Sovereignty and the Nuclear Deal

Two terms have defined the contours of the debate on Indo-US Nuclear Deal; these are ‘sovereignty’ and ‘national interest’. The critics of the Deal argue that the deal will compromise the ‘sovereignty’ of India and affect its independent foreign policy. The Government and the supporters of the Deal say that it is ‘national interest’ of India. This post will look at the issue of controversy, their theoretical connotations and how they are being played out in the current controversy especially in context of the recently released ‘Safeguards Agreement’ that India has negotiated with the IAEA.

Sovereignty in the study of International Relations:

Sovereignty encapsulates the rules that define the locus of political authority and set the context for relations between states. The basic meaning of sovereignty is that there is a final and absolute authority in the political community and no other similar parallel authority exists elsewhere. Stephen Krasner in his book, Sovereignty: Organised Hypocrisy (Princeton University Press) has delineated four ways in which the term sovereignty is used; a) domestic sovereignty: refers to the organisation of public authority within a state and to the level of effective control exercised by those holding authority; b) interdependence sovereignty: refers to the ability of the public authorities to control transborder movements; c) international legal sovereignty: refers to the mutual recognition of states or other entities and d) Westphalian sovereignty: refers to the exclusion of external actors from domestic authority configurations.

It is the ‘Westphalian sovereignty’ view that is at the centre of current debate. Can India be assured of non-interference by USA after the Deal is concluded? Will India be coerced to tow US line, especially in the Asia-Pacific region? We will return to these questions later in the post. It should be kept in mind that sovereignty is an artificial and constitutional arrangement that states have evolved over a period of time. The Constructivist view of sovereignty is quite helpful, it sees sovereignty as a socially constructed. Sovereignty is what ‘states make of it’ (this is in line of Wendt’s comment that anarchy is what states make of it).

The Safeguards Agreement

This statement has to be seen in light of the ‘Safeguards Agreement.’ The agreement explicitly does not recognise India as ‘Nuclear Weapon State’ (NWS), but at the same time it recognises the civilian and military nuclear programme of India. Though this falls short India’s hope of getting the NWS status, it de facto serves the purpose. This takes us to the Preamble of the agreement. It allows India to take ‘corrective steps’ to ensure uninterrupted fuel supply to its reactors in case there is disruption of foreign fuel supplies. Without going into the details here, it would be sufficient to say that the Agreement does not spell out what will be the ‘corrective measures’ that India can take recourse to. Thus it is not sure that if foreign fuel supply is cut, then will India’s civilian reactors remain under IAEA safeguard for ‘perpetuity’. It is this ambiguity that can be used to India’s advantage in future if need be.

Here a word of caution is necessary. If we go through the terms of the Hyde Act, it is clear that that the Act seeks to orient India’s foreign policy according to US interest. It wants India to follow USA’s position on Fissile Missile Cut-off Treaty (FMCT). Some US Congress members also want India to accept US policy on Iran. These are factors that have to be cautiously and diplomatically warded off by India. Moreover the relationship between the Hyde Act and the 123 Agreement has to be clearly defined.

Further, India had to move beyond US and forge nuclear cooperation with France, Russia, UK and possibly even China. This Deal removes the nuclear apartheid that India has suffered for long, and India should make the most of this opportunity.

We return to the question of sovereignty. It is not a static institution, it is constantly redefined by the nation’s governing elite. Hence let us not get unduly concerned about India’s sovereignty be compromised by this Deal. What is of concern is the strategic power play that will follow and how India secures its ‘national interest’ without compromising its sovereignty.