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Bush in India: What's a nuke between friends?
Siddharth Srivastava
3/4/2006
 

          NEW DELHI - "India's friend, world's bully", a caption on the cover of the latest edition of a weekly newsmagazine, sums up the feelings of some on the eve of the three-day visit to India by US President George W Bush.
The itinerary is in place, with Bush slated to be in India on Wednesday evening. The visit will include a last-ditch effort to sewup the nuclear deal signed between the two countries in July. His likely agenda, not released for security reasons, includes meetings with dignitaries on Thursday, and a visit to information-technology hub Hyderabad the next day followed by an address from the Old Fort in Delhi in the evening, which will be telecast live to catch breakfast viewers in the United States. Bush leaves for Pakistan on Saturday.
Attention has been focused on the nuclear deal, which could be the highlight of the visit if Washington agrees to an Indian offer made this week. After much debate, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has detailed a blueprint on how the government would separate its civilian and military nuclear programs, while keeping the contentious experimental fast-breeder reactors.
"We have judged every proposal made by the US side on merits, but we remain firm in that the decision of what facilities may be identified as civilian will be made by India alone, and not by anyone else," Manmohan told parliament on Monday. "Our proposed separation plan entails identifying in phases a number of our thermal nuclear reactors as civilian facilities to be placed under safeguards, amounting to roughly 65% of the total installed thermal nuclear power capacity, by the end of the separation plan."
It is now up to Bush to respond.
Many observers have said there will be pressure to implement the Indo-US nuclear deal given the lucrative market India offers, with Washington ultimately toeing New Delhi's line. Though Washington is pushing for the conclusion of the deal during the Bush visit, experts say the hurdles are only likely to be overcome in the US Congress in May when the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is likely to change some rules.
No country (especially France, Canada and Russia) wants to lose out on the nuclear contracts that could follow, while New Delhi is committed to reducing dependence on fossil fuels as well us shoring up energy requirements for a growing economy.
In an indication of US intentions, American officials have provided an extended briefing in New Delhi on the new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. GNEP envisages a new worldwide nuclear system in which a core of supplier nations will provide nuclear fuel and technology to a set of user nations. The partnership has received strong endorsement from Russia and other nuclear nations such as Japan and China, and officials say the Bush administration plans to invite India formally as soon as the current Indo-US nuclear deal is signed.
However, it is also true Indo-US relations have gathered a momentum beyond nuclear aspects, spanning business, defense and the strategic sphere.
Indian Express editor Shekhar Gupta wrote: "The two most divisive forces in the world today are growing anti-Americanism in one part of the world and rising Islamophobia in the other. Both are definitely on the decline in India. India's economic growth and promise, combined with the success of its pluralistic, secular democratic model have given it a unique position in this flattening world to play way above its league, punch above its weight."
There are of course dissonant voices as well. While New Delhi will welcome Bush with open arms, the left parties, crucial coalition partners in the government, have begun their anti-US tirades. A direct fallout of leftist posturing is that Bush will not get to address a joint session of the Indian parliament, despite several reports of Manmohan making a personal appeal to the left parties to allow it. Late last year the left parties organized massive rallies against an Indo-US air exercise in the state of West Bengal (the left's bastion), in which F-16 fighter jets took part in mock sorties for the first time in India. Similar protests are likely to happen across the country when Bush arrives.
A senior left-party leader, A B Bardhan, said recently that strong protests would be mounted throughout the country against Bush. He described the US president as "the ugly face of the most aggressive imperialism in the world". In more saber-rattling, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya said Bush is the leader of "the most organized pack of killers". Noted left leader Jyoti Basu has labeled Bush as the "biggest terrorist of the world". The left has also criticized the Manmohan Singh government for not supporting Tehran's cause in its fight over its nuclear program, though New Delhi has made it clear it will not stand for another nuclear power in its neighborhood.
The left prides itself in its anti-US stand, which constantly irritates the government, and has also managed to block several economic-reform measures, describing them as anti-poor, which hits at the proponents of free competition. The government, which wants to push the liberalization process, has shown some muscle in pushing through the airport-privatization process and changes in retail norms.
The left's antipathy toward the US is rooted in its anti-imperialist, anti-colonial and socialist ideologies, though its unstinted support of China is paradoxical, given the communist country's espousal of capitalism. The left parties criticize Pakistan's nuclear arsenal while at the same time opposing New Delhi's stand against Iran. The left parties follow an impression that an anti-US stand goes down well with an electorate (particularly in West Bengal, which voted them into parliament), which has not benefited from economic reforms and progress.
Meanwhile, comparisons are being made between Bush's visit and the last one made by a US president, Bill Clinton. While it is true that Bush can't match the Clinton charm, with its attention to Indian culture, food and impromptu dances with village belles, his visit is likely to be remembered in history as the moment when the two countries made the decisive turn toward each other in a unipolar world after their differing Cold War affiliations.
...............................
Asia Times Online

 

 
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