ADITYA SARKAR, ANISH VANAIK

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Consequently, the range of views offered has been extremely narrow, typically consisting of imputations and assertions rather than information. The importance of the International Conference on the Indo-US Nuclear deal, held at Delhi on August 31 and September 1, must be understood against this perniciously antidemocratic spirit within which the debate had hitherto been conducted.

The conference, organised jointly by the Heinrich Boll Foundation (HBF), the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) and Popular Education and Action Centre (PEACE) was conceived of as tackling individually the three main planks upon which the deal was being championed – the strategic dimension, nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.

It began, however, with a keynote address by Jean Dreze of the Delhi University and G B Pant Institute. His presentation, made more powerful by the calm and assured manner of his delivery, pointed towards all the dangerous kinds of irrationality that inevitably accompany nuclear questions.

To a packed auditorium, with some sitting in the aisles for lack of space, he pointed out that rational responses to developing situations were the first casualties in the kind of escalatory dynamic that nuclear deterrence demands. The mirage of deterrence – that it would end all kinds of conflict through preparing for annihilation – had repeatedly proved illusory over the last century. His exhortation to remember the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the dangers of a nuclear conflagration in south Asia was important because these are precisely the kinds of real contexts and consequences that are so easily and disastrously lost sight of in the rush towards taking a “tougher” or more “realistic” stand on questions of foreign policy. Since they all operated upon this plane of nuclear deterrence, he suggested, there could be no such thing as a “responsible nuclear power”. Dreze’s address had the salutary effect of reminding those present that the bigger picture must not be lost sight of amid the minutiae of the nuclear deal.

The first panel took up the strategic dimension of the deal. The first speaker, Achin Vanaik of Delhi University and member of the CNDP, pointed out that viewing the outcomes of the deal through the lens of Indian aspirations for great power status was the opposite of where an analysis of the deal’s consequences should begin. Rather, the stakes for which the US was playing, given that it is clearly the more powerful party here, must be understood before making sanguine claims about India’s independent foreign policy. The recent stance of the Indian government on a variety of issues (such as the Asian energy grid or the vote against Iran in the IAEA) demonstrated that the US was achieving its greatest victories in capturing the hearts and minds of the Indian elite, thus sapping any long-term determination to emerge as a strong proponent for a more just international order. The second speaker, T Jayaraman of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, suggested that India, so long a critic of an unjust international nuclear order, was now looking to benefit from that order. The US, he maintained, far from dismantling the non-proliferation order, was bent upon creating a new, even more unequal and dangerous one of which this deal formed a cornerstone.

The third speaker, Andrew Lichterman, a nuclear disarmament activist and lawyer associated with The Western States Legal Foundation, California, United States, suggested that the nuclear deal must be located within a broader integration of global elites. The package of economic and military contracts that the “strategic alliance” would entail, were the currency through which a network of empire could be maintained. The 123 might well be followed by a 126, referring to the number of fighter planes that India might well end up purchasing from the US. A struggle against the nuclear consequences of such an alliance cannot, therefore, remain divorced from this much broader front of struggle against an increasingly unequal domestic regime. Ejaz Haider, the last speaker at the session, news editor of the Friday Times, Lahore, claiming to be a realist, suggested that India could, in fact, serve its national interest by joining the US bandwagon strategically. Inasmuch as this would have implications for Pakistan, it would pursue a policy accordingly.

Both of these conclusions were disputed during a very lively question and answer session. Jayaraman pointed out that one of the most distasteful aspects of the atmosphere in which the deal had been carried through was the complete lack of dialogue with Pakistan on the question, if only to reassure them that this deal was not a provocation. A Pakistani gentleman from the floor pointed out that we need to think as south Asians and governments had repeatedly used the bogey of “internal matters” to keep us separated, when the reality was that these deals had immediate effects upon all the people of south Asia.

National Interest?

In response to one of the questions, Vanaik also clarified his contention that the whole paradigm of “national interest” is a fiction. Different classes have different interests domestically, and it is folly to think that, somehow, these coincide on international questions. In fact, as things stand, the constant claim of policy being in the “national interest” is little more than a mask for the pursuit of the interests of the elite.

The second session explored the impact of nuclear weapons, in the light of the Indo-US deal, on the possibilities of global and south Asian disarmament. From different perspectives, the four speakers at this session all concluded that the present regime of nuclear power in south Asia has produced a major, crippling threat to the

increase fissile material production. The logic of “credible minimum deterrence” that undergirds the weaponisation programmes of both countries, is clearly escalatory and dangerous, as Nayyar’s talk chillingly reminded us.

Oliver Meier, a representative of the Arms Control Association in Europe, and a fellow at the Institute of Peace Research and Security Policy, Hamburg, provided insights into the wider global context of the deal, in particular the hesitancy on the part of Germany, as a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to give the deal a green signal. India, he pointed out, has not accepted all the safeguards prescribed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Full acceptance of these safeguards is usually a prerequisite for NSG clearance, which the deal requires for its operationalisation. India’s refusal to accept the full set of safeguards, however, as Bidwai’s talk had already emphasised, is in line with its consistent opposition to any form of global regulation for the most globally destructive form of energy.

Both the first two sessions – on the strategic embrace of the US by India and the dangers of nuclear weapons proliferation – provided a counterweight to the enormous hawkishness of the Indian state and security apparatus. But the third session, focusing on the dangers of civilian nuclear energy regime, addressed the even wider audience of those who are uncomfortable with nuclear weaponisation but believe in the necessity and manageability of civilian nuclear energy. The speakers at this session were Felix Matthes from the Institute of Applied Ecology, Berlin, Sudha Mahalingam, member of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board, Delhi, Sanghamitra Gadekar, social activist and editor of the anti-nuclear magazine Anumukti, and M V Ramana, member of the International Panel of Fissile Materials and fellow of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, Bangalore.

Matthes, like Meier the day before, provided a German perspective on India’s nuclear programme, in the light of the history of the German civilian nuclear energy programme, which is now being phased out. He emphasised the huge extent of the damages – computed in financial terms amounting to over 2,000 billion euros – in the event of a nuclear accident. A single major nuclear accident, in other words, may terminate a country’s energy policy and wreck any gains made from nuclear energy. He argued that recent German experience showed that renewable sources of energy may provide a more fruitful bedrock of energy policy. Sudha Mahalingam’s talk amplified the theme of the costs of nuclear energy, and exploded the myth that it is “Too Cheap to Meter”. A single nuclear reactor, she pointed out, was unlikely to have a purchasing cost of below $ 1,500/kwh. Adding the interest accumulating during construction, the total costs of a nuclear reactor would amount to Rs 8-10 crore/MW. Fuel costs, too, have risen to $ 105/pound. The risk of a nuclear accident would also have to be borne financially by the government, which would bear virtually unlimited liability. Nuclear energy, in other words, is a much more expensive business than its propagandists claim. Mahalingam argued that gas provided a far cheaper energy option for India, an assertion that further underlined Kanak Dixit’s argument that the Iran pipeline would have been both practically and politically more desirable than nuclear energy.