The recent visit of the American secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, to India for the second session of the strategic dialogue between India and the United States of America provided a good opportunity for taking stock of the state of the relationship and the direction in which it was headed. It was clear that some choppy waters would need careful joint navigation, particularly in nuclear and defence cooperation. While engaged in endeavours to keep the relationship on an even keel, it is evident that neither country can afford to lose sight of the broadening horizons of our regional and global cooperation. As both governments, for varying reasons, are increasingly looking inwards, there has been a growing perception of a drift in the relationship. This perception is perhaps exaggerated. Yet it is not entirely unfounded and needs to be addressed.
There is no explicit commitment in the India-US civil nuclear agreement requiring US transfers of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to India. Such transfers are subject to an amendment to the agreement. We were all aware that such an amendment was most unlikely. George W. Bush’s proposal was to deny ENR technologies to countries which did not possess them. It was aimed at countries like Iran. One of the main reasons for the extraordinary political capital spent by Bush in pushing through the single country Nuclear Suppliers Group exemption for India was to enable countries like France and Russia to make such transfers, if required.
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