We do not need a rocket scientist, or even a group of senior American Senators, to tell us that the clock is ticking on India’s civil nuclear initiative. Anyone familiar with the time-lines involved in the next three sequential steps to implement the deal — the approval of Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and the US Congress — should know that if we cannot move rapidly in the next few weeks, we might never be able to get it done.

The UPA government understands that the first two bodies, involving most major actors of the international community, have procedures of their own. The third, the US Congress, will need many weeks to process the final vote on the Indo-US nuclear deal. If the deal does not get to the US Congress by May, it will have no time to approve it this year in the middle of a general election. New Delhi also knows that it cannot assume that the next president of the US, whether Democrat or Republican, will have the commitment, energy and patience of the kind demonstrated by President George W. Bush in promoting India’s entry into the nuclear club. As Barack Obama surges ahead in the race for the Democratic nomination, India can hardly forget his killer amendment to the Hyde Act on restricting future nuclear fuel supplies to India.

The American senators were underlining a lot more than the known dangers of further delay in implementing the nuclear deal. They are venting the frustrations of all those in the US and the rest of the world who had invested their political capital in a project that India claimed was so vital to it. Take Joseph Biden, who was among the group of senators visiting the capital this week. Rejecting the advice of his traditional non-proliferation constituency, Biden, a Democrat and a strong critic of President Bush, piloted the Hyde Act in the US Senate. He is not the only one at a loss. The Indian American community, American corporations and many governments, including those of France, Britain and Russia, have gone out of the way to support India’s civil nuclear initiative. What is on line today is more than India’s renewed access to civilian nuclear energy. It is India’s credibility as a nation. If the UPA government cannot find the gumption to confront its communist allies on a matter of supreme national interest, it is India that will pay the price.