Rough ride in US Congress

The US-India Public Affairs Committee, dominated by Non-Resident Indians, announced that at least 12 of the SRFC's 18 members would back it. The Indian government stepped up lobbying and Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran went to the US. The agreement, a Times of India headline declared: "Looks like [a] done deal."

Following Mr Saran's visit, however, the same paper said: the "N-deal may not get past US Congress." It may have to wait "perhaps a lot longer than the weeks and months anticipated."

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A special legislation introduced by the Bush administration in the Congress to facilitate the resumption of nuclear commerce with India has met with a frosty reception.

New Delhi believes that the India Caucus, the largest country-specific grouping in the US Congress, is the "spoilsport." Ten of its members are among the 18 Congressmen who introduced a bill opposing the deal.

The Indian government is in a predicament -- the more so because it had put all its eggs in the US Congress basket with no fall-back option. It fears that if the deal isn't ratified soon, it may fall through. It's now pinning its hopes on senior Congressmen who are due to visit India, including Senators Edward Kennedy and Chuck Hagel, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

Even after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's eloquent Congressional testimony on Wednesday defending the deal, it will face many obstacles. Going by the statements of those who questioned Ms Rice, its passage remains uncertain.

Why has this happened? The answer lies in three factors. The deal's proponents grossly over-estimated likely bipartisan support. But no ranking Democrat has full-throatedly backed the deal without reservations -- although none has said they would block it.

Senators John Kerry and Joseph Biden have softened their stand vis-a-vis the nuclear deal. But it's not clear that they will vote for the administration's bill as it stands.

Apart from the concern that the deal will shake up the global nuclear order, the Democrats have their eyes on Congressional mid-term elections due November. The Republicans are expected to lose control of the next Congress. The Democrats don't want to hand an easy foreign policy victory to President Bush ahead of the elections.

Secondly, the US Zionist lobby harbours suspicious about India's traditional foreign policy and wants to make the deal conditional upon tangible changes in India's position on Iran, Palestine-Israel and Non-Alignment.

The Zionists would like India to have no truck with the Hamas-dominated government in Palestine, although that group won a free and fair election. Anti-Castro Cuban-Americans too want India to disassociate itself from the Non-Aligned Movement whose next summit is due in Havana.

These lobbies would like to test the claim that India is indeed becoming one of America's closest allies and a dependable counterweight to China, Cuba, Iran and the movement for Palestinian nationhood. This will involve severe erosion of India's foreign policy options.

A third factor is Bush's finalisation of the deal without consulting his foreign-affairs bureaucracy, influential Congressmen, White House staff or government nuclear specialists. An April 3-4 Washington Post report documents how Mr Bush and Ms Rice initiated a "revolution in US nuclear policy and relations with India" while bypassing key decision-makers.

They favoured a "big bang" approach over an "incremental" one. They were executing a major foreign policy shift, comparable to Nixon's decision to open a front with China against the former USSR. But unlike then, there were no secret discussions within top policy circles.

The "big bang" approach overruled US nuclear specialists, who wanted the deal to limit India's nuclear weapons potential and place all of its power reactors under safeguards. But India played hardball. It only agreed to safeguard 14 out of 22 reactors and excluded fast-breeders and military-nuclear facilities.

A senior US official is quoted as saying "the Indians were incredibly greedy. They were getting 99 percent of what they asked for and still they pushed for 100." This has created great resentment.

Besides, India's effort to "sweeten" the deal by dangling the bait to buy two nuclear reactors and 126 warplanes from the US doesn't seem to have cut much ice.

Bush can still swing the deal through closed-door discussions to convince Congressmen that breaking the back of India's independent policy is in America's interest. But his approval ratings are at their lowest-ever level and his foreign policy is considered a disaster.

The option of amending the deal is well-neigh non-existent. That risks dismantling the agreement.

Even if the deal gets ratified by Congress, it will face obstacles in the 45-state Nuclear Suppliers' Group. Washington's recent informal consultations with the NSG didn't produce the desired result. Japan vocally criticised the deal. China and the Scandinavian countries too expressed reservations. There may be opposition from Germany, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina too.

Whatever happens, New Delhi has no fall-back option. It's unprepared for the deal's collapse. It has staked everything on it -- to the point of abandoning sovereign policies on Iran, the economy and trade. The deal's collapse will create bitter anti-US resentment among the Indian public.

That won't be a bad thing. The government, as this column has argued, went overboard in its love-fest with Washington.

A correction is overdue -- in India's security and foreign policy, and on "cooperation" on energy (though the embrace of dirty, hazardous and costly nuclear power), the environment (through the signing of the anti-Kyoto Asian climate partnership), economic policy (to be dominated by corporate interests), and agriculture (which will become a hostage to companies like Monsanto and Wal-Mart).

The sooner the government changes course, the better for its credibility.