It is the dog that didn’t bark that gives the clue: it is evident from what Pranab Mukherjee has omitted to mention that there is no commitment by the Americans about assurances contained in the August 17 statement of the PM! Pranab Mukherjee did go on to say that the government stood by the “principles and concerns” that the prime minister had expressed in his statement of August 17, and that “These principles and concerns continue to remain the basis of our engagement with the United States and the international community on the tasks ahead.”

But Burns stuck to what he had told the government here. In its dispatch of December 14 from Washington, the PTI reported him as saying, “I was able to communicate to the Indian Government on behalf of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush that the US Government is going to meet all the commitments it made to India in both the July 2005 Joint Statement and in the March 2006 Joint Statement.” Again, notice the conspicuous absence of any reference to the assurances contained in the PM’s statement of August 17.

Waiting for nothing

“But you must wait for the 123 Agreement. After all, that is what India will be committing itself to,” we are being told.

Now, the first point to remember is that the 123 Agreement is to be an Agreement under the new Act and other US laws — like the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The Agreement will be just an instrument to operationalise what this new law has provided. For this reason, there is going to be nothing in the 123 Agreement which is not already known. That Agreement will be consequential to, and be governed by the Hyde Act. It does not have to have a clause saying that all exports shall terminate upon India testing a nuclear device — for that is already provided as a condition in the Hyde Act. It does not have to urge India to declare a date by which we will stop production of fissile material — for that is already provided in the Hyde Act. It does not have to say that India make a public declaration to the effect that we will adhere to the Proliferation Security Initiative — for that is already provided in the Hyde Act.

... contd.