09-13-2007, 04:14 AM
This is what I wanted.
From Deccan Chronicle, 13 Sept., 2007
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->How to sweep Hyde out
By Pran Chopra
<b>The Hyde Act is a burden cast on India by the domestic politics of America. But the Act has also created a precedent which India can use for shifting the burden back. Can use it, that is, if our own political parties allow the voice of our Parliament to be heard clearly. </b>To be heard by India itself to begin with, and then by the world. We can do this without causing any harm to our energy prospects. <b>We need to clearly pose a question to America first and then to the rest of the world: Does America accept the 123 Agreement? </b>
<b>It was urged in an article on August 20 (The Curious Silence on Hyde, The Op-Ed Page) that India must help the world â and first of all must help Indians themselves â to see quite clearly what are the limits of what India and America have mutually agreed upon, who is trying to cross those limits, who should be blamed if the 123 Agreement broke down, whether both should be blamed, being joint custodians of the agreement, or America should be blamed for bringing down the agreement through its unilateralist insistence upon the Hyde Act.</b>
<b>Unlike the agreement, the Act is wholly an American product, and on top of that it is partly a product of the domestic politics of America. Therefore, the blame should lie upon America if the agreement is shown to have been killed by the Act. Little of the Hyde Act was publicly known to have figured in the Indo-American negotiations in which the 123 Agreement was hammered out.</b> But those negotiations were mostly with a Republican presidency which also controlled Congress. <b>However, before they could be completed the negotiations came under the shadow of several internal rifts in America.</b>
<b>For example,</b> the many countrywide rifts between the Republicans and the Democrats on domestic issues; and next the rift between a Republican presidency and a Democratic Congress; and next, between some pro-India Republicans and the many non-proliferation ayatollahs of the Democratic party; and between the power of the presidency to make a treaty and a congressional itch to put legislative curbs upon it.
<b>Hence, the drastic intrusions of Clauses (B) and (D) of the Hyde Act into the purposes of the agreement.</b> These clauses can deny certain benefits of the agreement to countries which, among other things, have a foreign policy which is not "congruent to the foreign policy of the United States," or which do not give "greater political and material support to the global and regional objectives" of the United States in respect of nuclear non-proliferation and anti-terrorism. <b>In general terms, these may seem to be harmless requirements for India to meet, and in fact the Act itself states that India has met them already. But if they are applied selectively to particular regions or countries on particular issues they can become severe restrictions on Indiaâs diplomatic choices.</b>
In his detailed statements recently in Parliament on all that goes under the name of a "nuclear deal" between India and America,<b> Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was outstandingly eloquent in defending the agreement.</b>
<b>But equally eloquent was his total silence on the Hyde Act, confirming what the whole country knows by now, that large and very vocal sections of Indian opinion have serious problems with the Hyde Act.</b>
Since then, Mr Kapil Sibal, Indiaâs minister of state for science and technology, has spoken in about the same as the Prime Minister.
As one of the few ministers who has tried to confront the avalanche of public criticism of the Hyde Act, he wrote recently that the "Hyde Act cannot possibly override the provisions of the 123 Agreement" because the former, he says, is "the last expressions of sovereign will."
<b>But as they stand, the silence of the Prime Minister about the Act, and Mr Sibalâs accolade for the agreement as an "expression of sovereign will" do not constitute a sufficient safeguard against what someone else may posit as the sovereign will of another country. Mr Sibal does not tell us in whose "sovereign will" he sees such a "safeguard," and in which document of which government has the "sovereign will" found "expression."</b>
<b>However, there have been some recent developments which show which way India should go if it is to develop suitable "safeguards" of its own,</b> and there have been joint statements by some leading scientists which affirm that such safeguards can be entirely viable, and some prominent political opponents of the "deal" have indicated that the ideas given by the scientists will not lack the political backing they may need to make them Indiaâs own "sovereign will" in this matter.<b>Some of the way ahead lies parallel to the precedent set by the US Congress in passing the Hyde Act.</b>
The rest lies in a more cool assessment of what are our present energy needs and capabilities and what they can become in future; and whether the gap between them can be closed by other means less expensively than by immediate submission to the Hyde Act; and what part nuclear energy must play in this strategy, in addition to what other sources of energy can realistically contribute; and what view may be taken of this strategy by other countries when they are shown what part has been played by India and what by others in bringing us to the present pass. Some views on all these issues are mostly floating at present on the power of phrases.
<b>India must of course remain faithful to what it has openly and freely agreed upon in transparent negotiations with any other country or countries. But it must carefully weigh any obligation that is sought to be thrust upon it by purely unilateral declarations such as the Hyde Act. Similarly, in accepting whatever it decides to accept it must also put down, perhaps in its own equivalent of the American 123, what it should not be assumed to have accepted. We should do that without being crippled by fears or hopes of reactions in one country or another.</b>
Some indications of what may be attainable have surfaced of late. Indiaâs external affairs minister, <b>Mr Pranab Mukherjee, who now speaks on these subjects with prime ministerial authority, said recently, "We have initialled separate texts of the 123 Agreement." He did not say with whom, or what are the differences between the two texts. But his silence is not without meaning in the given context. </b>A more recent report in a reputed newspaper has said that <b>in signing its own 123 with US, "China has managed to incorporate a provision that neither side would invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to observe the principles of a treaty." Are these precedents too high for India to quote?</b>
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From Deccan Chronicle, 13 Sept., 2007
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->How to sweep Hyde out
By Pran Chopra
<b>The Hyde Act is a burden cast on India by the domestic politics of America. But the Act has also created a precedent which India can use for shifting the burden back. Can use it, that is, if our own political parties allow the voice of our Parliament to be heard clearly. </b>To be heard by India itself to begin with, and then by the world. We can do this without causing any harm to our energy prospects. <b>We need to clearly pose a question to America first and then to the rest of the world: Does America accept the 123 Agreement? </b>
<b>It was urged in an article on August 20 (The Curious Silence on Hyde, The Op-Ed Page) that India must help the world â and first of all must help Indians themselves â to see quite clearly what are the limits of what India and America have mutually agreed upon, who is trying to cross those limits, who should be blamed if the 123 Agreement broke down, whether both should be blamed, being joint custodians of the agreement, or America should be blamed for bringing down the agreement through its unilateralist insistence upon the Hyde Act.</b>
<b>Unlike the agreement, the Act is wholly an American product, and on top of that it is partly a product of the domestic politics of America. Therefore, the blame should lie upon America if the agreement is shown to have been killed by the Act. Little of the Hyde Act was publicly known to have figured in the Indo-American negotiations in which the 123 Agreement was hammered out.</b> But those negotiations were mostly with a Republican presidency which also controlled Congress. <b>However, before they could be completed the negotiations came under the shadow of several internal rifts in America.</b>
<b>For example,</b> the many countrywide rifts between the Republicans and the Democrats on domestic issues; and next the rift between a Republican presidency and a Democratic Congress; and next, between some pro-India Republicans and the many non-proliferation ayatollahs of the Democratic party; and between the power of the presidency to make a treaty and a congressional itch to put legislative curbs upon it.
<b>Hence, the drastic intrusions of Clauses (B) and (D) of the Hyde Act into the purposes of the agreement.</b> These clauses can deny certain benefits of the agreement to countries which, among other things, have a foreign policy which is not "congruent to the foreign policy of the United States," or which do not give "greater political and material support to the global and regional objectives" of the United States in respect of nuclear non-proliferation and anti-terrorism. <b>In general terms, these may seem to be harmless requirements for India to meet, and in fact the Act itself states that India has met them already. But if they are applied selectively to particular regions or countries on particular issues they can become severe restrictions on Indiaâs diplomatic choices.</b>
In his detailed statements recently in Parliament on all that goes under the name of a "nuclear deal" between India and America,<b> Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was outstandingly eloquent in defending the agreement.</b>
<b>But equally eloquent was his total silence on the Hyde Act, confirming what the whole country knows by now, that large and very vocal sections of Indian opinion have serious problems with the Hyde Act.</b>
Since then, Mr Kapil Sibal, Indiaâs minister of state for science and technology, has spoken in about the same as the Prime Minister.
As one of the few ministers who has tried to confront the avalanche of public criticism of the Hyde Act, he wrote recently that the "Hyde Act cannot possibly override the provisions of the 123 Agreement" because the former, he says, is "the last expressions of sovereign will."
<b>But as they stand, the silence of the Prime Minister about the Act, and Mr Sibalâs accolade for the agreement as an "expression of sovereign will" do not constitute a sufficient safeguard against what someone else may posit as the sovereign will of another country. Mr Sibal does not tell us in whose "sovereign will" he sees such a "safeguard," and in which document of which government has the "sovereign will" found "expression."</b>
<b>However, there have been some recent developments which show which way India should go if it is to develop suitable "safeguards" of its own,</b> and there have been joint statements by some leading scientists which affirm that such safeguards can be entirely viable, and some prominent political opponents of the "deal" have indicated that the ideas given by the scientists will not lack the political backing they may need to make them Indiaâs own "sovereign will" in this matter.<b>Some of the way ahead lies parallel to the precedent set by the US Congress in passing the Hyde Act.</b>
The rest lies in a more cool assessment of what are our present energy needs and capabilities and what they can become in future; and whether the gap between them can be closed by other means less expensively than by immediate submission to the Hyde Act; and what part nuclear energy must play in this strategy, in addition to what other sources of energy can realistically contribute; and what view may be taken of this strategy by other countries when they are shown what part has been played by India and what by others in bringing us to the present pass. Some views on all these issues are mostly floating at present on the power of phrases.
<b>India must of course remain faithful to what it has openly and freely agreed upon in transparent negotiations with any other country or countries. But it must carefully weigh any obligation that is sought to be thrust upon it by purely unilateral declarations such as the Hyde Act. Similarly, in accepting whatever it decides to accept it must also put down, perhaps in its own equivalent of the American 123, what it should not be assumed to have accepted. We should do that without being crippled by fears or hopes of reactions in one country or another.</b>
Some indications of what may be attainable have surfaced of late. Indiaâs external affairs minister, <b>Mr Pranab Mukherjee, who now speaks on these subjects with prime ministerial authority, said recently, "We have initialled separate texts of the 123 Agreement." He did not say with whom, or what are the differences between the two texts. But his silence is not without meaning in the given context. </b>A more recent report in a reputed newspaper has said that <b>in signing its own 123 with US, "China has managed to incorporate a provision that neither side would invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to observe the principles of a treaty." Are these precedents too high for India to quote?</b>
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