US aims to make us strategically subservient: Shourie

Source : IBNLIVE.com

How credible are the Bhartiya Janta Party’s concerns about the 123 agreement and the NSG waiver? Those are the key issues Karan Thapar explored on the Devil's Advocate with one of the parties most outspoken critics Arun Shourie.

Karan Thapar: Let’s start with your central objection that the 123 agreement traps India into Hyde Act which will end up emasculating and crippling its nuclear deterrent. Now that India has got a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and can trade with countries like France and Russia, hasn’t the 123 become irrelevant and, therefore, haven’t your concerns and objections become academic?

Arun Shourie: Each time something happens, we say let’s wait for the next one. This is to be seen as a chakravyuh, as an architecture. There are certain things in the Hyde Act, the123 agreement, the IAEA protocol, and there are certain thing in the additional protocols, which are yet to come, which has already been specified in the Hyde Act. In the NSG waiver, there are three other things, so it is all to be taken as a part of architecture.

NSG waiver in the end says that if any member country of the NSG is satisfied that conditions have arisen that it must stop nuclear commerce with India, then all countries should act in accordance of Paragraph 16 of the NSG guidelines.

Karan Thapar: This was in your series of articles in The Indian Express and I’m afraid you’re wrong. You’re referring to Paragraph 3e of the NSG waiver. Paragraph 3e doesn’t say this at all. All Paragraph 3e says is that NSG countries are required to consult and contact on the implementation of the waiver. It does not go as far as you’re suggesting

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Arun Shourie: There is no reason we should have any doubt on that. So I’ll read out to you what it says. I’m reading paragraph 5e: “In the event that one or more participant governments consider that circumstances have arisen which require consultation, participating governments will meet and then act in accordance with Paragraph 16 of the guidelines.”

Karan Thapar: And that does not specify that all countries would stop just because one has stopped. Your interpretation is not just wrong but it is, forgive me, exaggerated.

Arun Shourie: It’s not either. It is exactly the interpretation of the Americans themselves. It is the assurance they have given to their Congress.

Karan Thapar: I’m afraid you’re wrong. The American Ambassador speaking to the Network 18 programme Indian Tonight on Wednesday made it crystal clear that Paragraph 3e does not amount to your interpretation. It doesn’t even amount to a periodic review. It is simply a process of contact and consultation on the implementation of the waiver.

Arun Shourie: That is not what the US Government has told the US Congress. Mr Mulford’s statement should be seen in that context.

Karan Thapar: Forgive me, the US government has not as yet communicated with the US Congress about the NSG waiver at all.

Arun Shourie: No, please understand what they have said in their record of their answers to questions of 45…

Karan Thapar: But that’s not in connection with the NSG waiver. That at best has a connection with the 123. The NSG waiver only happened last Saturday. Paragraph 16 doesn’t lead to automatic termination. I’m afraid your interpretation is a part of the confusion that’s entered into the debate.

Arun Shourie: That’s not the case at all. You’re spreading confusion. You please read the text once.

Karan Thapar: I have read the text. I have researched it thoroughly before I came here. I double-checked with the American Ambassador when he was here on Wednesday. I double-checked with the Indian authorities. No one believes that your interpretation of that paragraph is correct. That’s why I’m saying to you that your concerns emanate from the 123 but now with the NSG coming into place, the 123 is irrelevant. Therefore, your concerns have become academic and irrelevant.

Arun Shourie: Absolutely not. Paragraph 16 of the NSG guidelines provides as follows: “In the event that one or more suppliers believe that there has been a violation of supplier/recipient understanding avoid acting in a manner that could prejudice measure that maybe adopted in response to such a violation.”

Karan Thapar: That does not mean that they have to act in a particular way. Once again you’re over-interpreting.

Arun Shourie: You don’t see the implication of all this?

Karan Thapar: I do — you’re over-interpreting. You’re seeing the worst possible interpretation that is based upon a misunderstanding, perhaps, I would even say, a wilful misunderstanding.

Arun Shourie: That is absolute bunk and nonsense and you’re using words that are not justified by the text. Text clearly says exactly what the Hyde Act has said — if America terminates the trade if it believes India has not acted according to the Hyde Act…

Karan Thapar: For the 123, not the NSG. You’re confusing the two.

Arun Shourie: No. The two are part of an architecture. You have raised these nonsensical words such as exaggerated and wilful misunderstanding…

Karan Thapar: Explain to me why you think that the NSG allows for the whole of the NSG terminating the trade ties because one country terminates. It is against the NSG guidelines…

Arun Shourie: That is not the case. The US government is obliged to ensure under clause 16 of the guideline that if it terminates its commerce with India all other countries will coordinate.

Karan Thapar: That’s Hyde Act you’re talking about. You’re now interpolating that into the NSG guidelines. The NSG is not subject to the Hyde Act. NSG has its own rules. Individual countries of the NSG don’t observe the Hyde Act regulations and stipulations. You’re reading one into the other.

Arun Shourie: … because they are part of an architecture. We have gone to the NSG and the IAEA as a consequence of the 123 and the Hyde Act.

Karan Thapar: I accept that but the essential point you’re missing and, this is the one I want to emphasise, is that now that we’ve got the NSG waiver, the 123 has become academic and irrelevant. If India chooses not to go ahead with the 123, the Americans will be angry and will deem us to as ungrateful but we would have opened a window to unfettered commerce with the NSG, particularly with countries like Russia and France who are not going to accept America’s regulation s on their head.

Arun Shourie: If that were the case, Russia and France would have already entered into nuclear commerce with us despite American blockade.

Karan Thapar: We are the country that has held back. They are keen to go ahead. Their ambassadors have communicated that much to us.

Arun Shourie: That’s only now.

Karan Thapar: No, it was earlier.

Arun Shourie: That is since the statement of the Prime Minister in February 2007 in regard to the four plants that Russia was prepared to give us. We raised the maintenance question — that you went to Russia and the Russians said that the agreement was ready, then why did you not sign it.

Karan Thapar: As a gratitude to America so that they had an even plain field for their companies. It wasn’t because of any legality.

Arun Shourie: That is what I’m trying to say. This is from February 2007. The sanctions we had on Uranium 20 years before that were only of America. But we could not go to France and Russia.

Karan Thapar: The NSG waiver has ended the experience of 30 years. That’s a significant step. What I’m saying is that people may believe or disbelieve your concerns with the 123. They may be valid, they may be invalid but now that that waiver has opened up opportunity for trade with the NSG countries, your concerns with the 123 and the Hyde Act are overtaken and hence irrelevant because they don’t apply to the NSG.

Arun Shourie: When the 123 agreement came you said ‘oh but the Hyde Act is irrelevant.’ Now that the NSG waiver has come, 123 has become irrelevant.

Karan Thapar: That’s because 123 and Hyde Act don’t affect NSG countries. They are separate, sovereign countries.

Arun Shourie: No. It’s a part of the architecture and India will have to pay the consequences after this waiver, as Germany and Japan have said.

Karan Thapar: Let me quote to you the leading non-proliferation authority, Daryl G Kimball of the Arms Control Association in America. He’s made it absolutely crystal clear that the restrictions of the Hyde Act have not been incorporated in any shape and form into the NSG. The Bush administration resisted efforts to incorporate in the NSG waiver the same restriction and conditions on nuclear trade that are mandatory to US law. Now I come back to my point: your concerns about the 123 are academic because they don’t apply to the NSG. The NSG has opened a new window which doesn’t have the same

restrictions and it actually makes up for the deficiencies of the 123.

Arun Shourie: Till yesterday you were saying there are no deficiencies in the 123 and that my interpretation of the Hyde Act is overblown. Now you’re saying all that is academic and NSG is all that counts. That’s not my interpretation. We can go on in circles about this.

Karan Thapar: The NSG waiver doesn’t put any restriction on fuel supply or assurances or upon the size of strategic deterrent that India can develop.

Arun Shourie: We were told the opposite — the NSG waiver will provide for a positive statement about India building strategic reserve, and that IAEA protocol will provide for India taking corrective steps in case…

Karan Thapar: It does permit corrective steps. The IAEA protocol in its preamble does permit corrective steps for India but it doesn’t specify what they are. By definition, corrective steps are something you can’t specify because then you lose the sovereignty of defining them.

Arun Shourie: When we quoted the preamble of the Hyde Act, everybody said the preamble is non binding, but in the IAEA safeguards you say they are binding.

Karan Thapar: In the case of the Hyde Act, George Bush in his signing statement in December 2006 specified that he would not honour and go by section 103 and the preamble. He said so and that’s why people argued that it’s not binding.

Arun Shourie: Again, another complete distortion. Bush’s signing statement had two points that in regard to foreign policy and seeking the determination of American foreign policy to an international body like NSG he would not give up US presidential powers

Karan Thapar: And he would therefore not implement section 103.

Arun Shourie: What is section 103?

Karan Thapar: The one that we’re talking about.

Arun Shourie: Not at all.

Karan Thapar: Yes. The whole of interpretation of the Hyde Act is irrelevant to the NSG

Arun Shourie: You are making assertions about the Hyde Act which are absolute bunk.

Karan Thapar: The NSG has given India fuel assurances. There is no bar on the size of strategic reserve. It gives India unlimited access under NSG concerns to non proliferation and enrichment technologies. It also allows India the right to reprocess. All of those were deemed to be deficiencies by some analysts — deficiencies in the 123 that have been taken care of by the NSG.

Arun Shourie: You are just completely fabricating things which are not there in the guidelines at all. Where is this bit about unlimited supplies in the NSG guidelines?

Karan Thapar: There is no bar. The NSG waiver permits India access to fuel supplies without restriction, it permits India to develop strategic reserves without limitation, it permits India access to proliferation technologies that are so defined to do with enrichment and reprocessing.

Arun Shourie: You are completely lying through your teeth to your viewers.

Karan Thapar: The point is — there is no bar on them. This is a waiver which is an exemption.

Arun Shourie: Karan this is your technique; you slip in your words and mislead the viewers.

Karan Thapar: Do you still believe that your concerns which are limited to the Hyde Act and the 123 apply to NSG countries, which are not subject to the Hyde Act or the 123? Do you still believe it?

Arun Shourie: Absolutely.

Karan Thapar: They have no sovereignty?

Arun Shourie: The NSG will work as a club. It says it will coordinate its efforts. Article 16 of the guideline specifies that they must coordinate their efforts. If one country is satisfied that conditions have arisen in which there has been a violation by the recipient country, they will all coordinate the effort.

Karan Thapar: Let’s come to the politics behind your concerns with the nuclear deal. For many people, the BJP is the architect of the relationship with America, which is today culminating in the Indo-US nuclear deal. Yet today, by some amazing transformation, the BJP has converted itself into the principal opponent to its own vision for the future.

Arun Shourie: BJP is the architect of strategic relationship, not of strategic subservience, and we believe that this architecture puts us in a position in which we would have to accept the American umbrella…

Karan Thapar: America’s aim is to make India strategically subservient. Is it a trap that America has set for India?

Arun Shourie: Of course.

Karan Thapar: Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the man who called America India’s natural ally. And today you’re saying that America has set a trap for its natural ally?

Arun Shourie: It is an ally and you have to be very cautious with this ally. Just see what they have made of Pakistan and several other countries.

Karan Thapar: Middle class supporters were exultant when the waiver was granted. Today you are putting yourself in opposition to them.

Arun Shourie: Are you the only one who understands the middle class? Don’t we know about the middle class? It will have consequences for the next three decades and we believe that it does subordinate India in a strategic relationship which is just a first step.

Karan Thapar: Isn’t it interesting that you’re arguing the same point which the CPM in China raised? So is BJP on the side of China when it comes to Indo-US nuclear deal?

Arun Shourie: You can get the CPM fellows and ask them that aren’t they ashamed of the fact that they are arguing the same thing as BJP. Is this even an argument?

Karan Thapar: Why does China not want the deal to go through? They believe that it would give India an opening which should be resisted. You seem to be arguing China’s case for them.

Arun Shourie: I’m arguing that in my view we have a great threat from China and we can not rely on the US umbrella to face it we have to strong independently.

Karan Thapar: Do you have no second thoughts about your criticism on the NSG waiver? You may be right about the Hyde Act, you may be right about the 123, but are you still critical on the NSG waiver?

Arun Shourie: Of course not.

Karan Thapar: Arun Shourie, a pleasure talking to you.

Arun Shourie: Thanks.

Two Questions Recent Crises Throw at us

Arun Shourie
"A thousand Pakistani militants have entered the Baramula and Poonch sectors of Kashmir" -- that was the lead story on the 9 pm news bulletin of a leading TV channel on 27 July. I was properly alarmed. Pakistan had been soundly thrashed on the ground, its government was still trying to explain the retreat to the Pakistani public, the country had been roundly censured by the US, by the UK, by foreign ministers gathered at Singapore. And yet it had so swiftly resumed pushing terrorists into India.

And so I was even more surprised when the next morning not one paper carried anything about fresh infiltration. But it might have been a scoop of the TV channel, I thought. And was therefore triply surprised to see that the TV channel itself had no follow-up on the story the next day. The story vanished as swiftly as the terrorists.

But in such matters it is the single shot that serves the purpose: "Once again, while this Government is busy celebrating victory, the Pakistanis have come in," "Kargil is no victory, see the terrorists have spread even farther," viewers would have concluded from that broadcast. Now, if you go on repeating it, someone is bound to ask what the source for the story is, someone else is bound to start following it up, and discover the truth. As elections approach, such stories will multiply. The President has written a letter to the Prime Minister about the telecom policy, ran the lead story of "one of the world's greatest papers" the other day. There had been no letter. "Vajpayee and Advani at logger-heads" -- an item which had become a staple of some papers, and journalists has resurfaced as a regular feature again, as has its companion, "RSS unhappy with..."

For years now, Delhi reporting in The Hindu has been in a class by itself: its correspondent does not report what has been said at the press conference; the correspondent gives her opinion on what the person should have said and, in her reckoning, didn't, she lists the questions which were asked, and, as for the answers which were given, she merely adds, "To none of these questions did the BJP spokesman have a convincing answer"! That is a news report! A breakthrough: day after day, report only the questions which are asked, indeed the questions you and one other correspondent ask, omit the answers as you have decided that they are not "convincing"!

It isn't just the political parties that are running for elections. A TV channel and some papers are too!

With these "natural allies" being so enthusiastic, the Congress and our Comrades are able to deploy their customary devices all the more easily. Their sparkling logic for one! Pokharan-II? The credit goes to our scientists, they say. Agni-II? The credit goes to our scientists, they say. The victory in Kargil? The credit goes to our Army, they say. The inability of Military Intelligence and RAW to detect the infiltration into Kargil? The responsibility is that of the Government! In any case, what worked was American pressure, not anything this Government did, they declare. Would Pakistan have succumbed to any pressure had it not been for the fact that it was being driven out from peak after peak? "But the Government has given the Americans the opportunity to mediate, to meddle," they declare. Clinton is saying the USA has no mediatory role, the American spokesman, Karl Inderfuth has said this time and again, the US Government has conveyed the same message through diplomatic channels on several times -- but we should believe Natwar Singh!

And the other favoured device: sow a doubt, and run! Bhagwat, Mohan Guruswamy? Recall what a din they raised? The Defence Ministry put out an entire compendium of facts on Bhagwat and his allegations. Ever heard them mention the matter recently? Guruswamy? "Scam, scam," they shouted. Their leader, Dr. Manmohan Singh, had to acknowledge in Parliament that they had no information on the "serious questions" Guruswamy had raised beyond the articles he had written. But Guruswamy had said more than once in his articles that he was leveling no charge of corruption against anyone! Have you heard any of them raise the matter since?

Even more telling is the case of "atrocities against Christians". What a din was raised. Most of the incidents had not taken place at all. Of the three that had, persons were arrested in regard to two -- the rape of the nuns in Jhabua, the incidents in Gujarat. Have you heard any of them demand that the trials of those arrested proceed swiftly? In regard to the third, the murder of Staines and his sons, the Wadhwa Commission submitted its report several weeks ago. Have you heard any of them demand that it be released, or make even a pro-forma, nominal effort to have the Government act on its recommendations?

That was the sum total of their war-effort during the Kargil operation: ask questions, sow doubts. My favourite of that series was one by their Inquisitor-in-Chief, the head of their mental activity on foreign policy, Mr. Natwar Singh. Mr. Jaswant Singh, the Minister for External Affairs, had gone to Europe. He was meeting one representative of the P-5 after another. His meetings were being reported in newspapers. That they had telling effect has become more than evident. What was the Congress expert on foreign policy -- of the "inhein chullu bhar pani mein doob marna chahiye" fame -- saying? We have their house-journal, the National Herald to help us: "The Union Minister for External Affairs has not yet returned to India," the paper's issue of 29 May reported Natwar Singh as declaiming. "May be, he has been asked to stay abroad by the Prime Minister. Why is he taking so much time? All these questions are to be answered by the Government. The people have a right to know..."

A din having been raised, doubts having been created, the purpose of our friends having been served, they have forgotten each of the matters! And in this they are true to pattern. Remember the Thakkar Commission they had set up to unravel the "wider conspiracy" behind the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi? Ever heard any of them mention it after, their lies about it having been nailed, they were compelled to place it in Parliament? Remember the Jain Commission set up to unravel the "wider conspiracy" behind the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi? Remember how they pulled down two governments, and plunged the country into uncertainty using that report, -- to say nothing of how they buffeted one of their own governments, that of Mr Narasimha Rao, using that Commission? Remember how they paralysed Parliament on the charge that the Action Taken Report on that Commission's findings was designed to shield some of those responsible? Ever heard any of them so much as mention the matter recently?

The penchant of the Congress for falsehood remains unimpaired -- that is an important fact that we should remember as elections near. It has been compounded, I would say. For the Congress has been taken over by high-school debaters, it seems. A smart one-liner, a sly phrase, a seemingly penetrating question for the day -- the Party seems so satisfied with these. And so oblivious of the consequences: you would have to watch Pakistan TV for just two-three days to learn what comfort Sonia Gandhi's falsehoods on Kargil have been to the Pakistanis.

When this is their facility with untruth when they are out of power, what will they not do should they gain control of the State apparatus?

Event after event during the last year has been a reminder of the perilous times through which we are passing. The economic breakdown in South East, sanctions, the invasion in Kargil... In a word, in addition to our long-standing problems, here is a new danger: a squall can hit us suddenly from any side.

On the other side is what is by now a central feature of our system of governance. We style ourselves as a Parliamentary form of government, as a Cabinet form of government. Such characterizations are only partially correct. A Prime Ministerial form of government -- that is much nearer reality. The Prime Minister is not what the outdated phrase suggests, the first among equals. He is the one person who matters. His instincts, his nature, the kinds of persons he is comfortable with -- these determine policy and performance much more than almost any other feature. Mrs. Indira Gandhi's instinct -- for timing, as well as for not tolerating an assault on the country -- that determined more than anything else what the country did to Pakistan in 1971, her instinct for self-preservation more than anything else caused the Emergency in 1975. In the face of the collapse of what was then, in effect, our patron State, the Soviet Union, it was Mr Narasimha Rao's adroitness more than anything else which ensured that our foreign policy landed on its feet. Similarly, it was his nature -- of benign neglect -- which ensured that institutions which were fortunate to have good persons heading them at the time -- the Supreme Court under Justice Venkatachalliah -- were restored. The same facet of his nature ensured that several ministries stagnated.

In Kargil too, the instinct and long experience in public affairs of Mr Vajpayee have made all the difference. The pincer that caught Pakistan in the end -- that our response was massive, and simultaneously so restrained, so carefully calibrated -- has everything to do with those two personal traits of the Prime Minister: his instinct and his experience.

Another circumstance, all too visible in the case of the Congress, compounds the apprehension. Even when the cabinet and party are robust it is the nature and inclination of the one who is Prime Minister which determines the outcome more than almost anything else. Now that the Congress is reduced to a sack of domesticated "jee memsahib"s this becomes all the more certain. Among the developments which have struck me since I got to sit in Parliament, this has been one of the most disheartening ones: to see persons for whom I had developed great regard become so totally servile, to see them agitate, to see them take positions which are so plainly alien to their nature has at times well-nigh broken my heart. What this internalised servility spells for the future is evident. Recall June 1975. The prime impulse for imposing the Emergency was of course Mrs Gandhi's scale of values -- her continuance in office ranked higher in that scale than law and institutions. But what made the Emergency inevitable, what made it to so easy to throw a lakh and half people into jail was the servility to which the Congress had already been reduced: what with the then Congress President being so proud of his enunciation, "India is Indira, Indira is India," how could there spring any corrective from within? But that was twenty five years ago. Since then the Congress has become infinitely less of an organization. So, should the party be catapulted to power, Sonia's instinct -- the greed for the Prime Ministership that led her to lie to the President and the press, the imperious streak, "Those who do not agree with me should leave the party here and now" -- her ignorance will act completely unimpeded on the country and its future.

Thus, perilous times on the one hand, and, on the other, the fact that in our system of governance everything depends on the person of the Prime Minister. That is the central question that the crises of these months -- the South East Asian economic collapse, sanctions, Kargil -- pose for the electorate. In such a time, is the country to be put in the hands of a person about whom it knows nothing?

About whose views on no matter does it know anything -- save her anxiety to become the Prime Minister?

Is the country to be placed in the hands of a person about whom, as she merely reads speeches written by someone else, no one knows whether she even has a view on any matter -- save that one exception of becoming the Prime Minister?

About whose associates, the persons she trusts, the ones she listens to, even the ones who write her speeches the country knows nothing?

Is the country to be put in the hands of a person who has absolutely no experience of any governmental office?

Is the country to be put in the hands of a person who is so much at ease with falsehood -- "I have the support of 272 M P's" "The President has asked me to continue my efforts to form an alternative government," to say nothing of what Mr. P. A. Sangma has since revealed -- that the Congress Working Committee had not authorized her to stake a claim to be the Prime Minister at all, that all it had authorized her to do was to see whether an alternative government, one not necessarily headed by her, could be formed.

The other point is as important. Even the most astute Prime Minister can do little if he does not have sufficient numerical strength in the Lok Sabha. It was a stroke of luck for the country that the war broke out after the Lok Sabha had been dissolved, and hence Mr. Vajpayee and his team were able to craft a coherent and massive response. Had the Lok Sabha been in session, he and the Government would daily have been baited and jostled in Parliament. The war effort would certainly have been impaired. Short of insulating the conduct of governance better from our legislators, the crises teach us that we must give sufficient numbers to the government we vote into office.

And in today's context the key to that is to rise above caste.

India Connect
August 2, 1999