The Hindu Business Line : A debate of no consequence

Had it been held on a substantive motion or at least under a rule which provided for voting, the numbers for and against could have been ascertained, and any adverse vote could have been legitimately interpreted as an implied censure of the course th e Government had chosen to pursue.

As an open-ended, short duration discussion, it was neither here nor there. At the most it helped participants give vent to their views for the record, leaving the Government to go its way.

The debate was inconsequential for another reason also. Both the proponents and opponents of the deal traded the same old stale arguments without traversing a microdot beyond what had been hashed and rehashed on innumerable occasions.

Both the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, and the Minister for External Affairs, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, disingenuously glossed over, as in the past, the scope for mischief of many of the provisions of the Hyde Act and the 123 Agreement.

Clear-cut stipulation

For the Prime Minister to say that nothing in the Hyde Act prevents India from exercising its sovereign right to conduct another test if considered necessary in its national interest is to fly in the face of the explicit language of section 106 of the Hyde Act.

Under that section, any waiver granted under the Act from the injunctions earlier applicable to the supply of nuclear fuel, technology, equipment, spares and accessories “shall cease to be operative if the President determines that India has detonated a nuclear explosive device”.

No US Administration dare violate this clear-cut mandatory stipulation. India can certainly conduct a test if it wants, but once it does so, make no mistake, the 123 Agreement will stand automatically terminated and all supplies recalled.

It is also surprising that the Prime Minister and the External Affairs Minister should advance the beguiling proposition that the Hyde Act does not bind India, and therefore, all is well.

Even they will agree that it binds the US. In which case, no US Administration can get out of the obligations it imposes. One such obligation is that the US should ensure that there are no further tests on pain of retaliatory action.

Invasive inquiries

Also, the Act requires the President to submit to the Congress comprehensive annual statements, including on matters within India’s sole prerogative, such as the amount of uranium mined and milled in India, the amount used for nuclear explosive devices, the rate of production of fissile material for nuclear explosive devices and the actual number of nuclear explosive devices.

The President is also called upon to give his assessment to the Congress of “the specific measures India has taken to fully and actively participate in US and international efforts to dissuade, isolate and...sanction and contain Iran” in regard to developing nuclear weapons capability.

Can any President evade these obligations except by risking impeachment? Will not carrying out these obligations result in invasive inquiries impinging on India’s sovereignty and self-respect? Is there the any sense in saying that the Act is not binding on India?

One point that has gone unnoticed so far is the fact that the 123 Agreement brings under IAEA safeguards all facilities connected with reprocessing which were hitherto outside its purview.

It is a thousand pities that the Government has missed a great opportunity to put forward a convincing case so as to dispel the genuine fears of the critics of the deal.

Can it be that the Government thought that whatever happened in the House did not matter so long as it managed to get the backing of the Left parties for whatever it did?

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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