India’s choice

Much too often, the debate on the Indo-US nuclear deal has been conducted in political shorthand or it has meandered into ideological deadends. As the nuclear endgame begins, the overwhelming sense is still one of sharp polarisation rather than an engagement that could be deemed either open-minded or rigorous. This is why the former foreign secretary, Shyam Saran’s speech at the India International Centre on February 18 is a welcome departure. Drawing on his own association with the negotiation process, Saran offers a sober and lucid account of the PM’s mandate to the negotiators. He lays out the deal’s promise to dismantle the multi-lateral technology-denial regime that has targeted India for over 40 years; he spells out its implications for India’s quest for energy security. Saran locates his exposition in a quick changing global moment that offers unprecedented opportunities for an India that is being transformed by consequential economic transitions within.

Saran’s account is valuable not just for its engaging tone and the rare glimpse it permits into the government’s mind. It is more valuable because of the broad frame in which he situates the deal. As he argues it, this is not a pact between two countries. It is, instead, about changing a global regime that has unfairly denied India its rightful place and constricted its choices of partners and technologies. As the prime mover of those restrictive regimes in the first place and because it remains the predominant source of the new sensitive technologies, it is the US alone that can bring about the tipping point for India in the global regime.

The onus is on those who oppose the nuclear deal to counter the arguments that Saran has laid out with the same breadth and without resorting to cliches and name-calling. The slogan of ‘anti-imperialism’ has dwindled relevance today. An excessive focus on the US restricts the viewfinder overly. At a time when India is on its way to deepening its relations with the big powers, larger questions must be asked of the nuclear deal than have been posed so far.