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(The author is a Professor in International Economics in Nagasaki University, Japan)

It is a very important question whether India is a democratic country or not. Recently Arundhuti Roy (Instant Mix Imperial Democracy, presented in New York City at the Riverside Church, May 13, 2003) has raised that question by pointing out the disregard demonstrated by the government of India towards the poor who are the majority and the fact that all pillars of democracy, judiciary, media and the political system can be purchased at a right price.

She said, “ Modern democracies have been around for long enough for neo-liberal capitalists to learn how to subvert them. They have mastered the technique of infiltrating the instruments of democracy - the "independent" judiciary, the "free" press, and the parliament - and molding them to their purpose. The project of corporate globalization has cracked the code. Free elections, a free press, and an independent judiciary mean little when the free market has reduced them to commodities on sale to the highest bidder”

If democracy means the rules of the majority, why do the institutions of the country ignores the majority in a democratic country India, who are poor by any definition having to survive on less than $2 dollar a day. The answer to that very important question can be obtained if we look at how the people can exercise their rights and how they are being ignored in almost every important decisions of the government through the system what we have, the representative democracy.

The character of the representative democracy is that people can only elect the members of the state or national parliaments but once elected the representatives can ignore the public opinion, unless there is a system of regular referendums on every important issue. In the European countries, including Britain, referendums are part and parcel of democracy, but not in India or in the U.S. As a result, both in India and U.S the government or the ruling party or the coalition of parties can behave like elected dictators within a given period disregarding the interest of the people, the country and the long-term future of the nation.

We can consider the behavior of the India government since 1991 to demonstrate that the so-called democratic government of India is ignoring public opinion or the national interests continuously. In 1991, India under the instruction of International Monetary Fund (IMF) abolished the Five Year’s Plan and introduced the free market economy. That affects the life of everyone in the country. However, parliament was not consulted. There was no referendum of the people either. Similarly, in 1995, India has joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) against even the opinion of the Chief of the Indian delegations on this affair, Muchkund Dubey, who has described the treaty India singed as unequal and unjust. Although the public opinion was against it, the parliament and the people of India were not consulted. In the same way, now the Indo-American treaty on nuclear issue is being imposed upon India against the public opinion, without any voting in the parliament or any referendum of the people.

These three major events for India, since 1991, have serious consequences for the people of India and are highly damaging for the nation. Economic reforms in India have failed to uplift the poor even after 15 years of experiment. The slogan raised in 1995 that the new world trade order would bring unprecedented prosperity was never materialized for India or the developing countries.

In 2005, some 84 per cent of workers in South Asia, 70 percent in India, 58 per cent in South-East Asia, did not earn enough to lift themselves and their families above the $2 a day poverty line. Informal employment as a share of non-agricultural employment ranges from 83 per cent in India, 78 per cent in Indonesia, and 72 per cent in the Philippines. The workers have no secure income, no provisions for pensions or health care.

In 2005 Asia had more than 48 per cent, or 41.6 million, of the world"s young people without work. Young people are at least three times more likely than adults to be unemployed. Some 1 million workers die annually in Asia due to work-related accidents and diseases.

India’s much advertised 8 percent growth in real gross national product in 2005 is due to its gigantic foreign borrowings. Similar rate of growth of 8.7 percent was achieved in ‘unreformed’ India in 1987-88 when India’s foreign borrowings had reached Rs.32.7 Billion from only Rs.13.7 Billion in 1985 and India went bankrupt in 1991. The economic liberalization policy has little do with these higher rates of growth, which are affected by the availability of foreign capital, which can fly out very easily making the country bankrupt, as it was the experience for the South East Asia and South Korea in 1998.

In 1995, Man Mohan Singh in the parliament has declared that unless India joins the W.T.O, it will be cut off from the rest of the world. Without being a member of the W.T.O in 2004, China has received $60.6 billion of foreign capital, Russia has received $16.5 Billion and India, a member of the W.T.O has received $5.5 Billion. China, Russia or Saudi Arabia are not cut off from the rest of the world.

Now the government of India is trying to erase out India’s nuclear deterrent against Pakistan as well by saying that without this Indo-US nuclear deal, there will be no future development of the nuclear energy in India. If we look at the deal that is going through the U.S. Congress and the Senate, it is clear that it has little or nothing to do with the nuclear power generations but it aims at the elimination of India’s ability to produce any nuclear weapons. Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which India has refused to sign so far, is about to be imposed upon India through a back door with devastating consequences for India’s immediate future.
India’s nuclear deal:

Dr Homi Sethna, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and one of the founding-father of India’s nuclear program, said that what Dr Manmohan Singh was about to sign was worse than joining the NPT regime. Dr A. Gopalakrishnan, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, has outlined how precisely commitments made by Dr Singh to Parliament and the people have been blatantly undermined and notes that if the deal goes through in its present form, it will "compromise the sovereignty of this country for decades to come". He has exposed the very enormous financial price that India will have to pay as well, between Rs 300,000 to Rs 400,000 crores in nuclear reactors that will be totally dependent for their existence on a yearly audit of our policies by the US Congress. Dr P.K. Iyengar, another former chairman of the AEC, has called the deal "giving up sovereignty". These men have spent their lives translating an Indian vision of a self-reliant industrialization, crafted by Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, into reality. They do not have a political or personal agenda. However, after a recent meeting with the Prime Minister they have eaten their words. The counterparts of these retired scientific administrators in India’s nuclear establishment who are currently employed are silent about the issue. Possibly they are afraid to lose their jobs.

China-Pakistan Collaboration:

Pakistan and China have finalized in August 2006 landmark accord on nuclear energy cooperation, under which Islamabad will acquire 6 Chinese nuclear reactors. The nuclear energy cooperation deal with China has brought great solace to Pakistan, as the United States is not willing to extend such cooperation to Pakistan. With Chinese cooperation, Pak would build six new nuclear reactors in next 10 years having capacity of 2,000 megawatts. This was part of Pakistan’s plan to increase the capacity of N-power generation to over 8,000 megawatts by 2025. China has already helped Pak build a nuclear reactor of 350 megawatts at Chashma and it was currently building one more at the same place with the same capacity.

China has already supplied Pakistan enrichment plants and heavy water plants, and nuclear weapons as well. Chinese nuclear plants offered to Pakistan will not be under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Thus, Pakistan can very well use these to produce nuclear weapons. Although China is a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) of 45 nations and a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), China like in all other international spheres does not care about its obligation to any international treaty if its national interest demands so. China’s national interest is to set up Pakistan against India by providing every weapons and missiles it has got.

China has so far violated every rule of the NPT (Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty) and NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group) by supplying nuclear power plants with enrichment facility, which can produce nuclear weapons to Pakistan, North Korea and possibly Iran. For that USA will never dare to impose any sanction against China.

Does India need US nuclear power plants?

It is not true that without the American support India’s nuclear energy program would come to a halt. As Pakistan is getting everything regarding nuclear energy from China, India can also get nuclear power plants from Russia.

The real issue is whether India needs any US assistance at all regarding its nuclear energy sector. The argument of Man Mohan Singh, as he said in the Parliament recently, that otherwise India would be a nuclear ‘Pariah’ is false. In 1974, USA has imposed sanctions so that India cannot get any nuclear related materials or technology. After 1998 USA has imposed more sanctions on India so that it cannot get any defense related technology or materials at all. However, India since 1974 has received every nuclear technology, and materials including conventional nuclear power plants, Fast Breeder reactors, reprocessing and enrichment plants and heavy water plants from the Soviet Union and Russia without any restrictions attached to these. As a result, India is al most self-sufficient regarding nuclear technology and can produce nuclear weapons despite all the efforts of the United States to stop it.

Only for the last two years, because of its membership of the NSG, Russia now wants to supply nuclear power plants with added safeguards that the plants cannot be used to produce any nuclear weapons. However, at the same time, it has offered offshore nuclear plants to India, which would be without any restrictions. India can have both or either of the on-shore or offshore nuclear power plants from Russia and as a result for the future development of electricity production, India does not need US support at all. Thus, it really does not matter if India would refuse to sign the Indo-US treaty on nuclear energy.

CPI (M) is opposing the treaty by saying India does not need nuclear power plants. That is a non-issue here. Even if India needs nuclear power plants to supplement it energy requirement in future, India does not need nuclear power plants from USA. Russia can still supply whatever India needs at a much lower price.

India’s nuclear weapons:

The treaty, as proposed to the US Congress and the Senate, has little to do with nuclear energy development in India but deals with the question of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and how to prevent India from becoming a nuclear weapon state. It is very clear that the treaty does not treat India as a present or future nuclear weapon state. The treaty will never legitimize India’s nuclear weapons, but will ruin any prospect of India to have any independent nuclear deterrent against even Pakistan; China is far cry.

When India will sign the Indo-US treaty, Pakistan without any treaty with the US will receive whatever it wants from China and will go on producing nuclear weapons but India cannot. The reason is that the treaty will force India to separate Indian’s nuclear facilities including the research institutes into two groups, military and non-military. About 90 percent of all nuclear facilities, including the Fast Breeder Reactors which can produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, will be included in the civilian sector and there will be regular inspection by the IAEA and the US authority to make sure that these facilities will not be used to produce nuclear weapons.

If India, in this situation, wants to keep its option for nuclear weapons, it needs to reconstruct every facility once again at a prohibitive cost. India for the military part of the nuclear sector will not be able to import technology or materials from any of the countries of the NSG, including Russia. Thus, India’s nuclear weapons program will disappear. This is the real aim of the Indo-US treaty. Man Mohan Singh’s recent declaration in the Indian parliament that India would maintain the option to test nuclear weapons is very theoretical. In practice, India will be unable to do that because of lack of availability of appropriate facility to develop and test nuclear weapons in near future.

Conclusion:

The prospect for India in this situation is very bleak but the government of India itself is creating it. India government is under no obligation to sign the treaty but will do so. In the same way it had accepted the IMF induced reform program in 1991 and joined the WTO in 1995. In each of these occasions the arguments provided by the government of India proved to be false.

In the case of nuclear deal with the US also, India just like in 1991 and 1995 is accepting a subordinate position in relation to USA and the Western countries. USA will never accept any inspection of its nuclear facility by the IAEA. It will carry on developing new nuclear weapons and will test those in laboratory conditions. It has no separation of nuclear facilities into military and civilian sectors. However, India is accepting inspection of its nuclear facility by the American authority without demanding any corresponding right of inspection of the American nuclear facilities by the Indian authority. Just like other two treaties, with IMF in 1991 and with WTO in 1995, this Indo-US deal on nuclear energy is unequal, discriminatory and unjust.

The result will make Pakistan much stronger than India in very near future. That serves the geo-political interest of the United States with Pakistan as the bridge to the Islamic world as Pakistan was the bridge to China in 1971, when both USA and China were about to attack India jointly to save East Pakistan. The unfolding scenario will ruin India in the process when India has no strong Prime Minister like Mrs. Indira Gandhi and there is no Soviet Union to defend India.

The government of India is not going to consult the people or the parliament in this matter of Indo-US nuclear deal, although President Bush got to take the approval of both the Senate and the Congress. Just like in 1991 and in 1995 the government of India will surrender to the Anglo-American imperialism very gladly by going against the public opinion. This is certainly not a sign of a democracy, but of an unpatriotic dictatorship within a democratic set-up. Thus, Arundhuti Roy’s remarks on Indian democracy is not very far off the reality

Dr.Dipak Basu

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