“FOR 34 years, India has suffered from a nuclear apartheid. We have not been able to trade in nuclear material, nuclear reactors, and nuclear raw materials. And when this restrictive regime ends, I think a great deal of credit will go to President Bush. And, for this I am very grateful to you, Mr. President,” exclaimed the Prime Minister of India in Washington, September 25 2008.  “People of India deeply love you” – he added, his voice choking with emotion. And this just after the US kicked his country in the belly once again by adding further punitive conditions in the shape of bills passed in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Simply put, these bills establish the explicit supremacy of the Hyde Act and other US laws over the 123 Agreement, directly contradicting the Prime Minister’s assertion that it was bound only by the 123 Agreement. Particularly irritating is the tougher language used in subsection (b) of Section 102 of the Senate bill:  

" Pursuant to section 103(a)(6) of the Henry J Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006, in the event that nuclear transfers to India are suspended or terminated pursuant to title I of such Act, [if for example India conducts another atomic test] the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, or any other United States law,  it is the policy of the United States to seek to prevent [this word replaces an earlier “discourage”; emphasis added] the transfer to India of nuclear equipment, materials, or technology from other participating governments in the Nuclear Suppliers Group or from any other source."

It is further abundantly clear that, contrary to Manmohan Singh’s explicit assurances on the floor of Parliament, the Deal does not deliver assured fuel supply for India; neither any assurance regarding building a strategic fuel reserve for the life time of the reactor; nor any ‘corrective measures’ or right to remove reactors from safeguards in case of fuel supply failure.   

Even without such strings attached, however, the US-India nuclear deal would have been a bad, very bad deal.  And even if the waiver our country got at the recent Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting were really "clean and unconditional" and not saddled with restrictions, that would have been no boon to our country.  It is now common knowledge that the fundamental condition on which the whole thing is based is that Indian foreign policy must be "congruent with" -- read subservient to -- that of the US, a savage imperialist power and the world people’s enemy number one. And as we have explained in the pages that follow, nuclear power involves enormous environmental hazards, prohibitive costs, long gestation periods and, in our case, crippling technological, economic and strategic dependence on foreign powers. Moreover, the Indian ruling elite has always used nuclear power programmes for surreptitious weaponisation schemes that militate against the causes of peace and progress and this trend will get a big boost from recent developments on the nuclear front.  It is therefore absolutely necessary to rely not on nuclear power but on safe, clean, inexhaustible sources like solar and wind energy.  Contrary to official propaganda, this is perfectly feasible, as noted Marxist historian DD Kosambi showed years ago in a lecture reproduced here.

Most of the articles in this collection appeared in Liberation or ML Update in the course of the intensified campaign against the Nuke Deal. These articles comment on the changing political equations and challenges for the Left following the trust vote in Indian Parliament; discuss the inherent hazards of nuclear power generation and the feasibility of cleaner alternatives; expose inflated claims regarding energy generation by the Nuke Deal and throw light on the sordid sell-out of our national sovereignty that the Deal implies.

Once the Deal comes into effect, its deadly implications (already in evidence) will unfold even more rapidly. The need of the hour is an intensified mass movement against the deadly nuclear knot and the pamphlet in your hand seeks to serve that cause.

5 November 2008

- Central Publicity Department
Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)
New Delhi