Shocking non-proliferation sceptics here and surprising nuclear cynics in India, who were hoping the US Congress will bury the deal either on substantive or on procedural grounds, the Senate came out swinging, 85 to 12, in favour of the deal.

The Senate’s 85 per cent support exceeded the 80 per cent majority the deal had got in the other chamber, the House of Representatives, where 359 of the 435 members voted in favour last summer.

Although India prudently held back celebrations until it sees the final piece of legislation, which will emerge from a reconciliation of the Senate and House versions in early December, there is no denying the significance of the vote.

As amendment after amendment was voted out by big margins in the Senate, the sense of expansive bipartisanship in the U.S. Congress in favour of improved relations with India came through. Some of these “killer amendments” called for restrictions on the size of the Indian nuclear arsenal, stringent certification requirements by the President, and attempts to limit India’s relationship with Iran.

Supporters of the deal, however, won the day by insisting that the essence of the deal negotiated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W. Bush in July 2005 cannot be altered. Coming days after the Democrats and Republicans fought a bitter election that saw the latter losing control in both Houses, the vote last night highlighted that there were no real divisions within the American system on strategic cooperation with India. With the clock ticking away for the passage of the nuclear legislation, the Senators decided to finish the work barely hours before many of them took off for the Thanksgiving holiday.

The Senate’s ringing endorsement of the deal is not just a diplomatic triumph for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the UPA government but for India as a whole. Successive governments in New Delhi over the decades have sought to square the circle of international non-proliferation law which prohibited civilian nuclear energy cooperation with India.

Until now, the world was telling India that it can either keep its nuclear weapons or have civilian nuclear energy cooperation. Bush was the first leader who broke this rigid paradigm by saying India can have both. With the Senate vote last night, Bush is now close to keeping the first part of his promise, which many considered an impossible task, to change American domestic non-proliferation law and the international non-proliferation regime to facilitate full civilian nuclear energy cooperation with India.

As Bush prepares to wrap up his success with the Congress, critics in India are sure to wring their hands. Similar to their previous argument that the Congress will never approve the deal, they will now insist that some of the language in the draft bills approved by the House and the Senate is not acceptable. The UPA government itself had conveyed many of its reservations on the language of the draft legislation. Some of these relate to prohibition on the transfer of uranium enrichment, plutonium reprocessing, and heavy water production technologies to India, stringent end use verification, the nature of fuel supply assurances in the event of a termination of the Indo-U.S. deal, and a commitment to avoid nuclear testing in future.

While these issues are important, they need not necessarily be deal breakers. As the Chairman of the Department of Atomic Energy, Anil Kakodkar, had told the press a while ago that India is self-sufficient in enrichment, reprocessing, and heavy water production technologies and is not looking for international collaboration.

In the next few weeks, India will have to demonstrate a measure of pragmatism on what it can live with and what it cannot accept at all in the final nuclear legislation. In debating the language of the bill, India cannot forget for a moment the larger goal it had self years ago—getting out of the nuclear limbo that India found itself in after its first nuclear test in May 1974.

Meanwhile Bush himself had objected to some of the language in the bills as violating the President’s constitutional prerogative to conduct foreign policy. Bush had repeatedly assured Singh that the final version of the bill he would eventually sign would indeed be in tune with the July 2005 agreement.

What happens next

Expected by Dec first week:

• Conference to reconcile the Senate and House versions of the Bill

• Bills go to respective chambers of the Congress for vote

• No amendments can be introduced. A simple yes and no vote.

• Bill stands approved, sent for Presidential Consent

• Law will authorise US to finalise a bilateral agreement for civil nuclear cooperation with India