Question of good faith

The nuclear cooperation bargain with the United States of America is set to divide the Indian polity. Both the prime minister and the opposition are preparing for a stormy debate in parliament.

It is the government of India?s case that the obligations it has accepted are no different from those of other nuclear weapon powers. India has committed to four broad responsibilities: separation of its civil and military nuclear facilities; filing a declaration of its civilian facilities with the International Atomic Energy Agency; voluntarily placing its civilian facilities under IAEA safeguards; and signing an additional protocol with respect to the civilian facilities. Are these the same as those accepted by other nuclear weapons powers?

The separation of civilian and military nuclear facilities is not necessary for legitimately recognized nuclear weapons powers. France has produced substantial quantities of military plutonium from civilian power reactors at Chinon, St Laurent, Marcoule (now under closure) and Bugey. The United Kingdom built the Calder Hall and Chapelcross nuclear power stations to produce plutonium and tritium for weapons as well as electricity. There is no separation of civilian and military programmes in Russia and China.

Only the US has made this separation. Its civilian nuclear facilities are in the private sector and the military programme is in government hands, with little or no interface between them. For producing tritium for bombs, the US department of energy uses Tennessee valley authority?s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant and Sequoyah nuclear plant, Units 1 and 2 as the preferred facilities after closing down its own production facility in South Carolina in 1998. Even in the US then, the civilian and military separation is not total.

India has to separate its programmes because the international community suspects that fissile material from civilian reactors is used for bombs. Nuclear reactors produce both electricity and fissile material. Using the fissile material for bombs is OK if the nuclear material and the technology used are indigenous.

If either is imported then every gram of nuclear material going in and coming out of the reactor has to be accounted for with the IAEA. India agreed to this earlier for Tarapur, Rajasthan and Kudanmkulam Atomic Power Stations based on foreign technology.

India has now to separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities with a firewall ? not permitting any transfer of resources, material or human, between the two. It would also file a declaration regarding this with the IAEA. The recognized nuclear weapon powers do not have to do so ? their military programmes are considered legitimate.

India will take a ?voluntary? decision to put its civilian facilities under IAEA safeguards. This means accepting transparent and verifiable accounting procedures for nuclear material used. What do the nuclear weapons powers do in this regard? Both France and UK have agreed to limited safeguards. The US has also allowed only 15 out of 105 reactors to come under IAEA safeguards. But even these inspections have stopped because the IAEA pleaded lack of funds.

Accepting safeguards has to be voluntary for India because it is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. There is no freedom of choice involved. Unless India accepts this voluntarily, there is no legal framework within which its civilian facilities can be subjected to IAEA safeguards. India?s responsibilities and practices are, therefore, different from that of the nuclear weapon powers.

India has also agreed to sign an additional protocol with the IAEA about its civilian facilities. The additional protocol that the nuclear weapon powers sign is under NPT obligations ? any export of nuclear material is to be reported to the IAEA, which then puts the importing country under safeguards. In the case of Iran, an NPT signatory, the proposed additional protocol is more stringent ? the IAEA seeks to inspect declared as well as suspect facilities. In India?s case, the additional protocol will give the IAEA the right to inspect all civilian facilities. Once again, the additional protocol signed by India would be different from that of the nuclear weapon powers.

It is disingenuous then to claim that India?s responsibility and practices will be the same as that of other nuclear weapon powers.

The upside of the deal, however, is that India can buy nuclear fuel and reactors internationally. India?s nuclear power programme is thwarted by non-availability of adequate fuel. Our uranium resources can support only 10,000 MWe (Megawatt Electric) of nuclear power generation. If India wants to push this to 20,000 MWe, then clearly it needs to buy both nuclear fuel and reactors internationally.

But what of the downside? To begin with, building a firewall between the civilian and military programmes may not be easy ? similar experience with India?s space and missile programmes has adversely affected the latter. The R&D programme will be affected because it is difficult to say that the outcome would have only civilian uses. Every ounce of nuclear material taken out for research from civilian reactors would have to be reported to the IAEA. If the research outcomes are also to be reported, then that might lead to proprietary issues.

Any suspicion of an interface between the civilian and military programmes will invite inspections. Military reactors, being dual-use, will produce power as well as nuclear material for weapons, but feeding their power into the grid may be problematic.

Civilian facilities being used for fissile material production would no longer be available for strategic purposes. This would in effect cap India?s fissile material production even before the fissile material cut-off treaty is negotiated.

This suits the US. It was not satisfied with India putting only foreign supplied power plants ? Tarapur, Rajasthan and Kudankulam ? under safeguards. It knows that India?s nuclear programme ? both military and civil ? has not stabilized. So it is allowing monitored growth of the civilian programme, but restraining the strategic one.

The question that would divide the nation is whether India should have compromised the core of its national security for access to fuel and civilian technology. Votaries of autarkic development argue that the new uranium mines can be made operational in the next two years and India?s fast breeder reactors would come of age soon. FBRs produce fuel for nuclear power plants by using the spent fuel from existing pressurized heavy water reactors. The question then is: Why did India negotiate conducting itself as if it were in a major crisis?

Lastly, Manmohan Singh?s critics would claim that he has unified the negotiating positions of all our prospective nuclear partners. Once India has agreed to the maximalist demands of the US, why should France and Russia settle for anything less? Instead of increasing its negotiating space, the government may have shrunk it.

The government?s repeated statements on reciprocal obligations suggest that somehow the US is expected to deliver first. However, unless President Bush can show that India is fully on board on the non-proliferation agenda he cannot get the US Congress to change laws or get concessions from the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The US does not have to show good faith. India has to ? and before Bush visits in January 2006. There is no timeline for Bush himself.

Clearly, a wide-ranging parliamentary debate is necessary to convince all that the agreement is indeed to India?s advantage.