Red herring

As the political class plays football with the Indo-US nuclear deal, there have been distractions by the dozen. The latest is the “mystery” of the missing Russian reactors. The story line is that “old friend” Russia was eager to sell four additional nuclear reactors to the Kudankulam power station in Tamil Nadu. India, the fable concludes, afraid of offending its “new friend”, the US, backed off during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Moscow last month.

All conspiracy theories of this kind gloss over a few important facts. Those constructing the Kudankulam mystery ignore the truth that current rules of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group prohibit Russia from delivering new reactors to India, with or without a new bilateral nuclear agreement. To be sure, France and Russia since the late nineties had argued for revising, in India’s favour, the NSG guidelines. By 2004, Paris and Moscow informed New Delhi of their inability to bend the NSG and only an American initiative, which came in July 2005, can change the game. That India has wantonly abandoned a Russian nuclear option is a gigantic self-deception. The conspiracy theorists, however, ask one good question. Why was New Delhi doodling with Moscow on a piece of paper that had no operational significance? After all Moscow has already signed an agreement in January 2007, declaring its “intent” to sell more reactors to New Delhi, subject of course to NSG approval. In their bid to appease the communists, sections of the UPA tried to create the optics of a special nuclear relationship with Moscow. After being too clever by half, the government must now clarify the legal context — that real nuclear cooperation with Russia can only follow the full implementation of the Indo-US nuclear deal.

The controversy also offers the government an opportunity to proclaim its commitment to launch simultaneous nuclear cooperation with all nuclear suppliers, including the US, France and Russia. India needs the support of its friends, new and old, to change NSG rules, if and when the ideologically blinkered left let the government reach that point. It is only by engaging all suppliers, not by pandering to left-wing fancies, can India get the best possible terms on finance and technology transfer for the long overdue expansion of its nuclear power programme.