Brahma Chellaney: India reaching the “moment of truth”

In an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18, Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at The Centre for Policy Research, takes a grim view of the developments that have occurred over the previous 24 hours. Amongst the most senior and respected defence analysts in the country, Chellaney  presents an acute analysis of the Indo-US nuclear deal in the light of the confidential letter released into the public domain by a US Congressman hostile to the deal.

Here are some of the the salient points made by Chellaney:

• The leaked Bush administration letter to the US Congress Committee contradicts the Indian government's position on the deal and the assurances made by the prime minister in the Indian parliament.
  
  
• The US is playing ''a good cop-bad cop game versus India.'' According to Chellaney, even as the US comes across as the good cop, it has six of its Western allies to play bad cops at the NSG. The intention is to ''mount pressure'' and ''bring in some additional conditions into the NSG's waiver''. All this is being being done to ensure that the  ''the final outcome of the NSG process is an outcome that comes with some conditions; conditions that are in sync with the Hyde Act because the Hyde Act itself specifies that the final NSG waiver for India ought to reflect the conditions that that legislation incorporates.''
  
  
• As to the question what options does India hold if the US is indeed playing games, Chellaney says that India is ''reaching the moment of truth'' on this deal. According to Chellaney, the deal has ''divided India like no other issue since Independence.'' 
  
  
• Now, says Chellaney, ''we are faced with a choice of either accepting the NSG waiver as it comes with all the conditions - it's inevitable that the NSG waiver will come with conditions; they will not give us a clean unconditional waiver - so either we accept that waiver or we say thanks but no, thanks.'' 
  
  
• The deal, according to Chellaney, ''has been mismanaged domestically, it has undercut India's leverage internationally. Had India built domestic consensus, our negotiators would have had much more leverage vis-à-vis the Americans or vis-à-vis the internationally community that is represented in the NSG,''he said.
  
  
• On the chance of the deal getting postponed even further, Chellaney says there is a ''real possibility'' this may occur for ''once you play this game of bad cop and good cop and you try to use some of your allies to bring in additional conditions against India, then this game goes out of your hands.'' This, he says, could happen as ''some of the smaller countries that are not nuclear exporters but are very staunch non-proliferation advocates - they have hijacked the agenda and ensured that there is no successful outcome in the NSG process.''
  
  
• Accoding to Chellaney, ''it is clear already that this waiver by the NSG is not going to be unconditional or clean; when the government of India now talks about the word clean, what it means is that the  conditions should not be obtrusive.'' In this reagrd he points out, ''If the conditions are hidden, if they are cloaked in a way that the Government of India can save face in public, then such an outcome might be acceptable to the Government. But the fact is that as far as our opposition in the country is concerned, they have already rejected such a conditional outcome.''
  
  
• Finally, Chellaney states what is perhaps the most damning part of his analysis: ''We already know from the letter that the Bush administration wrote to the Congressional Committee that the 123 Agreement comes with important conditions, and in fact, the 123 Agreement is anchored in the Hyde Act and if the NSG waiver comes with hidden or explicit conditions, it will make the government's task at home much more difficult.''