Anatomy Of Defective Decision-Making

While a degree of theatricality has alwaysbeen part of the Indian political landscape, in the past few weeks Indianpolitics has put on a cliff-hanger of a show that appeared to reach new heightsof absurdity. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went into a sulk, refusing to meetpeople for several days. Old political friends became new hardened enemies. Newalliances emerged, even as the old ones refused to die. Deadlines were set onlyto be extended at the last minute. And the government came on the verge oflosing the confidence vote in the Parliament. It took nothing less than thethreat of resignation from the prime minister for his own party to fall in linein backing him on the U.S.-India civilian nuclear energy cooperation pact,heralding the end-game for the treaty’s operationalisation.  

After months ofindecisiveness, the government took the stand that it was ready to sacrifice afew more months in office by going ahead with the deal and forcing its maincoalition partners, the Left parties, to withdraw support. This became possibleonly after the government managed to secure the support of Samajwadi Party. Suchconviction along with the concomitant political manoeuvring was long overdue,and the only mystery is why the government left this crucial decision to thelast minute. While the government has had more than two years to bring this dealto fruition, it repeatedly postponed making tough decisions so as not to upsetthe political applecart in New Delhi. And when it did decide to finalize thepact, it was forced to resort to all sorts of deal-making to save the governmentthat has ended up sullying the relatively clean image of the Prime Ministerhimself with accusations of vote buying and shady corporate lobbying flyingthick and fast. The government may have survived but its inability to makedecisions at the right time has cost the polity dear. 

It was during the visitof  Prime Minister Singh to the United States in July 2005 that the U.S.declared its ambition to achieve full civil nuclear energy cooperation withIndia as part of its broader goals of promoting nuclear power and achievingnuclear security. In pursuit of this objective, the Bush administration agreedto "seek agreement from Congress to adjust U.S. laws and policies" and to"work with friends and allies to adjust international regimes to enable fullcivil nuclear energy cooperation and trade with India, including but not limitedto expeditious consideration of fuel supplies for safeguarded nuclear reactorsat Tarapur." India, for its part, promised "to assume the sameresponsibilities and practices and acquire the same benefits and advantages ofother leading countries with advanced nuclear technology."  

The U.S.-Indian nuclearpact has virtually rewritten the rules of the global nuclear regime byunderlining India’s credentials as a responsible nuclear state that should beintegrated into the global nuclear order. The nuclear agreement creates a majorexception to the U.S. prohibition of nuclear assistance to any country that doesnot accept international monitoring of all its nuclear facilities. It is aremarkable initiative not in the least because it reveals the desire on bothsides to challenge their long-held assumptions about each other in order tofacilitate a partnership that serves the interests of both India and the UnitedStates. 

Much to theconsternation of the non-proliferation enthusiasts in Washington, the treatygives India almost everything it had been seeking from the U.S. and theinternational community in the nuclear realm for the past few decades. It wassurprising, therefore, that the Indian government found it difficult to generatesufficient domestic political consensus on this issue.. Whereas the BushAdministration was able to push the deal successfully through the U.S. Congressby putting its political weight behind it, it was in New Delhi that the dealcame close to unravelling. India’s political waffling became a symbol of thefragility of India’s system of coalition politics and the government’sevident  inability to stand up for what it clearly believed to be in thecountry’s best interests . 

Although it was toPrime Minister Singh’s credit that he decided to go for one of the mostfar-reaching decisions that any Indian government has ever made in the realm offoreign policy, his political management of this issue left much to be desired.It is not clear why he did not take his party into confidence, as the lack ofenthusiasm for the nuclear pact within his own party had been evident as soon asthe deal was signed. Even more galling was the government’s romantic beliefthat the Left parties would somehow, through logical reasoning, come around tosupport the pact. 

From the verybeginning, it was clear that the Left parties which have historicallydemonstrated strong consistency in their foreign policy would never support thedeal. The Left parties do not support India’s nuclear program and haveremained the most rabid anti-American segment of the Indian polity. Thus, theIndian government’s reliance on the Left to carry a deal that transforms thevery nature of US-India partnership forward went against the grain of what theIndian Left has traditionally stood for. The Left, consumed as they are by aknee-jerk anti-Americanism, have failed to appreciate the value of endingIndia’s nuclear isolation. Consequently, they find themselves out of sync withthe broader centrist opinion in the country today. 

It is possible that thegovernment was relying on the main opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),to support the deal at the eleventh hour. It was, after all, the BJP-ledgovernment that decided, after conducting nuclear tests in 1998, to commencenegotiations with the United States on a broad framework that could bring Indiainto the global nuclear regime—a government that was reportedly very close tosigning a deal with the U.S. itself. But when Indian political parties sit inopposition benches, they tend to spend their time opposing the government evenon those issues on which they might hold similar views. For the BJP, the deal isalso a reminder of its own deficiencies in negotiating a similar pact with theU.S. in return for much less and so the suggestion  that it would negotiatea better deal if it comes to power.  

Realizing that time wasrunning out, Prime Minister Singh finally decided to put his own prestige on theline to get the unqualified backing of his own party and to push the dealforward. This forced his party to reach consensus despite misgivings about thepossibility of going to polls amidst rising inflationary pressures. But Indiahas only a limited amount of time if it wants to get the deal signed and sealedbefore George W. Bush leaves office. While India has already managed to firm upa Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), thedeal would have to be taken up by the next administration in Washington if Indiafails to get a waiver from the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) by theend of this month. There are considerable doubts if the next U.S. administrationwill be as keen as the present one about giving the same terms and conditions toIndia. 

Indian policymakerslike to assert that there is a broad consensus across political parties onforeign and security policy issues. The fracas over the U.S.-India nuclear deal,however, has made it clear that, today, the Indian political scene standsdivided on fundamental foreign policy choices. Perhaps for the first time inIndia’s history, foreign policy differences between various politicalformations seem as stark as they are today and the debate on the confidencemotion in the Parliament has done nothing to bridge that divide. While theIndian government has now made its move and its victory in the Parliament hasgiven it the political momentum necessary to carry the deal to its logicalconclusion, the dithering that stalled the treaty for so long in New Delhi hasalready done much damage to India’s credibility as a serious interlocutor onforeign policy issues. Put simply, for all its robust economic growth over thepast several years, India is not yet ready for the status of a major globalplayer. A cacophony in domestic politics may be a sign of a healthy, vibrantdemocracy but in foreign affairs it is making India look like a nation that isyet to make up its mind about the role it sees for itself on the global plane.As India now moves towards the culmination of its nuclear pact with the US,Brand India stands diminished with serious doubts about the nation’s abilityto leverage the present economic and strategic opportunities to its advantage.The momentum of history may be on India’s side for the time being, but if thepresent drift in policymaking continues, India will soon lose all its luster asa rising power. 

Harsh V. Pant teaches at King’s College London.