What the nuclear deal means to India-Part 1

Alright now! Your wait has ended and here comes my 2nd post. I was actually thinking as to what I should write on. The Indo-US nuclear deal was of great interest to me. I even did a lot of reading on it. But I realized I would have to write a lot and make sure I am positive when it comes to the fact of the matter. And there were actually lots of issues that had to be explained to realize what was actually going on. But what the heck...might as well slog it out. Here goes!!!

The background:

Post independence, India was finding it difficult to come to terms with the era of scientific revolution that it had to miss because of The British Raj. Yet she had the potential to bring herself up as a superpower, as envisioned by the great Dr. Homi Bhabha and a few of his contemporaries.
One of the most groundbreaking technologies that had entered the field of energy and defense was nuclear technology. As we all know, there was a lot of growth that had to be brought into our country post independence and we needed sufficient and cost-effective resources to establish ourselves as a stable economy. Under such circumstances, hardly anyone thought of investing in the future in terms of defense, space research and energy production. But Dr. Bhabha was a visionary and true to his nature, he insisted on such issues with much aggression and conviction and Pandit Nehru was wise enough to entrust this responsibility on this great man. And there began our true tryst with destiny!!!

And now we are discussing the nuclear deal, hyped by the politicians and media alike. The core issue here deals with energy production and use of nuclear technology for defense purposes. Hidden behind these issues is a great deal of geo-politics, historic events that shook the world and some contentious aspects of the deal from the Indian scientist’s point of view.



The politics:

Post World War-II, the world got separated into two factions: Communist, which included USSR (now Russia), China, Cuba, Vietnam and a few nations in the South American continent. And there was the Capitalist faction that included USA, the whole of present European Union (EU) and Japan. A good number of nations that had gained independence from imperialist countries like England and France were in a dilemma as to which faction should they stick to. Obviously some of them were also of the opinion that a neutral front must be formed. This gave birth to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). NAM included India, Israel and a host of other nations from the African Union.

This was a very politically correct move from India’s point of view as she knew she could seek preferences and support from both the superpowers – USA and USSR. Yet she was under diplomatic pressure to prove loyalty to one of the superpowers. India however developed close military ties with Russia.
In 1962, China infiltrated into Indian Territory which led to straining of ties with The PRC (People’s Republic of China) despite the signing of the significant Panchasheel agreement. To exert more pressure on India, China strengthened ties with arch-rival Pakistan. After the Indo-Pak war of ‘65 and Indo-Sino war of ’62, considerable changes were made to India’s foreign policy. Surprisingly substantial support was received from USSR in terms of arms, finance and technology. Obviously this led to a major setback in Indo-US ties which was further aggravated by the US supporting Pakistan and India openly supporting Russia’s Afghan invasion.

Significantly, Pakistan has consistently behaved and been projected as India’s arch-rival for quite sometime. As a result, any effort in establishing peace between these two nations may lead to diplomatic ironies. I believe the only solution to the existing problem would be the birth of India as a superpower. After this, the scenario may find a lot of familiarities in the present tussle of US and Cuba.

After the fall of USSR, the Cold War was drawing to an end with the communist faction losing the pillar of support in the form of USSR and the ideology’s failure in providing stability to the communist nations. As expected, support from Russia reduced greatly and India now saw USA (NATO in general) as its major ally in her own development. Although the formation of Bangladesh was an all-time low in Indo-US relations, with India delivering the final verdict and making Pakistan like a rascal in the world’s eyes, US saw simple logic in recognizing India as a potential ally and a growing influence in Asia.


With the liberalization of the economy in 1991, trade proved to be a catalyst in the improving ties with the US. And it is at this time, that terrorism came to be recognized as a major issue with the exposure of Taliban’s atrocities in Afghanistan, the bombing of the US embassy in Kenya and India’s efforts gaining success in pointing out to the fact that Pakistan was housing terror outfits. India’s victory in the Kargil war saw a major victory on the diplomatic front too with the US and the EU taking notice of Pakistan’s outright involvement in terror activities and anti-Indian outfits in Pakistan being labeled terrorist organizations.


Things have taken a turn for better now. Although terrorism is the menace that everyone is dealing with and we have a nation like Pakistan as our neighbor, we have been recognized as a strong force in the war against terrorism. Accordingly we can bully our way to getting certain things done from smaller and less powerful nations.

This was the first part in a series of posts which exclusively dealt with the political aspect of the deal. This will be followed by the technicalities of the deal and later its implications on our country’s resources and our foreign relations with the rest of the world.