India-US civil nuclear deal will remain a crowning glory of Manmohan Singh's prime ministership

The civil nuclear deal changed India's overall engagement with the US as it paved the way for building the bonds of a strategic partnership, especially in areas of high-technology and defence.

New Delhi: A stickler for rules and protocols, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was a regular during the Question Hours in the Parliament.

The Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have one designated day when MPs can ask questions to the Prime Minister. Generally the Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office answers such questions. In UPA-II, it was V Narayansamy who as MoS, PMO used to respond with Singh sitting in the front row.

But it wasn’t uncommon to see the Prime Minister standing up and speaking when questions were related to the India-USA Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation, the Separation Plan, liability regime and nuclear safety in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.

Notwithstanding the controversies, the India-US deal fathered by Singh and US president George W Bush overhauled the bilateral relations. The two nations are now close strategic partners sharing cutting edge technologies. The historic deal also paved the way for India’s entry in three of the four export control regimes.

In one of his speeches in the Rajya Sabha in August 2006 in support of the deal he said, “In 1992, when I rose to present my second budget, all Opposition, the Right and Left, rose and said that I should be impeached because I have prepared this budget in consultation with Washington and that I was an American agent. I have lived with that sort of thing. And, therefore, it does not surprise me that today all sorts of adjectives were used. I am strong or weak, history will determine that. But, I do wish to share with this House that I do recognise the risks that reform undertakings run into in all modern societies.”

Singh stood firm on the nuclear deal even after the Left Front withdrew support to his government over the deal and won the vote of confidence with the Samajwadi Party giving its backing.

“We have not compromised our autonomy with regard to our strategic programme. We have not agreed to any formula or any proposal which would amount to a cap on our nuclear programme. The country should have the assurance that we have not compromised, in any way, when it comes to India's strategic nuclear programme,” he said in the Lok Sabha.

The UPA government under Singh also successfully tackled a prolonged agitation at the Kudankulam, spread nuclear plants to new sites, spearheaded campaigns to do away with people’s fear post-Fukushima and shifted the fuel cores of Apsara reactor out of BARC to prevent an international inspection of the premiere facility.

"What we have done, I believe, is a step forward in taking our country on to a higher growth and development trajectory,” he told the Parliament repeatedly. More than 15 years later, the nuclear deal remained the crowning glory for the affable Prime Minister.