Is the nuke noose a retribution for the PM?

Arvind Lavakare may be 71, but the fire in his belly burns stronger than many people half his age. The economics post-graduate worked with the Reserve Bank of India and several private and public sector companies before retiring in 1997. His first love, however, remains sports. An accredited cricket umpire in Mumbai, he has reported and commented on cricket matches for newspapers, Doordarshan and AIR. Lavakare has also been regularly writing on politics since 1997, and published a monograph, The Truth About Article 370, in 2005.

To be, or not to be, that is the Question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer
The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,
Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles

The above dilemma of Shakespeare’s Hamlet sits perfectly on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the noose of his nuclear deal with the US tightens around him. Either he listens to Uncle Sam and signs the safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and risks losing his government because of the absence of majority support in Parliament, or he says “Sorry” to his favourite uncle and hangs on to power till the general elections next summer cast their vote on his future once and for all.

The Prime Minister’s predicament is his own making.

When he signed the joint statement on the nuclear deal with President Bush on July 18, 2005, our Prime Minister literally sprung a complex path-breaking deal on the nation, consenting to a framework that was ambiguous and loaded with uncertainties regarding details and fine print. No Prime Minister of a democracy of a billion people and more had the moral right to put his signature on a paper that even his foreign minister had not seen.

Since then, our Prime Minister let the deal to be moulded by US lawmakers who are experts at weaving a legislative web, promising the carrot but concealing the stick in clauses and sub-clauses, text and sub-text, references and cross-references. After almost two years of such cunning drafting and open debates in both houses of the US Congress, the Americans gave us the 123 Agreement on what was meant to be a pact to give us civil nuclear energy. Our Prime Minister and his select men signed their acceptance on it without first releasing it to those in our country who were intelligent and patriotic enough to appraise all its implications and ramifications.

As a matter of fact, the text of the 123 Agreement was withheld from the nation for two long weeks. Why? What game did the Prime Minister want to play? Whatever it was, it was just not cricket -- the sport that the PM admits he doesn’t like.

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And when he addressed the Lok Sabha on August 13, 2007, he distorted the picture, morphed the reality, of the Agreement. Based on the online release from the Prime Minister’s Office on that speech, below are three instances of such a spin.

The PM’s statement: “The concept of full civil nuclear co-operation has been clearly enshrined in this Agreement.”

Reality: Article 5(2) of the Agreement lays down that sensitive nuclear technology, heavy water production technology, sensitive nuclear facilities, heavy water production facilities, and major critical components of such facilities may be transferred under this Agreement pursuant to an amendment to this Agreement.” (emphasis supplied).

“Maybe transferred… pursuant to an amendment” says the original 123, and our Prime Minister tells the Lok Sabha that “full civilian nuclear co-operation is fully enshrined” in it.

The PM’s statement: “It (the Agreement) would also include development of strategic reserve of nuclear fuel to guard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime of our reactors.”

Reality: Section 103(b) (10) of the Hyde Act lays down that “It is the policy of the United States that any nuclear power reactor fuel reserve provided to the government of India for use in safeguarded civilian nuclear facilities should be commensurate with reasonable reactor operating requirements.” In short, no lifetime reserves, but only for hand-to-mouth needs.

The PM’s statement: “A significant aspect of the Agreement is our right to reprocess US origin spent fuel. This has been secured upfront.”

Reality: The right is only in principle, without details spelt out in the 123 Agreement. What is stated there is that once India has built a new reprocessing facility (estimated to take five years from scratch) under IAEA safeguards “the arrangements and procedures” will be agreed upon by both the parties to the Agreement and the reprocessing agreement will thereafter go to the US Congress for vetting. If that is “upfront”, I am 17 years old.

The PM’s statement: “We would accept only IAEA safeguards on our civilian nuclear facilities…and only when all international restrictions on nuclear trade with India have been lifted. India will not take any irreversible steps with the IAEA prior to this.”

Reality: Even without securing the sought-after exemption on fuel and technology exports from the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, our PM is itching to fly his men to Vienna to sign the IAEA agreement that has reportedly been sewn up but, in another show of secretiveness, is not being shown to this democratic nation of one billion.

Read all Lavakare columns

It’s truly amazing the way a large section of our English language media has been carpet bombing us with thousands of words in support of the nuclear deal, without questioning our PM on the surreal picture he has painted in the sacred House of the People of our democracy.

What is equally amazing is the way our PM and his several supporters in the media have totally refrained from discussing the costs of nuclear energy. All that our PM has said on that aspect seems to be what he said in the Rajya Sabha on August 17, 2006 when he pitched for nuclear energy “if the economic calculus demands that this is the most cost effective means.”

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Is nuclear energy indeed “the most cost effective”?

The Delhi Science Forum’s Prabir Purkayasta, an energy expert, estimates that nuclear energy would be at least 30 per cent more expensive than energy generated from other domestic sources. Thus, coal-fired plants produce electricity at about Rs 2.50 per unit whereas domestic nuclear reactors produce electricity at Rs.3.90 per unit. Imported reactors would generate electricity at Rs 5.50 per unit.

Brahma Chellaney, a strategic affairs analyst who has done remarkable fine-comb study of our 123 Agreement, writes that though studies in the US backed by the local powerful nuclear-power industry invariably present nuclear energy in favourable light, the reality is that “bad economics has led to more than 100 planned power reactors being cancelled in the US since 1970.”

Statistics are not always reliable. But that should not have prevented our Prime Minister from sharing the following simple facts with the nation:

1. The prevailing price of imported uranium fuel for nuclear plants and the quantities of it required for our nuclear plans till 2020, when 20,000 MW is the desired target
2. Is the estimated cost of the six nuclear reactors our Department of Atomic Energy wishes to import to meet the above target roughly $7.2 billion, as Chellaney says?


The cost of separating our present civilian and nuclear facilities as required by the 123 Agreement and the cost of establishing a separate reprocessing facility mandated by it.


The cost of setting up large strategic reserves of spare parts and fuel.

But, as has been is his entire approach to the nuclear deal all along, our Prime Minister has chosen to be self-righteous and all-knowing, almost contemptuous of the need to secure the consent of those who represent the nation’s most objective and best brains.

If, consequently, the nuclear noose is now lying close to our PM, is it anything else but retribution?

The views expressed in the article are the author’s and not of Sify.com