‘UPA talked to me on n-deal but I said go to the politicians as talks between politicians are talks between equals’

• Is that why it’s called the next step in strategic partnership?

We made a gradual move forward. After all, in both, the U.S. and India, there are reservations about each other. We live in democracies so that is natural. So we wanted to move step by step. That’s why it is called the next step. My idea, when this was announced in July 2005, was to safeguard our strategic programme while pushing for good relations with the U.S. and getting the sanctions on high technology and goods removed.

• The 123 deal was announced in July 2005, the major deal, the joint agreement. On July 18, 2005.

There was reference to India working with the U.S. in Geneva. In March last year, when U.S. President George W. Bush was here, he came to an agreement about separating India’s civil nuclear facilities from military ones. When they announced this, my apprehensions grew. The government has agreed to put 14 of our reactors under safeguards. Now where’s the fissile material.

• Are the rest of the reactors enough to produce that?

Let me explain that in detail. India has a no-first-use policy, which means you have to have enough weapons, both nuclear and thermal, to get your potential, so that your enemy knows that he could be targeted if he were to initiate such things. In these times, the credibility of that risk has to remain high.

• A country like Pakistan almost has the first-use policy.

It has said very clearly that it doesn’t rule it out. Even then I came to the conclusion that by agreeing to the separation plan, by agreeing to work with the U.S. and not others on the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), the 2005 agreement in Geneva, the government was showing little concern in this respect. But since I have very good relations with the U.S., I recognise that this deal has a very important role in the strategic partnership between the two countries.

• How much is enough in terms of fissile material? How many reactors would you have put under safeguards?

Not more than two.

• This government says it has top secret documents that you had offered to put 70 per cent of the facilities under safeguards for a deal that was half of this deal.

That is not correct. In 2003, when I was in Washington, we said we would put a couple of our reactors under safeguards. And all those to be built would be under international surveillance. The Americans did not respond to this suggestion. If they had, it would have become clear what would be put under safeguards. If I were there, I’d not have put more than two under safeguards.

• So it’s absolutely wrong that you would have put 70 per cent of the reactors under safeguards, even at a point when we were moving towards acceptance of CTBT.

If you look at then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s statement in the U.N. General Secretariat in September 1998, he said we’re prepared to move towards adherence of CTBT but expect others to do the same.

• Because we did nearly put a voluntary moratorium on testing.

We had a moratorium as soon as the testing was over in 1998. We said we are not going to test again. Moratorium is different from CTBT. One article in CTBT says a certain number of countries have to adhere to CTBT before it comes into effect. Vajpayee said he was prepared to accept CTBT but expected others, including America, to do the same.

• Tomorrow, if the U.S. and other significant countries were to accept CTBT, will it be all right for India to join?

We could never remain outside when everybody joins — including our neighbour Pakistan.

• If Hillary comes to power tomorrow and she gets the Congress to sign up for CTBT, you think India will have no choice but to join CTBT?

If 40-odd countries also join.

• We will have no choice.

Pakistan. Israel. China, which has signed it but not ratified it. Iran, if it is named, has to do it.

• You say the military reactors which have been left out of the 123 deal are not enough for minimum credible deterrence. But we can build more military reactors.

But building reactors is not that easy. As far as the strategic programme is concerned, the adverse impact is whether one wants to have the deal or not.

• Tell me, you have the mind of a modern-day Chanakya, how does one save the deal and the Indo-U.S. relationship? If you were advising the UPA government, how could they get out of this.

Before I answer that question, let me make it clear I’m not going to be speaking on behalf of any political party or any leadership.

• You may speak as an architect of this new strategic shift in India’s foreign policy.

This is a very personal opinion.

• In fact you changed the way India looks at itself in the strategic mirror.

If I were to get credible guarantees from the government about the integrity of what we had left behind three and a half years ago, I would tell them to go forward with the deal. I’m not so critical of the U.S. for following its policy; I’m critical of this government for bending to the wishes of the U.S. and losing sight of our supreme national interest.

• But in this case, if I understand you correctly, what you are saying is that you are also concerned that this government has not shown adequate enthusiasm for the nuclear weapons programme. Is that your impression, or do you also get it from what people tell you?

Well, I don’t go by rumours.

• But you have access to more than rumours. First of all, is this treaty a done deal? Is it a frozen document? Both sides say it’s a frozen document two sovereign governments have initiated.

Obviously, if the U.S. claims it has gone to the limits of its concessions and that it (the deal) will not go through the U.S. Congress. So then it is a done deal.

• So if the UPA fails to convince the Left, it is a political argument of a different kind. Since you specified that you speak in a personal capacity, what can it do to convince you it is as serious and enthusiastic about the nuclear weapons programme as you were, and as according to you the government must be?

As I said, before we left office some work had been done. In the last three and a half years, what has been done?

• How do you advise them to convince you now? Because if I ask them, they’ll say, ‘We believe in the strategic programme. We started it. We funded it. We kept up the continuity.’

You know, when Pokhran II took place in 1998, the Congress was very lukewarm. Some of them criticised it in Parliament. We are also aware that during the Narasimha Rao regime, the idea of testing was taken up. I know because we had instructions for conducting a nuclear test. But it was given up because of economic and financial upheaval.

• He gave up the idea?

Yes, he gave it up. Keeping that background in mind, keeping the separation plan in mind, I have come to the conclusion that there is not much enthusiasm in this government.

• So what does the government do now to show that enthusiasm to convince you?

Let them say that this is what they have done in the last three and a half years. A person like me, who is aware of the programme as it was before, would know.

• Do they have to say it publicly or should they say it to you? If they have to tell you specifically, if I understand you correctly, you would rather find a solution where the deal is saved and the Indo-U.S. relationship is saved and the strategic programme is also preserved.

I would put the strategic programme as Number 1.

• But I didn’t say the government should be saved.

The strategic programme should be integrated, and at the same time, if the deal can go through, it will help Indo-U.S. relations.

• Are you surprised at the vehemence with which the BJP has opposed the deal, because at the popular level, there’s a great deal of scepticism?

No, I think some of the BJP leaders have gone into minute examination of the 123 deal, the Hyde Act and so forth. It has come out that they are as opposed to the deal as the Left is. But I think it will also be made clear by a number of things that it is good for Indo-U.S. relations. Mr L.K. Advani, Mr Yashwant Sinha have said that.

• Do you agree with the Left when it says independence of foreign policy has been compromised?

Yes. I would not say compromised, but they have done something that should not have been done keeping in mind our own interest.

• You know this system. The system is very conservative and very careful. They would not do such a thing out of absent-mindedness. So do you think there is a deliberate shift or do you think somebody lost the plot?

No, I think primacy was given to the deal and Indo-American relations quite forgetting that there are other relations also.

• So you would not have voted on the Iran resolution?

I would have abstained like most of the non-aligned countries, like Russia. And let me say I can’t believe Russia is any less concerned about Iran going nuclear.

• Yes, India has genuine worries about that.

We ought to.

• How would you have handled it? Would you would have stayed out of the Japan, Australia, America joint activity?

Bilaterally. Let me give you an example. We have been having the Malabar exercises with the U.S. since 1990s. During the NDA government, the joint patrolling of Malacca Strait was introduced. There have been exercises with army, air force and in mountain warfare. Nobody bothers about it. As soon as it was made quadrilateral . . .

• That’s because the Left was criticising you anyway. The problem is the Left is with the government.

As soon as they made it quadrilateral, people started saying, ‘What has happened? Is it a military alliance?’

• Do you think there’s a military alliance? Do you think anybody wants to become part of the Asian network?

If they have no intention of doing that, they should not send out signals like this.

• And has that upset the Chinese?

Obviously it has. When the four countries met in Philippines in April, they (China) sent out feelers to all the four countries.

• And it is not right for us to annoy the Chinese as well.

Can we settle things in a hostile atmosphere? We can only do that only in a normal situation.

• Knowing this very conservative establishment, could they have made the shift unthinkingly? Or could they have done it without realising that the Chinese will see this as a shift?

Given the priority that was given to the deal and the Indo-U.S. relationship, and there was priority not to say no to the U.S., I can’t imagine that North Block and South Block don’t have enough intelligence to understand it.

• You dealt with the Clinton administration and the Bush administration. The way things are going now in America, we may get back to a Clinton administration. Give us a comparison between the two. What was it like to deal with both of them? Which one has been better for India, and why?

Well, the second part of your question is very difficult to answer. Because in the second term of the Clinton presidency, and after the Kargil war, it was clear that Indo-American relations had taken off. With Clinton asking Pakistan to back off and restore the sanctity of the LoC.

• And that line that ‘borders can no longer be redrawn in blood’.

So I must say that was very good for us. And the reception we gave to President Clinton, and the reception Vajpayee got when he went there, all that was very heart-warming. With the Bush administration, they had a very ambitious foreign policy and India, if not the centrepiece, was a very important part of it. And therefore they moved forward in this direction. But even here, let me put a caveat: President Bush, after 9/11, was not very concerned about what Pakistan was doing in terms of terrorist activities in India. So it is difficult to say which one is better.

• We have put some distance in terms of time between your sitting in South Block and now. There were two extended phases in your tenure as NSA during which you could have gone to war with Pakistan at any time. The Kargil phase and the Parakram phase. Did we actually come close to a full-fledged war at some point, and if so, when? Tell me the two moments you thought, ‘Now it will definitely happen’.

Parakram. January 7-8 2001, and again in the third week of May.

• So what happened on January 7-8?

Mobilisation was ordered in the third week of December, and in the first week of January, the army said plans were made. Then the Americans approached us and said President Musharraf is going to make a statement. That made quite an impression. Obviously, they must have been told about the contents.

• So if the Americans had not intervened at that point, or maybe had not come to us with this message, we were going to war?

I would say there was 90 per cent possibility of going to war.

• So the coercive diplomacy was not just play-acting.

And again, in the month of May, after the Kaluchak massacre, in which army families were killed.

• Something also happened in the first week of June that spooked Rumsfeld and he came running to India.

No, it was Armitage.

• Rumsfeld also came once and they picked up some air assets movements.

But the person who was in contact was Armitage.

• So there were two nights during that phase when you thought there might be a war tomorrow morning.

If not tomorrow morning, maybe day after tomorrow.

• So it was for real. And which one was closer, January 7-8 or May?

January.

• Because the anger was so much?

During the Kargil war, we were very clear that if we were to cross the Line of Control and they would ask for a ceasefire, we would be negotiating with Pakistan.

• So it’s best to get them out now. But by January 7-8, after the Parliament attack, those restraints were gone.

There was so much anger in this country.

• If I can push the envelope, was anybody exercising restraint? When the Americans came and said that Musharraf will make a statement, did anybody say, ‘No, we can’t stop’?

No, I don’t think anybody relished the idea of war, whether it was Mr Vajpayee or Mr Advani or even Mr George Fernandes. But there was the inevitability that if we don’t do this, Pakistan will get away with something horrendous.

• That this act could not go unpunished. When I went to meet then prime minister Vajpayee, he said very philosophically, ‘War might begin. Only problem is that you may begin it but you don’t know when it may end and how it may end’.

That is why I am saying none of us relished the idea.

• Try to put yourself in the shoes of this government. If you were the NSA, the chief policy maker for this government, how would you manage the situation, to save the deal, save Indo-U.S. relations?

The atmosphere today between the government and the Opposition is not cordial at all. There have been public spats, which are not conducive for discussions. The government should try to convince them.

• Is it easier to convince the Opposition than the Left?

I cannot say about that. But perhaps it is easier because they are also saying we want good relations with the U.S.

• In fact they are one step ahead and they are not shy of talking about strategic partnership.

After all we made the next step in strategic partnership.

• This government says that they kept you in the picture and you were informed.

Yes, they did talk to me but on each occasion I said it’s not enough, you must go to the politicians because talks between politicians are talks between two equals.

• Instead of just talking to you, if they had spoken to politicians it would have been better. Well I hope they are listening now. If I draw any conclusions about this discussion, it is that there are larger issues concerning the strategic programme and our relationship with the U.S. So we need people like you. And I hope politicians start talking to each other.