The Leg In The Door

It used to be said of former US President Ronald Reaganthat he was a bad policy-maker, but a good communicator. His communicationskills were so good that he could make a bad policy look good and a policyfailure seem a success. He and his advisers followed certain dos and don'ts: Usevery simple language which even the man in the street can understand; avoidover-blown adjectives and rhetoric; avoid demonisation of your domestic critics;and select a simple catchy expression which will stick to the minds of thepeople. Reagan had the knack of making his individual domestic interlocutors goaway after a meeting with him thinking that he or she was the most trustedconfidante of the President.

Our Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh is quite thecontrast of Reagan-- a good policy-maker, but a bad communicator. Hiscommunication skills and those of his advisers are so inadequate and bad thatinstead of disarming the critics of the Indo-US nuclear deal one by one theyhave added to their ranks during the last three years. Manmohan Singh's naturalinclination to be secretive--arising from his years as a bureaucrat before heentered politics-- has made him seem to his critics as manipulative whereas heis not. Is there a single person in New Delhi whom one can characterise as themost trusted confidante of the Prime Minister? No. Confiding in people,humouring them, making them feel good and sharing secrets with them to tickletheir ego do not come naturally to him.

Manmohan Singh came to office as Prime Minister a fewmonths before George Bush was re-elected as the President in November,2004.Policy-making during the first term of a US President tends to be affectedby his anxiety to get re-elected. They avoid too many innovations. The realinnovations in policy-making often come in the second term when this anxiety nolonger influences policy-making.

One has been seeing this happening in the case of Bushtoo. Bush 2005-2008 is different from Bush 2001-2004. During his first term, hewas surrounded by Cabinet members , who were the relics of the past and lookedat India through the eyes of their friends in Pakistan. Gen Colin Powell, theSecretary of State in the first term, was a good example.

During his second term, he has been surrounded byCabinet members whose vision of India is not unduly influenced by their visionof Pakistan. They look at Pakistan as an intractable problem inherited from thepast and India as an opportunity of the future. Ms Condolleezza Rice, thepresent Secretary of State, is a good example.

The second term of Bush has been marked by two majorconcerns arising from the growing Chinese military and economic muscle and the growing jihadi power in the tribal areas of Pakistan. In a recent interview,Bush has been quoted as saying that while Iraq and Afghanistan were his majorpreoccupations, Pakistan would be the major preoccupation of his successor. In fact, Pakistan has already started becoming a major preoccupation of evenBush.

It was in this context that Bush, Rice and others ofsimilar thinking started looking at India as a possible geopolitical asset indealing with not only China, but also Pakistan. Two characteristics of Indiaappealed to them. First, its enduring success as a democracy, which couldprovide a positive model to other countries in the region. Second, the inabilityof Al Qaeda and its associates to make an impact on the Indian Muslim communitybarring some small pockets. In his remarks and speeches during the PrimeMinister's visit to Washington DC in July,2005, it was these two aspects whichBush highlighted.

It was against this background that Bush's offer of thenuclear deal came during his discussions with Manmohan Singh. The late R.N.Kao,the founding father of the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW), India'sexternal intelligence agency, used to say that policy leaders and analystsshould be able to detect when a door, which had remained firmly shut, showssigns of slightly opening. They should immediately put their leg in toprevent the door from closing again and try to make it open more and more.

Manmohan Singh, being an alert analyst and a goodpolicy maker, detected the slight opening of the Indo-US door and put his leg inby accepting the offer of a nuclear deal. Since then, he has been franticallytrying to keep the leg in and make the door open more and more, but his criticsand detractors have been desperately trying to force him to take his leg out.

The nuclear deal has been significant from thegeopolitical angle as well as from the angle of India's energy supply security.Instead of explaining both these aspects in a simple language which would carryconviction to people, he and his advisers have been over-playing the energysupply security aspect by flooding the people with statistics which bore them.They are trying to project the deal as a manna from heaven in our quest forenergy supply security. It is not. The result: they have added to the prevailingskepticism instead of dissipating it.

Even the deal's significance from the point of view ofour energy supply security has not been properly explained. The contract withRussia under which two nuclear power stations are presently being constructed byit at Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu is the last contract entered into by Indiabefore the restrictions imposed by the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) on nucleartrade with India came into force. Once the Russians implement this contract. wecannot enter into a fresh contract with any power or company in the world unlessthe NSG's restrictions against India are removed.

Bush's offer of the nuclear deal provided a smallwindow of opportunity to have these restrictions removed thereby enabling newcontracts. Manmohan Singh grabbed this opportunity. The merits of this deal haveto be examined from the technical as well as political angles before decidingwhether it is good or bad for the country.

In the technical examination, the questions to be askedare: Will the deal affect our present military nuclear capability and come inthe way of our further improving it in future if forced to do so by futuregeopolitical situations vis-a-vis China and Pakistan? Will it come in the way ofour research and development of the fast breeder and thorium-based technologies? Will the deal really strengthen our energy supply security?

In finding answers to these questions, one has to go bythe professional advice of our serving scientists of today who are in theleadership position in our nuclear community. All of them, without exception,have stated categorically that by and large the deal will be beneficial to Indiaand is necessary in the present context.

The negative voices have been coming from some seniorand highly distinguished scientists, who occupied leadership positions in thenuclear scientific community during the days of our own cold war with the US,when the bilateral relations were marked by bitterness. The younger generationof our scientists, who make the policies today, have a more open mind to the USand do not allow memories of past bitterness to come in the way of innovativepolicy initiatives. Should the retired scientists of yesterday try to inhibitinnovative re-thinking by making the debate emotional instead of remainingprofessional? They have every right and even duty to draw attention to what theylook upon as pitfalls and traps. Once their comments have been considered by theserving scientists of today and they have come to the conclusion that the dealis worth giving a try, should the retired scientists carry on their doggedopposition and mobilise public and political opinion to prevent theimplementation of the deal?

Immediately after signing the deal in July, 2005, thePrime Minister said: "I told the Chairman of our Atomic EnergyCommission. You have the veto power. If you say sign, I will sign it. If yousay, don't sign, I won't." After examining the draft, the Chairman of ourAtomic Energy Commission advised the Prime Minister to accept it and hedid. Since then, the Chairman has been consistent in his support for thedeal. His technical judgement and that of his serving colleagues should beaccepted without seeking to create doubts about them in the minds of the public.

The political aspect of the deal is more complexbecause many suspect--particularly the leftists-- that the deal is not astand-alone policy gesture by the US, but has come as part of a strategicrelationship package. Many subsequent developments such as the talk of India andthe US taking the initiative for a concert of democracies, growingmilitary-military relationship, bilateral and multilateral military exercisesetc are seen by the critics as indicating that the deal is as a quid pro quo forIndia joining as an undeclared ally of the US against China and acceptingconstraints on its policy-making with regard to countries such as Iran, whichare anathema to the US.

The over-dramatisation of the malign nature of the HydeAct in this context is misplaced. True, the Hyde Act seeks to impose a largenumber of extraneous dos and don'ts on the President in implementing the nucleardeal. In the US, the President is unimaginably powerful in foreign policymatters. How effectively any President adheres to the Hyde Act will depend onthe state of over-all Indo-US relations and his own perception of India as abenign or a malign power. If a President continues to attach importance to Indiaand has a favourable perception of India, he can find dozens of ways ofcircumventing the Act in order not to needle India. If the relations become badand a future President does not like India, he can with equal ease find dozensof ways of needling India even if there be no Hyde Act.

We saw an example of this in the way George Bush, thefather of the present President, avoided invoking the Congressionally-enactedPressler Amendment against Pakistan for a long time. This Amendment calledfor economic and military sanctions against Pakistan if the President determinedthat Pakistan had embarked on a military nuclear programme and had acquired amilitary nuclear capability. Even though the CIA had been repeatedlytelling him about Pakistan acquiring a military nuclear capability withChinese assistance, he refrained from making any declaration against Pakistanand invoking the Amendment so long as the US needed Pakistan for the proxy waragainst the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. He invoked it only in 1990 long afterthe Soviet troops had left.

We are right in being concerned about many provisionsof the Hyde Act and giving expression to them, but we should not allow theseconcerns to be over-blown and come in the way of further opening the Indo-USdoor.

Yes, it is a fact that the nuclear deal is not an actof charity by the US in a moment of magnanimity to India. It is part of astrategic package. Our examination of the package should be influenced not by our past memories of our relations with the US, but by our present experienceof it and our future expectations from it. If we examine objectively, we willhave to accept that a strategic partnership with the US can act as a much-neededcatalysts in enabling us to catch up with China economically despite our belatedstart and moderating its military and big-power ambitions.

We have many valid grievances against the US-- itsdouble standards on the continued use of terrorism by Pakistan against India andits reluctance to support India becoming a permanent member of the UN SecurityCouncil, to cite only two examples. While continuing to articulate suchgrievances, we should not let them come in the way of the Indo-US door openingmore and more.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), CabinetSecretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute ForTopical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre ForChina Studies.