We will show leadership to the world?
Is only India talking the nuclear truth? Other nations, less than perfect?
Can the Indian people trust only Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukerjee?
What are the Prime Minister’s true beliefs on the nuclear deal?
Yes, India seems to be pretending a lot. We seem to be innocent and at the same time very smart! That is what both the PM and his long-time colleague in the Cabinet, the foreign minister, both together seem to give the impression to the country.
What is the credibility of these two gentlemen?
Someone should ask them like this!
If the 23PM doesn’t help to clear the many doubts or helps to instill confidence in his moves on nuclear deal, then, his regime might prove to be less than truthful in the running of the government.
Democratic governments win on public trust. More than the trust votes. More so in the case of the Manmohan Singh government.
This government is not centered on any one’s clear leadership. More so, when it comes to the deal like the highly technical and also highly controversial (even within the international community) deal.
And when it comes to Dr.Singh’s leadership, it is less than a typical democratic leadership. He doesn’t enjoy the confidence of the country at large, he might be a good man, a humble self and yet he derives his authority not from the people but because of Sonia Gandhi’s peculiar predicaments!
So, more than ever, the Prime Minister has a bounden duty to educate and explain to the people and must win the trust of the country at large.
Anyway, let us place on record he has not done so yet.
With this qualification let us see what the other issues are now.
On the future of nuclear power and also nuclear weapons -free world?
Yes, the Indo-nuclear deal is moving to its successful conclusion. The USA is committed to see that India signs the deal and becomes a member of the nuclear weapon states.
That is openly, not as at present only “clandestinely”
Yes, it is the question of who wants to become openly nuclear weapons states and those who secretly seek that status!
Unfortunately, the world is so unequal and iniquitous. Also, the world is driven by so many illusions of strength and status, while also countries losing credibility and trust of the world’s peoples.
USA, the most powerful country is also so unpopular in the world.
China, the most populous country but a dictatorship and also aspires for world recognition!
India? I fail to see what Dr.Manmohan Singh and his colleague, Mr.Mukerjee wants the people to believe?
Believe them as gentlemen or believe them as natural leaders?
What are their legitimacy and their credibility? Do they have any clear beliefs for themselves? On the very many issues?
Or, they just do their jobs as they come?
Yes, I may sound a bit uncharitable. But these questions came naturally to me.
What India would gain? It would gain in many ways as a mature democracy with equal access to what is called nuclear commerce. That is the apartheid status of India would end and India can import nuclear technology and fuel and would go ahead in its nuclear power generation programme?
No, the question is not so simple.
There are hard realities. And unfortunately, the people are kept in the dark and even the majority of the politicians, even the Chief Ministers and even the members of the Central Cabinet,(I suspect including the Prime Minister!) can be said to be really confused as to the future scenario of the developments arising out of the signing of the nuclear power treat.
I talk like an ignoramus and I am! Now my questions, almost directed almost pointedly at the Prime Minister is this:
1. Are we really believing that nuclear power is going to come out of their agreement and if so from what point of time? Or, timeframe?
2. Are we not misleading the people of this country to make them believe that nuclear energy is going to solve even in some small way, our total energy needs?
If the early believers, from Homi Bhabha to Pandit Nehru to the galaxy of scientists kept us in the dark and asking us to believe them and they all fooled us, yes that is the harsh language I like to use as it has been so well explained by no less an insider than Anand Parthasarathy who worked under Indira Gandhi and he exposed it all, all these bogus claims, in great detail in a book that is for all to see.
Now, we haven’t succeeded and now after the current treaty signing, we are going to produce enough quantity of nuclear energy to fee our energy grids? No one has said so clearly any answer to this basic doubt.
The only scientist expert I seem to believe is R.Chidambaram who is also the science adviser to the government. As I have seen his observations that the promise of the nuclear power, the promise of the nuclear technology to produce clean energy lies in the distant future, not in any near-term, right?
And of all these mundane considerations, what are really controversial are our nuclear weapons making programme.
Will we explode a nuclear “device” or an explosion, as we did first in 1974 and then in 1998?
Now Atul Behari Vajpayee has given a solemn promise at the UN general assembly and so we are bound to honour such a promise. Not to explode one more time but unilaterally we renounce that option, right?
Now, what is really Prime Minister Manmohan Singh government’s agenda?
India talks always for peace, nuclear disarmament and in June on the 9th India also celebrated Rajiv Gandhi’s 20th year of UN address in which proposed a gran disarmament programme by 2010.Alas! The world is where it was very much for the better, if not worse.
The world nuclear weapon powers, US have 4,075 active nuclear warheads, Russia, 5,830, France 200 and UK 350. It is also believed that India, Pakistan and Israel and North Korea also possess warheads.
Now, the June “conference” saw absence of key disarmers, the great Gorhachev, a close associate with Rajiv Gandhi and also the US veterans, former secretaries of state like Kissinger, US defence secretary and one more secretary and one prominent disarmament Senator, Sam Nunn.
They all know, India is just a talker, we have no credibility, we haven’t signed the NPT and we are in the company of such suspects and discredited regimes like Pakistan and Israel!
So, even India’s best friends like Egypt and others are not enthusiastic and Iran is so.
The point is: is India serious to sign the non-proliferation treaty and abide by the international rules and conventions?
Of course, the answer can’t be so easy and straightforward, we know.
There is China, notorious for its secret deals with Pakistan, in exporting fuels and technology and also missiles.
Also, there is the discriminatory nature of the NPT, even when the countries that have signed them, some of them violate in their own ways.
India’s headache would always be Pakistan and China.
So, one reason why we should welcome our new co-operation with the USA is that only the USA can deter the two troublesome neighbours of India, China and Pakistan.
The CTBT and the FMCT are also treaties that India has come to terms with and in my humble view India must sign them as a role model in order to win credibility in the international foray.
India has to sign all the safeguards mechanisms and surely India should also play a role in preventing the clandestine ways in which countries develop ambitions to become nuclear weapons states. Some are plain rogue states and India, knowing well there is envy and prestige associated with nuclear weapons must resist and think of actively making the world a safe place.
Yes, this is a tall task and sees what even humble and unostentatious individuals like Jimmy Carter was able to do and win the Nobel Prize for Peace. In fact, even the Peace Nobel is now losing its track, it is for holding peace Congresses and reducing the standing armies and such direct arms reduction only Peace Nobel was established.
So, there is much work for a true peace lover. It can take so many new forms from canvassing for Peace Nobel, Literature Nobel to holding genuine international peace Congresses and propagating new international Peace Corps Volunteers and such initiatives that would impact and capture the imagination of the world.
There are more genuine countries which see the nuclear non-proliferation more like a religious commitment than the land of Gandhi! Countries like Austria and New Zealand and some more.
India is position somewhat has become more distorted after the BJP and the Congress agreed with the US agreement but for their own egoistical reasons hid the real disagreements in terms of party politics. The Left did blunder for their sheer blindness to hate USA.
It is really silly to take an anti-US stand from blind prejudices as the Left did.
USA is not only the biggest economy and also biggest democracy and a deterrent for any adventurist nations like Pakistan and China.
So, simple common sense dictates us ailing with the USA in nuclear co-operation.
But winning credibility for what Manmohan Singh has chosen to do to move closer to the USA, it would be a test for anyone less than great leaders or great minds.
Unfortunately Dr.Singh is not a man for the moment. He might sign and get out. Then, he might fall back on his own routine.
This wont in any way raise the stature of India in the eyes of the more cynical world.
Dr.Singh is neither a natural leader nor a visionary. He is just a routine low-key official who served the government for long in various ministries and departments.
An international initiative for nuclear disarmament or nuclear weapons-free world or promoting peace in conventional and non-conventional means calls for great minds and great leaders.
India should come out with such initiatives.
That is a different subject altogether.