Deciphering the 123 Deal

"End IAEA talks by Dec or face polls, says Left"
Shouted a frontpage headlines from 9th dec. edition of "Hindustan Times". Reading further into the matter I came across a quote from Mr. Prakash Karat who reportedly stated " The issue(123 deal) must be resolved by end of December. If they still go ahead, we will have to be prepared for Lok Sabha Mid term polls."
This "misquote" further ignited the curious fire in me.
What exactly makes the nuclear deal one of the most debatable topics of recent times?
Thus I set upon a journey of sorts to unravel the truth behind the matter to satiate my hunger of about 4 months.
After two and a half days of exploits, I am now finally in position to clear the airs about the cryptic(at least to me...) deal, and thus my very first blog gets the title it has...



Of the numerous initiatives taken by the UPA Government to enhance India’s stature in the global arena and advance our development agenda, none compare with the 123 deal. This deal would present India with a chance to dismantle the ‘nuclear apartheid’ created against India.

This deal would end 3 decades of an International technology denial regime of which India has been victim. Since the US led the nuclear ban on India after its ‘peaceful nuclear experimenting’ in 1974, the US had to take initiative to restore India to international nuclear regime. To help India, the US administration first needed to change its own laws. The law to get a waiver from its own Houses of congress to begin nuclear collaboration with India was what was pursed as Henry J Hyde act in December 2006. It is a domestic US law which has no binding on India.

The 123 deal is not as ambiguous as it is made out to be: It keeps our military reactors outside the horizon of the safeguards to be signed with IAEA and does not affect our ‘unsafeguarded’ strategic nuclear facilities and our indigenous technology programme. US would work with India on the civil side. What India does on the strategic side in India’s Business.

The 123 substantially meets Indian concern on reprocessing spent fuel, assure it of nuclear fuel supplies and crucially, does not stop India’s right to test in nuclear device if required. It permits nuclear trade, transfer of nuclear material, equipments, components and related technology and co-operation in the civil nuclear fuel cycle between India and US. It allows India to create a reserve of nuclear fuel for each of its civilian reactors and provides guarantees for perpetual supply of fuel in case there is a problem. India has to place its civilian reactor under perpetual IAEA safeguards and will build a dedicated reprocessing facility.

To sustain 9-10% GDP growth to eliminate poverty requires us to expand our power capacity at nearly 20,000 MW per an annum. With this agreement, we can now look forward to generate to around 20,000 MW of nuclear power by 2020. The argument that India would be dependent on US technology is grossly misplaced as the deal allows us to access nuclear technology from anywhere in the world.

For India to be granted such a status is unprecedented in diplomatic history. This deal has raised our stature in the world. We have been recognized as being responsible nuclear nation that can be trusted not to proliferate weapons technology and illegally export any fissile material.

It is worth passing to look at how our neighborhood has reacted to this deal. An official statement issued after the meeting of NCA of Pakistan to assess the Indo-US deal said it would ‘enable India to produce significant quantities of fissile material and nuclear weapons from unsafeguarded nuclear reactors’. Pakistan has urged that a similar deal to be offered to them. Well, why would Pakistan want a deal that barters its sovereignty, kills its weapons programme and takes away its right to test? This is simple because of the fact that “the 123 deal”does nothing of this sort.
The official news agency of Chinese Communist party, Xinheria sees this dual as ‘a generous gift-that grants India the status of ‘de facto’ nuclear power. Even neutral observers in US have argued that the deal is totally in India’s favor.

We, as a sovereign nation, are only bound by what we have appended our signature to the 123 agreement.

Finally quoting Jyotiraditya Scindia:

“ India’s democracy of over a billion people is now too strong to surrender to the dictates of any power, big or small. Equally, a country cannot become strong unless it demonstrates the capacity to successfully secure its national interest through tough negotiations with leading powers of the world. And this is precisely what the present Government has achieved with great distinction”.