U.S. - INDIA NUCLEAR DEAL - A fruitful strategy? The strategy of apples, oranges, and pears must deliver

As Congress convenes after Thanksgiving, and with the nuclear bill expected to go into conference between the House and Senate, the strategy and hopes of all stakeholders promoting a radical maturing of U.S. – India relations may best be captured in a quote from Ronald Reagan, who is once reported to have said, “…if an apple and an orange went into conference consultations, it might come out a pear”.

We do have an apple and an orange going into conference – and we do clearly need a pear. In fact, so far this has also been the strategy of the U.S. administration – to introduce a bill which would have minimum roadblocks in the House and Senate, while the contentious issues, especially those which are not palatable to India, are expected to be reconciled in the conference after both houses had passed their respective bills.

Well, now that the Senate and House have both passed their own versions of the bill, and the two are coming up at the conference, the shape of the final bill needs to be different than the tone and content of the apple and orange which have showed up at the conference. The administration has a full job on its hands to now amalgamate the two bills, plus as well address the key concerns of India in the final version of the bill that goes to President Bush for his signing. We need a pear, if you will.

In the euphoria and well-earned moments of partial victory after the bill was passed in the Senate last month, most attention was on making sure that the so-called “killer-amendments” which were introduced, did not end up as part of the bill. Non-inclusion of the killer-amendments subsequent to the debate in the full Senate is definitely welcome – however what is often missed is the fact that the main body of bill that was presented to the floor of the Senate itself has components which are unacceptable to the Indian governmental and political establishments. The same is the case with the bill passed by the House.

It must not be missed that the Indian establishment voiced a guarded welcome to the passage of the bill in the Senate, and in the same breath went on to say that it awaits the final version of the bill – no point speculating about apples and oranges, while you are expecting a pear, isn’t it? The official reaction in Delhi was a studied contrast to the buoyant expressions from the U.S. administration and the corporate and grassroots lobbyists – one could almost sense a pregnant pause as if the Indian establishment was girding itself for some difficult choices it might face in the near future.

A strategy of apples, oranges and pears may be understandable to those practiced in the art of lobbying and legislative-executive relations inside the Beltway. However, it is not much understood outside the Beltway, has raised the stakes for the conference, and now requires substantive efforts by the administration and lobbyists. In two articles over the past few months, one had urged for more urgent action to address some of these concerns at the committee stage itself, before the bills were introduced to the full legislative floors. That would have lessened the burden at the conference stage, and at the same time muted some of the vocal opponents in India by demonstrating to them that Indian concerns were being incorporated in the legislations moving through the House and Senate. It might have even helped PM Singh in withstanding the domestic pressures, and enabled him to ward off any casting in stone of Indian conditions, which he was compelled to do in his speech to the Indian parliament on August 17 2006.

Well, that is water past the bridge, and we continue with the strategy of apples, oranges and pears. However, the lesson needs to be internalized – since, beyond the conference, and President Bush’s signing of a bill, is the issue of the 123 agreement – or the bilateral agreement for nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and India. We cannot afford to push back reconciliation of pending issues beyond the conference stage, and then hope to fine tune matters when the 123 agreement is being finalized.

Public diplomacy by the Indian American community, and lobbying by corporate and Indian governmental interests, needs to help mitigate as many of the irritants as possible at the earliest – within the conference itself. The lobbyists have generally been more focused on ensuring broad support and legislative calendaring of the bills, while the administration has been burdened more with shaping the content of the bill. It is time that the lobbyists took an urgent look at the contents of the bill – what use will be all our efforts if the final bill emerging out of conference is a non-starter for a mature hand shake of the two largest democracies?

And this leads us to a fundamental question which we will face sooner rather than later – why is it so important to examine potential Indian objections, and is India being the coy girl on the sidelines of the dance floor who refuses to step up unless she is wooed with extra concessions? On the face of it, it seems that the Indian stance is an expression of its interpretation of the July 2005 framework and the March 2006 separation plan. Having drawn an interpretation based upon these two agreements, the Indian side is now officially awaiting the end result of the legislative sumo in the U.S. Congress. There is not much to suggest that the assumptions of the Indian side, as articulated by PM Singh on August 17, are at variance with what the U.S. administration has broadly committed, or indicated that it would go along.

The Indian government too is laying much faith by the apples, oranges, and pears strategy – asking critiques of the deal to hold their horses till the final version of the bill appears out of the conference. In addition, it has another argument to offer to the detractors of the deal in India – telling them that the U.S. administration would not have been pushing for the deal unless it were sure that they could convince the U.S. lawmakers about a bill which is digestible in India. Or, the U.S. administration is aware that it needs to deliver a pear, and India awaits the fruits of the deal which it inked on July 18 2005.

We must ensure a fruitful outcome to the strategy of apples, oranges and pears.