Section 102 (13) of Hyde Act to ensure that America did not facilitate civil nuclear exports to India by other states, if U.S. exports to New Delhi were terminated under American law.
This effectively nullified Dr. Singh’s commitment to Parliament .”
Obama’s amendment was incorporated in the Hyde Act as Section 102 (13).. The intent behind these provisions are meant to use the threat of sanctions to block a proposed export by, say, a French or Russian firm on less-rigorous terms. It is thus no surprise that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice assured Congress that any NSG exemption for India will be “completely consistent with the obligations of the Hyde Act.”
Yet, despite this broken promises to Parliament, Dr. Singh, with remarkable insouciance, still pitches for the deal, only to be held back by wiser counsel from Sonia Gandhi. And although a permanent test ban is built into the deal,a despairing Dr. Singh is seen advocating signing the deal or quit.
Whether Obama becomes President or not, his legacy helps constrict India’s access and options under the deal. Indeed, that legacy exposes the myths still driving residual Indian interest in the deal, which Dr. Singh grudgingly acknowledged for the first time “has run into some difficulties.” These myths
are mainly :
■ the deal offers a magic-carpet ride to resolve India’s self-made uranium crunch by opening the path to unfettered access to foreign fuel;
■ unlike the conditions-laden U.S. waiver, the NSG will grant India a relatively “clean” exemption; and
■ once the deal . takes effect, New Delhi would gain access to civil nuclear items and materials from France and Russia on more-favourable political terms.
■ soaring oil prices justify greater emphasis on nuclear power.
( Forgetting that there is little link between oil and nuclear energy, because oil is primarily used for transportation and the nuclear choice is for electricity generation.)
Indeed, such myths show that if the now-stuck deal traverses to the next stages, India will be in for more nasty surprises.Neverthless it is already clear that this deal cannot become a reality as time has run out.
The blunt fact is that it will be an Obama or McCain administration — and a new government in New Delhi — that will have the final say on the deal. The cheerleaders of the deal who have been shouting themselves hoarse thus need to hold their fire.
An Obama triumph — good for America and good for the world — will help add momentum to the U.S.-India relationship by freeing it of the albatross that the deal now represents.
