Towards nuclear accommodation

Editorial appeared in "The Hindu" on January 15, 2000

ONE MORE STEP, albeit small considering the ground to be covered, has been taken to place Indo-American relations on a more realistic basis. By acknowledging that this country's security interests go beyond the subcontinent and by giving up the earlier American insistence that New Delhi quantify its minimum deterrent, Washington's interlocutor-in-chief has given a broad enough hint of nuclear accommodation. The American Deputy Secretary of State, Mr. Strobe Talbott's comments, during an exclusive interview with this paper, suggest that the path to greater understanding has been successfully mapped. The attitude of coercion and patronage evident at the start of the marathon dialogue between the two countries a year and half ago has given way to greater realism and indirect acknowledgement that India has the maturity to be trusted with the bomb and that its deterrence is a potential tool of self- defence, both aspects highlighted during the Kargil crisis last summer. Clearly, the impending tenth round of the dialogue between Mr. Jaswant Singh and Mr. Talbott has the potential to remove the stumbling block to normalisation of relations through reconciliation of India's security interests and America's non-proliferation goals. Mr. Talbott insisted during the interview that such reconciliation was not a precondition for the proposed visit by the American President, Mr. Bill Clinton, to this country. Certainly it cannot be denied that Washington's punitive approach to resolving these very differences had vitiated the bilateral atmosphere. With the steps to relax the sanctions restrictions against this country, there is every prospect that the imbalance will be removed and a conducive atmosphere created for the long-pending Clinton visit.

Mr. Talbott repeated the known American fear that an Indian minimum deterrent could provoke an arms race in the region. Through its restraint, India proved during the Kargil war that its nuclear deterrent is not a weapon of offence. Similar unfounded fears had in the past only served to produce a negative trend in the region. By assigning a clear priority to relations with Pakistan through grant of billions of dollars worth of military aid to that country, it was Washington which had provoked the arms race in the subcontinent during the Cold War period. There are again suggestions by powerful lobbies that the U.S. resume its suspended military aid programme to Pakistan, ignoring the fact that such assistance, particularly to the military rulers, in the past was only nominally directed against communism and was in practice used to strength that country relative to India. Recent occurrences underline the dangers of such negative policy pursuits. If in the Cold War years these served some partisan purpose, they have even less merit now. Washington must resist the temptation and pressure to resume the military relationship, the major source of tension and armament race in the subcontinent.

Mr. Talbott recalled the American desire for a ``stable, secure, strong and united India''. He was not the first policy maker to express such sentiments. But the marathon effort that the Clinton administration is taking, spearheaded by Mr. Talbott, has helped to blunt the antagonisms of the past and remove some of the distortions introduced in the bilateral relationship by Cold War calculations. The successful conclusion of the technical discussions during Christmas has set the stage for some reciprocal actions. With the clarifications given by the senior official on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, it should be possible for India to sign the CTBT on the basis of the evolved national consensus. This will enable Mr. Clinton to remove the sanctions imposed in mid-1998 and lift the bilateral relationship out of the non-proliferation mode in which it seems stuck so that it can encompass what Mr. Talbott called ``the bright areas of a multifaceted partnership''.