The Indo-US nuclear agreement — 123 — is a major energy refuge for India, says the prime minister. But it is of alarmingly adverse national interest according to many informed critics, and so the subject desiderates public debate. We have abundant non-nuclear energy resources which, if fully surveyed, explored, researched and technologically exploited, will free the nation from American hegemony or Western dependence in our power-based development. Then why this morganatic massage with submissive spouse status a la Hyde Act? Or is the American alliance itself a snobbish symbol of elite class elevation? The choice is between US nuclear big business and us, with swaraj dynamism and swadeshi resources, well aware that Washington DC often regards international law as the vanishing point of White House jurisprudence.

The US is a creative wonder of progressive people, glorious personalities, great centres of learning which command my deep appreciation. But look at the other side. In our unipolar world, the US is a dominant and domineering power with a dollar culture of corporate greed, crass materialism, five-star glamour, and import-investment free-booting operations of colonisation and corruption, with auxiliary political, military and diplomatic pressurisation. What matters for American big business in this nuclear deal is dumping their uranium and connected technology on the Indian atomic energy estate because, after the Russian disaster on Chernobyl and the worst catastrophe of terrible radio-active magnitude in Three Mile Island (March 1979), most of Europe and America cried halt on their nuclear generation projects. We are the victims of private nuclear industry which has had no business in America since 1979. The title of a US publication by Helen Caldicott, addressed to Americans, is eloquently calamitous: ‘Nuclear Madness: The Choice is Yours — A Safe Future — Or No Future At All.’

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