Leading American experts on South Asia and former senior administration officials have strongly advised United States Congressman Gary Ackerman against lobbying on behalf of the India-US civilian nuclear agreement when he visits New Delhi next week, warning him that such efforts would only make a bad situation even worse. Incidentally, Ackerman has friendly relations with some of the senior Leftist allies of the Manmohan Singh government and members of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Ackerman has twice been the chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans and senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He is currently the chair of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.
He convened a hearing on 'More than Just the 123 Agreement: The Future of US-India Relations,' asked these experts if there was anything the US could do that would end the Left's opposition and change 'the parliamentary arithmetic.' Because of the Left's tsuach opposition, the deal is unlikely to be brought before the US Congress in the final months of the Bush administration.
The group of experts included Teresita Schaffer, a former diplomat who has served in both India and Pakistan, and is now head of the South Asia programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Stephen Cohen, director of the South Asia programme at The Brookings Institution, and Walter Andersen, associate director of South Asian Studies at the Johns Hopkins University's School for Advanced International Studies, who served for over a decade as the State Department's South Asia head in the Intelligence and Research Bureau. All of them replied with a resounding 'no' to Ackerman's thinking out aloud on this particular agenda on his trip.
Schaffer told rediff.com after the hearing that "the Left parties problem with the US-India nuclear agreement is that they oppose a strong relationship with the United States," and consequently that "they are not going to be impressed by arguments from Washington." Any lobbying efforts from Ackerman or anyone else could be highly counterproductive, he pointed out
She said that there's probably a surfeit of this going on by "their Indian colleagues who are talking to them about the domestic and energy implications of the agreement, but this is a discussion that needs to be settled among Indians."
Andersen told rediff.com that he had told Ackerman that any US attempt to change the parliamentary arithmetic on the deal, while he is in India, is a bad idea.
Any attempt to make the bill 'more palatable', which was another idea Ackerman had thrown up, as an effort to make the Left and Communist allies more amenable, wouldn't work either.
Andersen said, "This would open a Pandora's box both here and in India. On the US side, it would almost certainly involve calls to add specific wording about no testing and fissile material production cut-off, which of course would be a killer for any positive Indian action. And, any wording on the Indian side permitting these two issues, would of course, be a killer for the US."
"So, best to be where we are and wait for the Indian system to work out a deal that is so demonstrably in India's advantage," he said.
Andersen and Schaffer had argued that the Left and the Communists have 'existential reasons' for opposing the deal -- not the least being their loathing of the US for being a leader of the capitalist world -- and would not change their views.
"I mentioned that the Communists are rebelling against a decade of steadily improving Indo-US relations that have a strategic content and they don't want that," Andersen said.
"The BJP sees opposing the bill as a way of embarrassing the government for political purposes, though there were some true believers opposing the bill on the BJP side like Arun Shourie, and they oppose the bill for nationalist reasons, believing it restricts Indian freedom of maneuvering on foreign policy, which I think is dead wrong."
According to Andersen, "This nationalist opposition reflects a lack of faith in India's own ability to conduct a foreign policy on international issues and may even reflect a certain fear about engagement on contentious international issues. This is a consequence of India's gradual emergence as a world actor and it will take some time for the political elite to get used to this new situation, which involves new responsibilities."
Cohen said, "Fifteen years ago, both Indians and Americans failed to anticipate or understand the events that were to transform the relationship along many dimensions."
"Mistakes were made on both sides, and the recent difficulties of consummating the nuclear agreement might have been avoided had we thought more clearly and realistically about the overall relationship and the developments within each country that affects our ties," he said.
Ackerman, in his opening remarks, asserted, "I believed then and believe now that the case for civil nuclear cooperation between the United States and India is clear and compelling. I strongly support the 123 Agreement and I look forward to the government of India completing its internal processes so that the US Congress can give final approval to this historic deal."
But Ackerman, other members of the Committee and the experts agreed that there is certainly life beyond the 123 Agreement vis-à-vis US-India relations and even if the deal dies a natural death or is killed, it would not torpedo the growing US-India ties, which is now virtually irreversible.
Ackerman said, 'There was much more to the July 2005 joint statement than civil nuclear cooperation and there is much more to US-India relations than just the 123 agreement. In fact, the 2005 statement covered a broad range of issues, among which civil nuclear cooperation was just one."
Schaffer said, "Our common interests will push us together regardless of the fate of the nuclear agreement, but this breakthrough initiative is the most powerful tool the US and India have for putting our partnership on a strong footing. India has hesitated, since the agreement posed a risk of bringing down the government ahead of schedule."
She said, "If India now feels able to move ahead, we will have an unparalleled opportunity to recalibrate the way our giant democracies work together, and to focus together on the energy and proliferation concerns that we both face."
Cohen said, "Actualising the nuclear deal will enable the two countries to address a host of other urgent matters that are more deserving of attention. A half-way house for India seems natural, given India's nonproliferation record and the chance for it to be incorporated into the global nonproliferation regime with the international community's acquiescence."
"I believe the Bush administration was bold and imaginative in developing the deal, but should have specified a number of criteria for such an agreement, thus potentially bringing other countries into such arrangements, and strengthening the overall arms control agenda."
Cohen rued, "Disputes over India's nuclear programme have unfortunately overshadowed other aspects of the bilateral relationship for much of the past 35 years."
"Completing the nuclear deal will facilitate addressing other matters that are potentially more deserving of attention, although actually implementing the agreement itself will be a difficult process," he added.
