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8/5/2007 12:52:48 PM
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Views expressed here are author"s own and not of this website. Full disclaimer is
at the bottom.
(The author is a Professor in International Economics in Nagasaki University, Japan)
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The character of the representative democracy is that people can only elect the members of the state or national parliaments but once elected the representatives can ignore the public opinion, unless there is a system of regular referendums on every important issue. In the European countries, including Britain, referendums are part and parcel of democracy, but not in India or in the U.S. As a result, both in India and U.S the government or the ruling party or the coalition of parties can behave like elected dictators within a given period disregarding the interest of the people, the country and the long-term future of the nation.
In 1991, India under the instruction of International Monetary Fund (IMF) abolished the Five Year’s Plan and introduced the free market economy. That has affected the life of everyone in the country. However, parliament was not consulted. There was no referendum of the people either. Similarly, in 1995, India has joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) against even the opinion of the Chief of the Indian delegations on this affair, Muchkund Dubey, who has described the treaty India singed as unequal and unjust. Although the public opinion was against it, the parliament and the people of India were not consulted. In the same way, now in 2007 the Indo-American treaty on nuclear issue is being imposed upon India against the public opinion, without any referendum of the people.
These three major events for India, since 1991, have serious consequences for the people of India and are highly damaging for the nation. Economic reforms in India have failed to uplift the poor even after 15 years of experiment. The slogan raised in 1995 that the new world trade order would bring unprecedented prosperity was never materialized for India or the developing countries.
Now the government of India is trying to erase out India’s nuclear deterrent against Pakistan as well by saying that without this Indo-US nuclear deal, there will be no future development of the nuclear energy in India. If we look at the deal it would be clear that it has little or nothing to do with the nuclear power generations but it aims at the elimination of India’s ability to produce any nuclear weapons. Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which India has refused to sign so far, is now imposed upon India through a back door with devastating consequences for India’s immediate future.
India’s nuclear deal:
Dr Homi Sethna, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and one of the founding-father of India’s nuclear programme, said that what India has signed would be worse than joining the NPT regime. Dr A. Gopalakrishnan, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, has exposed the very enormous financial price that India will have to pay as well, between Rs 300,000 to Rs 400,000 crores in nuclear reactors that will be totally dependent for their existence on a yearly audit of our policies by the US Congress.
USA will not change its laws to accommodate India. Hyde Act is the norm by which the Indo-US treaty will be constrained. USA will not supply India with the fuel cycle, enrichment plants for uranium and reprocessing plants of spent fuel, as the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1954 specifically forbids export of these technologies, as also heavy water production technology, to other countries. Section 103 of the Hyde Act suggests that the US would oppose development of a capability to produce nuclear weapons by any non-nuclear weapon state within or outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime. Section 104(d) (2) stipulates that transfers to India cannot begin without suitable changes in NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group) guidelines. About 90 percent of all nuclear facilities, including the Russian built Fast Breeder Reactors which can produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, will be included in the civilian sector according to the Indo-US Nuclear Deal and there will be regular inspection by the IAEA and the US authority to make sure that these facilities will not be used to produce nuclear weapons.
India decided on a three-stage nuclear program back in the 1950s, when India"s nuclear power generation program was set up. In the first stage, natural uranium (U-238) was used in pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs). In the second stage, the plutonium extracted through reprocessing from the used fuel of the PHWRs was scheduled to be used to run fast-breeder reactors (FBRs) built by the Soviet Union and Russia in India.
In the final stage, the FBRs use thorium and produce uranium-233 for use in the third stage reactors. India began the construction of the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) in 2005 with the help from Russia. Russian built FBRs will be ready by 2009.
The reason for India"s commitment to switch over to thorium, was its large estimated thorium reserves of some 290,000 tons, it ranks second only to Australia. This would help India to bring independence from overseas uranium sources and India would be in liberty to produce as many nuclear weapons as India likes.
Does India need US nuclear power plants?
It is not true that without the American support India’s nuclear energy programme would come to a halt. As Pakistan is getting everything regarding nuclear energy from China, India can also get nuclear power plants from Russia.
The real issue is whether India needs any US assistance at all regarding its nuclear energy sector. The argument of Man Mohan Singh, as he said in the Parliament recently, that otherwise India would be a nuclear "Pariah’ is false. In 1974, USA has imposed sanctions so that India cannot get any nuclear related materials or technology. After 1998 USA has imposed more sanctions on India so that it cannot get any defense related technology or materials at all. However, India since 1974 has received every nuclear technology, and materials including conventional nuclear power plants, Fast Breeder reactors, reprocessing and enrichment plants and heavy water plants from the Soviet Union and Russia without any restrictions attached to these. As a result, India is al most self-sufficient regarding nuclear technology and can produce nuclear weapons despite all the efforts of the United States to stop it.
Only for the last two years, because of its membership of the NSG, Russia now wants to supply nuclear power plants with added safeguards that the plants cannot be used to produce any nuclear weapons. However, at the same time, it has offered offshore nuclear plants to India, which would be without any restrictions. India can have both or either of the on-shore or offshore nuclear power plants from Russia and as a result for the future development of electricity production, India does not need US support at all. Thus, it really does not matter if India would refuse to sign the Indo-US treaty on nuclear energy.
Even if India needs nuclear power plants to supplement it energy requirement in future, India does not need nuclear power plants from USA.
Alternative is still available:
Without the nuclear deal India would be able to maintain its nuclear plants by using reprocessed plutonium as a fuel and using its own uranium in the conventional plants. It will continue to get offshore nuclear plants from Russia. In that case it will be at liberty to test further nuclear weapons in future. This is exactly what President Putin has suggested but India so far is not interested.
Russian atomic concern Rosenergoatom continues the construction of the first floating nuclear station (PATES). The project is supervised by the specially set up Directorship on Floating Nuclear Stations. PATES was designed by the N.Novgorod based OKB Afrikantova, which has a number of floating nuclear stations with different power levels for different regions and climates. All are based on the reactors that had been for decades used in Russian nuclear subs and icebreakers. The smallest (3 Mega Watt tons) unit costs just US$ 20 Million. Reloading of nuclear fuel takes place once in 12 years. Lifetime is 50 years. It is worthwhile to emphasize that this is the world’s first project of this kind. The head station will be used for Sevmash itself. KLT-40C (the reactor of PATES) with 70 Mega Watt power is sufficient for supplying the energy to a town with the population of 50 000 people.
The project of floating stations first originated in Russia as an idea to heat the northern regions along the Arctic Ocean. It can be used also as a station for making fresh water from the seawater. Foreign customers from Asia and the Middle East are interested in the Russian development before Russia made the first station for itself. Traditional Russian partners in China and India with their growing economies demanding more energy are viewed as potential customers. Indirectly this was confirmed during a meeting at Sevmash, where the president of Kurchatov Institute Evgeny Velihov drew attention to the opportunities of building international nuclear reactor.
India can certainly take advantage of this new technology, which can avoid the restriction imposed by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, as the offshore nuclear plants would outside the jurisdiction of either Nuclear Suppliers Group or the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. In that case India will at liberty to test and develop nuclear weapons any time it likes without any restrictions using plutonium from its FBRs and enriched Uranium from other nuclear plants. Given the fact that China has a massive amount of nuclear weapons and Pakistan can have unlimited supplies from China, India needs that freedom to develop its nuclear weapons without any restrictions. Indo-US Nuclear Deal will increase both real and perceived restrictions on India that would in reality destroy any credible nuclear deterrent for India against possible attacks from either China or Pakistan.
India’s nuclear weapons:
The treaty has little to do with nuclear energy development in India but deals with the question of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and how to prevent India from becoming a nuclear weapon state. It is very clear that the treaty does not treat India as a present or future nuclear weapon state. The treaty will never legitimize India’s nuclear weapons, but will ruin any prospect of India to have any independent nuclear deterrent against even Pakistan; China is far cry.
Pakistan without any treaty with the US will receive whatever it wants from China and will go on producing nuclear weapons but India cannot. The reason is that the treaty will force India to separate Indian’s nuclear facilities including the research institutes into two groups, military and non-military. About 90 percent of all nuclear facilities, including the Fast Breeder Reactors which can produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, will be included in the civilian sector and there will be regular inspection by the IAEA and the US authority to make sure that these facilities will not be used to produce nuclear weapons.
If India, in this situation, wants to keep its option for nuclear weapons, it needs to reconstruct every facility once again at a prohibitive cost. India for the military part of the nuclear sector will not be able to import technology or materials from any of the countries of the NSG, including Russia. Thus, India’s nuclear weapons programme will disappear.
This is the real aim of the Indo-US treaty. Man Mohan Singh’s recent declaration in the Indian parliament that India would maintain the option to test nuclear weapons is very theoretical. In practice, India will be unable to do that because of lack of availability of appropriate facility to develop and test nuclear weapons in near future.
China-Pakistan Collaboration:
Pakistan and China have finalized in August 2006 landmark accord on nuclear energy cooperation, under which Islamabad will acquire 6 Chinese nuclear reactors. The nuclear energy cooperation deal with China has brought great solace to Pakistan, as the United States is not willing to extend such cooperation to Pakistan. With Chinese cooperation, Pak would build six new nuclear reactors in next 10 years having capacity of 2,000 megawatts. This was part of Pakistan’s plan to increase the capacity of N-power generation to over 8,000 megawatts by 2025. China has already helped Pak build a nuclear reactor of 350 megawatts at Chashma and it was currently building one more at the same place with the same capacity.
China has already supplied Pakistan enrichment plants and heavy water plants, and nuclear weapons as well. Chinese nuclear plants offered to Pakistan will not be under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Thus, Pakistan can very well use these to produce nuclear weapons. Although China is a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) of 45 nations and a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), China like in all other international spheres does not care about its obligation to any international treaty if its national interest demands so. China’s national interest is to set up Pakistan against India by providing every weapons and missiles it has got.
China has so far violated every rule of the NPT (Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty) and NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group) by supplying nuclear power plants with enrichment facility, which can produce nuclear weapons to Pakistan, North Korea and possibly Iran. For that USA will never dare to impose any sanction against China.
Conclusion:
The prospect for India in this situation is very bleak but the government of India itself is creating it. India government was under no obligation to sign the treaty but has done. In the same way it had accepted the IMF induced reform programme in 1991 and joined the WTO in 1995. In each of these occasions the arguments provided by the government of India proved to be false.
In the case of nuclear deal with the US also, India just like in 1991 and 1995 is accepting a subordinate position in relation to USA and the Western countries. These treaties are not reciprocal. USA will never accept any inspection of its nuclear facility by the IAEA. It will carry on developing new nuclear weapons and will test those in laboratory conditions. It has no separation of nuclear facilities into military and civilian sectors. However, India is accepting inspection of its nuclear facility by the American authority without demanding any corresponding right of inspection of the American nuclear facilities by the Indian authority.
Just like other two treaties, with IMF in 1991 and with WTO in 1995, this Indo-US deal on nuclear energy is unequal, discriminatory and unjust. The result will make Pakistan much stronger than India in very near future. That serves the geo-political interest of the United States with Pakistan as the bridge to the Islamic world as Pakistan was the bridge to China in 1971, when both USA and China were about to attack India jointly to save East Pakistan. The unfolding scenario will ruin India in the process when India has no strong Prime Minister like Mrs. Indira Gandhi and there is no Soviet Union to defend India.
The government of India is not going to consult the people regarding this matter of Indo-US nuclear deal. Just like in 1991 and in 1995 the government of India has surrendered to the Anglo-American imperialism very gladly by going against the public opinion. This is certainly not a sign of a democracy, but of an unpatriotic dictatorship within a democratic set-up.
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