09-09-2008, 01:09 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Anatomy of servitude </b>
Pioneer.com
Chandan Mitra
Either Manmohan Singh believes Indians are the most gullible people on the face of the Earth or his spin doctors have convinced him that repeating a lie a thousand times over will metamorphose into truth. There can be no other explanations for the orchestrated claim of India having wrested a "historic" deal at Vienna, a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group that will allegedly end the country's 34-year-long nuclear isolation, permit unrestricted flow of dual-use technology and also enable import of unlimited quantities of uranium to fuel nuclear power plants. If the Congress Party's propagandists are to be believed, all this will happen even as India retains its right to test nuclear devices and develop its strategic weapons programme. <b>Admittedly, the Government has succeeded in propagating this package of lies through servile sections of the media, thereby sowing seeds of doubt even among those who are convinced that India has supinely pawned its nuclear sovereignty at the altar of non-proliferation Ayatollahs. In return for surrendering its claim to being a nuclear weapons state, all the country has been granted are a few paltry tonnes of uranium, which can be used only under strict international supervision</b>.
For more than three decades, successive Prime Ministers -- Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee -- held the banner of national esteem high, refusing to sign the highly discriminatory Non-Proliferation Treaty and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. They rightly argued that the treaties legitimised the division of countries into nuclear haves and have-nots. Pokhran I in 1974 and, more pertinently, the series of tests conducted during Pokhran II in 1998 decisively proclaimed India's arrival on the world stage as an independent, self-respecting nuclear weapons state. Every Indian walked a few inches taller after May 11, 1998, and the world started to see India in a new light. The nuclear haves were obviously shaken by this development. And thereafter began a long-drawn conspiracy to de-fang India by tempting us with dubious offers of technology. The aim was to make India voluntarily accept the status of a nuclear have-not, get New Delhi to relinquish its Big Power ambitions and revert to nuclear mendicancy. Tragically, the conspiracy has triumphed. India has willingly abandoned its dream; it has decided to settle for second-class status in the world's nuclear club.
The Hyde Act, which was sprung quietly on India in the run-up to the Washington-shepherded Indo-US deal, was bad enough as it contained provisions such as intrusive inspection of nuclear facilities and an annual certificate by the US President that India was a "good boy". Does the occupant of the White House do that with China, Russia, France or Britain? Or even Israel, for that matter? Will he dare do that with "stalwart non-NATO ally" Pakistan, surreptitiously supplied fuel and missile technology by China's surrogate North Korea? As if that patronising grip on our sovereignty was not enough, the NSG, taking an even tougher line, has now imposed multilateral conditionalities, whose slightest violation will invite a stringent response. What that response is apparent from the sanctions imposed on NPT-signatory Iran as soon as it decided to pursue enhanced nuclear ambitions. India is now at the mercy not only of the US but the entire bunch of NSG members whose antipathy was more than apparent during last week's meeting. We shall also be prevented from developing state-of-the-art missile technology. As everybody knows, missiles without nuclear warheads are equivalent to mechanical toys that pre-teens play with. In effect we have agreed to cap our nuclear weapons programme. This is the logical outcome of the NSG-imposed ban on further testing, which India acquiesced in by way of Pranab Mukherjee's Friday statement permanently extending the unilateral moratorium announced by Vajpayee after Pokhran II.
<b>In the aftermath of the NSG meet, India's international stature is in tatters</b>. It was sad to see officials and Ministers virtually grovelling before junior European bureaucrats, shifting and diluting self-declared "red lines" volubly asserted by the Indian Establishment prior to the meeting. The "clean and unconditional" waiver India insisted on getting from NSG was reduced to a joke as New Delhi, in a display of fawning desperation, agreed to a revised draft with added conditions and also appended Mukherjee's statement to the final document. At least our new-found American mentors cannot be accused of hiding the truth. As the leaked Berman letter showed, Manmohan Singh knew all along that the US will not help maintain uninterrupted fuel supplies if India happened to test a device again. But the Prime Minister willfully misled the nation, not adhering to his solemn pronouncements in Parliament.
The nuclear deal has become a saga of deceit and perjury. The world must be wondering what drove the UPA regime to such abject desperation. Even before the murky deal becomes law, India's national prestige has been irreparably compromised. We believed the 21st Century would be India's Century. Having throttled this dream of a billion people and a resurgent nation, <b>the Government is making a mockery of whatever is left of India's honour by claiming the deal marks a "new dawn". Can the forces of deceit and darkness ever herald the dawn, any kind of dawn?</b>
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Pioneer.com
Chandan Mitra
Either Manmohan Singh believes Indians are the most gullible people on the face of the Earth or his spin doctors have convinced him that repeating a lie a thousand times over will metamorphose into truth. There can be no other explanations for the orchestrated claim of India having wrested a "historic" deal at Vienna, a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group that will allegedly end the country's 34-year-long nuclear isolation, permit unrestricted flow of dual-use technology and also enable import of unlimited quantities of uranium to fuel nuclear power plants. If the Congress Party's propagandists are to be believed, all this will happen even as India retains its right to test nuclear devices and develop its strategic weapons programme. <b>Admittedly, the Government has succeeded in propagating this package of lies through servile sections of the media, thereby sowing seeds of doubt even among those who are convinced that India has supinely pawned its nuclear sovereignty at the altar of non-proliferation Ayatollahs. In return for surrendering its claim to being a nuclear weapons state, all the country has been granted are a few paltry tonnes of uranium, which can be used only under strict international supervision</b>.
For more than three decades, successive Prime Ministers -- Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee -- held the banner of national esteem high, refusing to sign the highly discriminatory Non-Proliferation Treaty and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. They rightly argued that the treaties legitimised the division of countries into nuclear haves and have-nots. Pokhran I in 1974 and, more pertinently, the series of tests conducted during Pokhran II in 1998 decisively proclaimed India's arrival on the world stage as an independent, self-respecting nuclear weapons state. Every Indian walked a few inches taller after May 11, 1998, and the world started to see India in a new light. The nuclear haves were obviously shaken by this development. And thereafter began a long-drawn conspiracy to de-fang India by tempting us with dubious offers of technology. The aim was to make India voluntarily accept the status of a nuclear have-not, get New Delhi to relinquish its Big Power ambitions and revert to nuclear mendicancy. Tragically, the conspiracy has triumphed. India has willingly abandoned its dream; it has decided to settle for second-class status in the world's nuclear club.
The Hyde Act, which was sprung quietly on India in the run-up to the Washington-shepherded Indo-US deal, was bad enough as it contained provisions such as intrusive inspection of nuclear facilities and an annual certificate by the US President that India was a "good boy". Does the occupant of the White House do that with China, Russia, France or Britain? Or even Israel, for that matter? Will he dare do that with "stalwart non-NATO ally" Pakistan, surreptitiously supplied fuel and missile technology by China's surrogate North Korea? As if that patronising grip on our sovereignty was not enough, the NSG, taking an even tougher line, has now imposed multilateral conditionalities, whose slightest violation will invite a stringent response. What that response is apparent from the sanctions imposed on NPT-signatory Iran as soon as it decided to pursue enhanced nuclear ambitions. India is now at the mercy not only of the US but the entire bunch of NSG members whose antipathy was more than apparent during last week's meeting. We shall also be prevented from developing state-of-the-art missile technology. As everybody knows, missiles without nuclear warheads are equivalent to mechanical toys that pre-teens play with. In effect we have agreed to cap our nuclear weapons programme. This is the logical outcome of the NSG-imposed ban on further testing, which India acquiesced in by way of Pranab Mukherjee's Friday statement permanently extending the unilateral moratorium announced by Vajpayee after Pokhran II.
<b>In the aftermath of the NSG meet, India's international stature is in tatters</b>. It was sad to see officials and Ministers virtually grovelling before junior European bureaucrats, shifting and diluting self-declared "red lines" volubly asserted by the Indian Establishment prior to the meeting. The "clean and unconditional" waiver India insisted on getting from NSG was reduced to a joke as New Delhi, in a display of fawning desperation, agreed to a revised draft with added conditions and also appended Mukherjee's statement to the final document. At least our new-found American mentors cannot be accused of hiding the truth. As the leaked Berman letter showed, Manmohan Singh knew all along that the US will not help maintain uninterrupted fuel supplies if India happened to test a device again. But the Prime Minister willfully misled the nation, not adhering to his solemn pronouncements in Parliament.
The nuclear deal has become a saga of deceit and perjury. The world must be wondering what drove the UPA regime to such abject desperation. Even before the murky deal becomes law, India's national prestige has been irreparably compromised. We believed the 21st Century would be India's Century. Having throttled this dream of a billion people and a resurgent nation, <b>the Government is making a mockery of whatever is left of India's honour by claiming the deal marks a "new dawn". Can the forces of deceit and darkness ever herald the dawn, any kind of dawn?</b>
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