07-13-2008, 08:45 PM
<b>The sell-out </b>
<i>An elected PM would not have accepted the Indo-US nuclear deal as Manmohan Singh has, argues N.V.Subramanian.</i>
5 July 2008: After Manmohan Singh, most intellectually honest people would say no to a technocratic prime minister. Is the fall back to an elected PM not only inescapable but desirable? Very probably yes.
If you were to take a secret poll of the Congress leadership, Manmohan Singh and the Indo-US nuclear deal would lose hands down. The deal won't win the Congress party the next general election, even if it beats the tight US congressional calendar. It is not even about winning polls. The deal sells out India's military nuclear programme by prohibiting testing. Without explosive testing, weapons, especially thermo-nuclear weapons, but most of all, warheads on medium- and long-range missiles, cannot be perfected. The Samajwadi Party has trudged up the former President, Abdul Kalam, to certify the worthiness of the deal. With due respect to Kalam, he is a technologist, not a scientist, far less an atomic scientist, and not at all the cream of that company, a weapon's designer. And what should and does frighten the Indian military is that the lone thermonuclear weapon in the May 1998 test did not produce the intended bang.
The point is, most Indian strategic writers know this and more. Anyone with any legal comprehension who has read the entire (available) documentation on the deal also knows that an explosive test will kill the unique exemption for India provided by the Henry Hyde Act. Whether or not it is feasible to evacuate all or a majority of the reactors facilitated by the deal in the event India tests, the fuel cut off that is bound to follow (like the Tarapur crisis) will paralyze all the connected commerce and industry. That unstated but ever-present risk to growth will baulk India from ever testing, and an untested, obsolescing deterrent is worse in some ways than no deterrence. The pro-dealers say that that risk is always there. True. But that produces a self-imposed moratorium, as now. The deal binds India, hands and feet, to never testing. The deal only assures fuel for normal reactor operation, no reserve. The IAEA won't go beyond this, nor will the NSG. Indeed, the NSG sanction for nuclear commerce with India has to mirror the US deal.
The fuel will be low enriched uranium for the common commercial light water reactors that will be imported under the deal, thirty-some reactors costing about $1000 billion. By the DEA's own estimate, uranium reserves worldwide won't last sixty years. That estimate was made some years ago before China became hungry for nuclear power. A US study lasted the reserves longer, but only if the reactor numbers did not dramatically increase. With conditions for peak oil rapidly approaching, environmental concerns growing, and commodities inflation taking firm roots, the shift to nuclear power is being strenuously campaigned for by the US. Already commanding a high price because of Chinese hoarding, uranium is going to get more expensive to import (making uranium power uneconomic), and the five NPT-recognized nuclear powers and industrial giants like Japan will stake â and get â the first claim on dwindling uranium reserves. Even without explosive testing, our enormous investments in LWRs would have been criminally liquidated.
That is not all. Russia, the US, Japan and certain European countries have recognized the benefits of the plutonium economy. The US certainly is headed to produce reactors that deplete plutonium to produce power. India has made tremendous advances in breeding plutonium to make energy and to fire the thorium economy. The investments in LWRs mandated by the deal, because it assists the non-proliferation regime, will not only turn to dud, but will kill India's pioneering efforts in plutonium and thorium economies brilliantly envisioned by Homi Bhabha. And when India is down on this, the US and Western advances in them will force a second cycle of dependence.
That Manmohan Singh is a slave of the West is no secret. Not only leaders in the BJP and CPI-M, but many in the Congress party say so. The PM's own utterances betray him. He does not believe India has the inherent capability to become a great power. An elected prime minister in Manmohan Singh's place would never have been so pusillanimous. Mrs Indira Gandhi faced a revolt in the party, a sinking economy and a hostile United States when she determined to partition Pakistan. It is no surprise that she was the first PM to conduct the nuclear test, and A.B.Vajpayee, a supremely brave man, and another elected prime minister, who authorized the second test. On the other hand, Manmohan Singh choked India's military and civilian nuclear programmes as finance minister, and opposed the May 1998 nuclear test.
Is it any surprise that he has brought the Congress party to such straits that it could well loss the general elections just so to get the US deal?
<i>N.V.Subramanian is Editor, NewsInsight.net. </i>
<i>An elected PM would not have accepted the Indo-US nuclear deal as Manmohan Singh has, argues N.V.Subramanian.</i>
5 July 2008: After Manmohan Singh, most intellectually honest people would say no to a technocratic prime minister. Is the fall back to an elected PM not only inescapable but desirable? Very probably yes.
If you were to take a secret poll of the Congress leadership, Manmohan Singh and the Indo-US nuclear deal would lose hands down. The deal won't win the Congress party the next general election, even if it beats the tight US congressional calendar. It is not even about winning polls. The deal sells out India's military nuclear programme by prohibiting testing. Without explosive testing, weapons, especially thermo-nuclear weapons, but most of all, warheads on medium- and long-range missiles, cannot be perfected. The Samajwadi Party has trudged up the former President, Abdul Kalam, to certify the worthiness of the deal. With due respect to Kalam, he is a technologist, not a scientist, far less an atomic scientist, and not at all the cream of that company, a weapon's designer. And what should and does frighten the Indian military is that the lone thermonuclear weapon in the May 1998 test did not produce the intended bang.
The point is, most Indian strategic writers know this and more. Anyone with any legal comprehension who has read the entire (available) documentation on the deal also knows that an explosive test will kill the unique exemption for India provided by the Henry Hyde Act. Whether or not it is feasible to evacuate all or a majority of the reactors facilitated by the deal in the event India tests, the fuel cut off that is bound to follow (like the Tarapur crisis) will paralyze all the connected commerce and industry. That unstated but ever-present risk to growth will baulk India from ever testing, and an untested, obsolescing deterrent is worse in some ways than no deterrence. The pro-dealers say that that risk is always there. True. But that produces a self-imposed moratorium, as now. The deal binds India, hands and feet, to never testing. The deal only assures fuel for normal reactor operation, no reserve. The IAEA won't go beyond this, nor will the NSG. Indeed, the NSG sanction for nuclear commerce with India has to mirror the US deal.
The fuel will be low enriched uranium for the common commercial light water reactors that will be imported under the deal, thirty-some reactors costing about $1000 billion. By the DEA's own estimate, uranium reserves worldwide won't last sixty years. That estimate was made some years ago before China became hungry for nuclear power. A US study lasted the reserves longer, but only if the reactor numbers did not dramatically increase. With conditions for peak oil rapidly approaching, environmental concerns growing, and commodities inflation taking firm roots, the shift to nuclear power is being strenuously campaigned for by the US. Already commanding a high price because of Chinese hoarding, uranium is going to get more expensive to import (making uranium power uneconomic), and the five NPT-recognized nuclear powers and industrial giants like Japan will stake â and get â the first claim on dwindling uranium reserves. Even without explosive testing, our enormous investments in LWRs would have been criminally liquidated.
That is not all. Russia, the US, Japan and certain European countries have recognized the benefits of the plutonium economy. The US certainly is headed to produce reactors that deplete plutonium to produce power. India has made tremendous advances in breeding plutonium to make energy and to fire the thorium economy. The investments in LWRs mandated by the deal, because it assists the non-proliferation regime, will not only turn to dud, but will kill India's pioneering efforts in plutonium and thorium economies brilliantly envisioned by Homi Bhabha. And when India is down on this, the US and Western advances in them will force a second cycle of dependence.
That Manmohan Singh is a slave of the West is no secret. Not only leaders in the BJP and CPI-M, but many in the Congress party say so. The PM's own utterances betray him. He does not believe India has the inherent capability to become a great power. An elected prime minister in Manmohan Singh's place would never have been so pusillanimous. Mrs Indira Gandhi faced a revolt in the party, a sinking economy and a hostile United States when she determined to partition Pakistan. It is no surprise that she was the first PM to conduct the nuclear test, and A.B.Vajpayee, a supremely brave man, and another elected prime minister, who authorized the second test. On the other hand, Manmohan Singh choked India's military and civilian nuclear programmes as finance minister, and opposed the May 1998 nuclear test.
Is it any surprise that he has brought the Congress party to such straits that it could well loss the general elections just so to get the US deal?
<i>N.V.Subramanian is Editor, NewsInsight.net. </i>