The Indo-US nuclear deal is primarily aimed at stopping India from going ahead with its nuclear weapons programme, says the BJP.
At a talk on ‘Nuclear Agreement & National Security’ organised here on Saturday, former finance minister Yashwant Sinha, who was also the country’s external affairs minister for a brief period, said, “America wants to stop India from going ahead with its nuclear weapons programme.”
The treaty, in its present form, also means that India’s foreign policy will in future be guided by the US.
“If India doesn’t toe the American line (in the future), it will mean that the treaty has been broken and the US will ask back for all its nuclear and other materials,” Sinha said. An agreement, he said, either between nations or individuals, is acceptable only when both parties compete on equal terms. The present treaty is not such a one.
Sinha, who deliberated at length on various provisions in the treaty detrimental to India ‘s interests, was also confident that the Hyde Act would surely be implemented.
“The Hyde Act was framed primarily for the 123 agreement. Now you say that the Act will not be applicable (to the treaty),” said the senior BJP leader, referring to the recent assurances by the Congress that the Act would not be applicable to the treaty.
Sinha said India will be at the mercy of the US ‘in the true sense’ if the treaty becomes operational.
He said India’s indigenous nuclear capability will be gradually weakened, leading to it kneeling before the US for protection if a nuclear threat was made in the future by either Pakistan or China.