The Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has extended support for India’s safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA approval is one of the three requirements for the ratification of the India-U.S. Civil Nuclear Initiative of July 2005 signed by the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and U.S. President George W. Bush.
The next step is for the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to provide a consensus agreement granting India an exemption for the supply of nuclear fuel or uranium. An NSG decision will move the India-U.S. nuclear deal into the U.S. Congress for ratification.
The NSG is meeting this week to consider a U.S. draft waiver allowing trade with India as a non-signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and yesterday a number of countries proposed conditions for their support.
There is opposition to the waiver on the grounds that it will weaken or even irreparably undermine the NPT. A recent Toronto Star editorial also argues the India-U.S. nuclear deal “will encourage other nuclear mavericks, including Pakistan and Iran, to lobby for the same treatment.”
The opposition misrepresents India’s status as a responsible democracy by drawing comparisons with neighbouring Pakistan and Iran. The record of Pakistan as a rogue and failed state engaged in illegally selling nuclear technology will not warrant the IAEA and NSG to consider any request from Islamabad for equitable treatment alongside India. Nor will the U.S. be offering Pakistan a nuclear deal of the sort under consideration with New Delhi. The same applies to Iran, which has refused to operate its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards while its president proposes to wipe democratic Israel off the map.
The strategic consideration in supporting the India-U.S. nuclear deal – which brings 14 of its 22 nuclear facilities under IAEA supervision – would be responding favourably to the needs of India’s population that has patiently constructed the world’s largest democracy.
India’s impoverished millions since independence have resolutely rebuffed any temptation to substitute democracy with some utopian anti-democratic fix for rapid economic growth that elsewhere has brought so much grief. On the contrary, in the 1977 elections Indians punished the late prime minister Indira Gandhi – her government conducted the 1974 nuclear test – for suspending the constitution by emergency measures in 1975 to handle domestic economic and political troubles.
Ms. Gandhi was sent to prison for her high-handedness, and when the coalition government failed to rule competently Indians returned her to power in the 1980 elections. This episode in India’s modern history is a striking illustration of how firmly democracy is embraced by Indians.
India’s recent remarkable economic growth has come through the means of robust democracy. It has lifted tens of millions of India’s poor from abject poverty, raising expectations that democracy and an open market economy will bring greater prosperity in the future.
Yet this growth will be subverted if Indians cannot secure a reliable energy supply. The India-U.S. nuclear deal holds promise for the economy remaining buoyant with an increasing share of environmentally clean and safe nuclear energy. At present, nuclear power provides merely three per cent of India’s energy needs. Indians want to see this share rise to 25 per cent in the next two decades.
Canada’s commitment to assist in the sustainable development of countries such as India is of long standing. At the same time Canada has been a leading advocate of non-proliferation. Given Canada’s view that development and non-proliferation go together, Ottawa suspended Canadian nuclear involvement with India following the 1974 nuclear test.
But global politics has dramatically changed over the past 34 years and Canada needs to reconsider its nuclear relationship with India. Though India became a declared nuclear weapon state during this period, it has conducted its politics responsibly, as would be expected of a democracy.
India has violated no international agreement it has entered into, and threatens none of its neighbours. It has had to fight instead defensive wars against China and Pakistan, and in recent years has been a victim of international terrorism.
India’s rising prosperity is positive for the global economy. India’s democracy is an example for developing countries. If there is any message in the NSG granting a waiver for the India-U.S. nuclear deal, it would be that countries with a democratic record deserve consideration under IAEA safeguards for trade in nuclear fuel that cannot be extended to non-democracies and rogue states.
The federal government should support this message as it is consistent with Canada’s record of partnership with democracies, assisting developing countries and supporting non-proliferation objectives. It will also restore Canada’s relationship with India as an economic partner based on democratic values, while opening doors to strategic co-operation on all issues including the two countries’ shared support for development and democracy in Afghanistan.
He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Islamic Pluralism based in Washington, D.C., a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, and an academic-consultant with the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. He has been a consultant with CIDA on development issues and has published widely in academic journals on foreign policy matters and area studies of the Middle East and South Asia.
Mansur is featured on the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West produced by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He also unsuccessfully ran for the Canadian Alliance party in 2000.
Mansur has been accused by Canadian Islamic Congress of using "provocative, self-serving rhetoric", and for "promoting an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim agenda".
He is an Ismaili Muslim.
At a press conference on October 2, 2008, Mansur stated that "Islam is my private life, my conscience...[but] my faith does not take precedence over my duties...to Canada and its constitution, which I embrace freely;" "I am first and most importantly a Canadian;" "only in a free society will you find Islam as a faith and not a political religion." Mansur also criticized New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton, whom Mansur said "has gone to bed with Islamists", because he is running candidates in Ontario and Quebec who are closely identified with the push for Sharia law.
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