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For sure, it is not a blessing. India has survived a hostile United States and a hostile China and done reasonably well as a nation state and a democracy (warts and all) since 1947. So it is not as if India will descend into chaos, poverty and destitution if the nuclear deal fails to materialize. Nor will India magically metamorphose into a developed nation state with poverty eradicated and per capita income touching that of European nations just because it signs the nuclear deal with Uncle Sam. India’s former foreign secretary, Salman Haidar, puts it succinctly when he says, “There can be no doubt that for US of A, the only interest that matters, is national interest. This deal is no different. As long as it’s long term strategic interests are served, it is going to be with India. India’s interests will be served best if it goes into the deal with its eyes open.”

The key words here are ‘national interest’ and ‘eyes open’. So if one wants to assess the value of the deal, the only way to do it is to examine with ‘eyes wide open’ if the deal is in the ‘national interest’ or not.

Lets dispel some myths first. The biggest one is about the future of India’s energy security. It is being projected that India will not be able to sustain high GDP growth rates and that the economy will be literally starved of power if the nuclear deal doesn’t happen. No doubt, nuclear energy will play an important role in meeting India’s hunger for power. But surely that’s not the only option. India has huge reserves of coal and coal continues to be the cheapest source of energy. Of course, coal pollutes and new coal based power plants will probably add to the problem of global warming. But surely India can refuse to be dictated by elitist western concerns over global warming. If China can merrily build coal plants at a breakneck pace completely ignoring the protests of green activists, so can India. Listening to an American activist hold forth on ‘responsibility’ towards environment is no different from listening to lectures on caste by the same set of Americans who segregated blacks till the 1960s as a matter of state policy! Besides, new technology has made coal based power plants far less polluting than before.

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2007

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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