Viva Democracy

EDITORIAL
Posted on 2008-09-08
THE grant of waiver by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) – the waiver of the term that any country must sign the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) and CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) for its entitlement to imports of nuclear equipment and materials – is one of the greatest achievements for India. It has also created history in the international sense: India is the first country to get such a waiver. With this waiver, the Indo-US Nuclear Civil Co-operation Agreement will get through in the US Congress when the President, Mr George Bush presents it. A lot of credit must go to a lot of people, starting with the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh who staked his government but did not succumb to the pressures of the Left parties. But the opposition too must be given credit. It is hard to forget that the NDA government led by Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee had announced a unilateral moratorium on nuclear test by India, which had sort of set the mood across the international community to include India in nuclear commerce.
Above all, however, credit must go to the people of India at large. We are a country of poor and illiterate people; we have thousands of bad things – vote rigging, caste- and religion-based voting, riots based on faith, rampant corruption in government; we have seen MLAs and MPs being purchased by ruling parties to retain power; and yet we are a million times better off as a society, political system and state. After the European powers were driven out of their colonies, most countries in other continents became independent. And in the beginning nearly all of them adopted democracy as their system of government. But either in the beginning years itself or later, most of them could not sustain democracy and power was taken over by military or civil dictators.
India is the only country among the postcolonial nations where democracy not only survived but slowly became stronger and stronger. Although money and muscle and caste and religious prejudices worked in elections, the voting was largely protected from any substantial degeneration and kept within a system and election rules. It must be said to the praise of political parties of all hues that they did not work for the curtailment of the powers of the Election Commission of India. Thanks to the core belief in the democratic system, the Election Commission of India today is among the most respected institutions of the country. People have faith in this institution. And then there is judiciary. Political parties may have resisted judicial intervention when it comes to the proceedings of the legislatures, but they obeyed all orders from the judiciary, even if they went against their decisions.
It is the stable democracy that the people of India at large, and the politicians in particular, have given this country that finally won the day for India at Vienna where the NSG had almost come to say no India’s entry into nuclear commerce. The 45 members of the NSG have passed the waiver by a consensus, and this consensus was driven largely by the argument within the NSG and outside that India is a stable and responsible democracy and can be trusted for not using nuclear supplies for its nuclear weapons power development or its existing nuclear weapons for unprovoked destruction.
And India has shown its responsibility with regard to nuclear weapons programme. Although the country conducted the first nuclear test at Pokhran in 1974 – the year since when nuclear materials and equipment exports to India was banned – and has conducted more tests and has developed nuclear weapons capability, the international community was convinced that India had not done it with any intention of becoming a world power but only to create a nuclear deterrence to its two hostile neighbours, China and Pakistan. Time and again, India had assured the international community that it would not contribute in any way to nuclear proliferation and it had stood steadfastly by its commitment and not supplied nuclear weapons development technology or even a part of it to any other country. India therefore deserved to get the ban on nuclear imports lifted by its proven credentials. The people have done India proud.