Page 265 - Failure to Triumph - Journey of A Student

2007, former Indian military chiefs, bureaucrats and scientists drafted a letter to Members of
Parliament expressing their support for the deal. However, opposition and criticism continued at
political levels. The Samajwadi Party (SP) which was with the Left Front in opposing the deal
changed its stand after discussing with ex-president of India and scientist Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. The

SP then supported the government and the deal. The Indian Government survived a vote of confidence
by 275-256 after the Left Front withdrew their support to the government over this dispute.
Incidentally, results showed ten MPs belonging to the opposing BJP party cross-voting in favour of
the government.

As details were revealed about serious inconsistencies between what the Indian parliament was
told about the deal, and the facts about the agreement that were presented by the Bush administration
to the US Congress, opposition grew in India against the deal. In particular, portions of the agreement
dealing with guaranteeing India a fuel supply or allowing India to maintain a strategic reserve of

nuclear fuel appear to be diametrically opposed to what the Indian parliament was led to expect from
the agreement.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement in parliament is totally at variance with the Bush
Administration’s communication to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which says India will not
be allowed to stockpile such nuclear fuel stocks as to undercut American leverage to re-impose
sanctions. To drive home this point, it says the 123 Agreement is not inconsistent with the Hyde Act’s
stipulation – the little-known ‘Barack Obama Amendment’ – that the supply of nuclear fuel should be

“commensurate with reasonable operating requirements". The ‘strategic reserve’ that is crucial to
India’s nuclear program is, therefore, a non-starter. Furthermore, the agreement, as a result of its
compliance with the Hyde Act, contained a direct linkage between shutting down US nuclear trade
with India and any potential future Indian nuclear weapons test, a point that was factually inconsistent
with explicit reassurances made on this subject by Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, during final
parliamentary debate on the nuclear deal. As professor Brahma Chellaney, an expert in strategic
affairs and one of the authors of the Indian Nuclear Doctrine, explained:

While the Hyde Act’s bar on Indian testing is explicit, the one in the NSG waiver is implicit, yet

unmistakable. The NSG waiver is overtly anchored in NSG Guidelines Paragraph 16, which deals
with the consequence of “an explosion of a nuclear device”. The waiver’s Section 3(e) refers to this
key paragraph, which allows a supplier to call for a special NSG meeting, and seek termination of
cooperation, in the event of a test or any other “violation of a supplier-recipient understanding”. The
recently leaked Bush administration letter to Congress has cited how this Paragraph 16 rule will

effectively bind India to the Hyde Act’s conditions on the pain of a US-sponsored cut-off of all
multilateral cooperation. India will not be able to escape from the US-set conditions by turning to
other suppliers.

Indian Parliament Vote

On July 9, 2008, India formally submitted the safeguards agreement to the IAEA. This development
came after the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, returned from the 34th G8 summit meeting
in Hokkaido, Japan, where he met with US President George W Bush. On June 19, 2008, news media

reported that Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh threatened to resign his position if the Left