In the face of growing pressure from leftist parties, Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh announced on October 12 his decision to
slow negotiations with the United States on a civil nuclear deal.
His decision surprised and disappointed U.S. Administration
officials who had spent more than two years negotiating the deal
and convincing a skeptical U.S. Congress to support it. With the
U.S. presidential election adding a sense of urgency, Prime
Minister Singh must forge a national consensus in support of a deal
that will benefit India both directly and by strengthening its
relationship with the United States.
Communist Parties Take Government to the Brink
The leftist parties hold about 60 out of the 545 seats in India's
lower house of parliament, and the Congress-led government needs
their support to maintain power at the center. The parties have
long expressed dissatisfaction with the nuclear deal, particularly
U.S. legislative provisions that question India's relations with
Iran. The leftists argue that the deal would cost India its
strategic autonomy and tie it too closely to U.S. foreign
policies.
In an ironic turn of events, the leftist parties chose to ratchet
up their opposition shortly after India and the United States
concluded protracted negotiations on a bilateral agreement
establishing terms of civil nuclear trade that met most of India's
key demands, such as the right to reprocess spent nuclear fuel.
Indian nuclear scientists who were initially skeptical of the deal
acknowledged that the July bilateral agreement adequately clarified
their concerns.
Rather than acknowledge New Delhi's success in the bilateral
negotiations, leftist parties instead raised the stakes for Prime
Minister Singh. They insisted that he delay negotiations on a
safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) or risk having them pull their support for the government,
thereby causing it to collapse. The Indian Communist parties have a
relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. Some Indians charge
that these ties influence the parties' position on the civil
nuclear deal.
Prime Minister Singh had appeared firm on his position to go ahead
with the nuclear negotiations, even if it meant facing new
elections. His stance shifted on October 12, when he acknowledged
that his coalition was not prepared to fight an early poll and that
he would back away from the deal until the disagreements with the
leftists were fully addressed.
Prime Minister Must Lead
At this juncture, the only hope for salvaging the nuclear
negotiations is for Prime Minister Singh to focus his full
attention on building a national consensus in support of the deal,
explaining how it benefits India's economic, global, and security
interests. When leftists in India warn against closer ties with the
United States, they miss the broader point: The deal is a tangible
demonstration of India's rise on the world stage and will help it
to strengthen its scientific position and meet its growing energy
needs. The Singh government needs to highlight these points in the
upcoming winter session of parliament.
There are risks in prolonging the nuclear discussions. By next
spring, the United States will be in the midst of a presidential
campaign, and the U.S. legislature will be less inclined to
take up the
issue with any deliberate speed. It is also uncertain whether a new
U.S. president would place the same high priority on getting a
nuclear deal passed with India. The deal has been highly
contentious in the United States and has progressed largely because
of the political capital invested by President Bush and his senior
advisors. A new U.S. administration might decide to focus its
attention on other, less contentious aspects of the U.S.-India
relationship.
Fundamentals of Bilateral Relationship Remain
Intac
t
Failure to finalize the nuclear deal because of Indian domestic
politics would certainly break the positive momentum in the
relationship between India and the United States, which over the
last few years has been driven by the prospect of ending decades of
misunderstanding on the nuclear issue. Such a failure would
vindicate those in the United States and India who believe the two
countries will never see eye-to-eye on nuclear nonproliferation. In
a recent article in Foreign Affairs, Under Secretary of
State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns discussed the
"diplomatic marathon of negotiations" between Indian and U.S.
officials to hammer out the deal and how the successful conclusion
of those talks demonstrated that "Americans and Indians can work
together to achieve important goals on the most vital international
issues."
With or without a nuclear deal, both countries stand to benefit
from closer cooperation on military relations, counterterrorism
initiatives, economic and trade matters, and Asian security issues.
Indian and U.S. armed forces have held as many as 50 joint
exercises in the last six years and signed a 10-year defense
framework agreement in June 2005. Bilateral trade between the two
nations topped $30 billion in 2006.
But the nuclear deal is the core of a larger vision for a better
relationship between the world's two largest democracies. This
vision has alarmed the Left in India, and rejection of the nuclear
deal would be a setback for its realization. If only for a brief
period, the United States and India would likely lessen the
intensity of their engagement and approach new initiatives with
lower expectations and more circumspection.
Conclusion
It took 18 months for the U.S. Congress to debate, develop, and act
on legislation necessary to implement this historic deal. If it
weren't for the Bush Administration's vision and tenacity, the deal
would never have made it this far. The Singh government must
demonstrate the same kind of leadership and determination in order
to forge a national consensus in support of the deal. Missing the
opportunity to finalize the civil nuclear agreement would be a
setback both for India's relationship with the United States and
its own reputation as a major world player. Successful development
of an Indian national consensus in support of the nuclear deal, on
the other hand, would strengthen the mandate for better ties to the
United States, which would in turn help insulate the relationship
from the machinations of domestic politics in the
future.
Lisa Curtis is Senior
Research Fellow in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage
Foundation.