The US-India nuclear deal represents a huge victory for India, a clear recognition by the international community that India is, in all but name, a recognised nuclear weapon state. It gives India full access to the international nuclear energy market, in return for a nominal concession. Even the extent of this concession, international safeguards on more power plants than India currently permits, will be determined by New Delhi, not the international community.

How sweet this deal is to India can be partly gauged by the fierce opposition being put up by the nuclear non-proliferation lobby in Washington. Anything that can make the non-proliferation fundamentalists froth in the mouth has got to be good for us!

Over the past two decades, it has become abundantly clear that without a huge increase in public investment in the domestic Indian atomic energy sector, which was not feasible, nuclear energy would not become a serious option for India.

India’s response was to seek international turnkey projects, which could make atomic energy a serious alternative without requiring a huge investment boost in the indigenous effort. This was a logical choice, and one that was endorsed by several previous governments in New Delhi, as they sought atomic power plants from both Russia and France.

But the global nuclear order was not particularly receptive to India’s needs. The rules of the non-proliferation regime tightened in the 1990s to require full-scope safeguards. Which meant India had to put all of its nuclear plants and establishments under international safeguards, in return for any new foreign-supplied atomic power plants. India was unwilling to offer anything better than partial safeguards.

In other words, international safeguards only on plants that it bought from outside, not for the atomic establishment that India already had. Indeed, six of India’s atomic plants were already under such partial safeguards.

What the US-India nuclear deal does is to bridge the gap between what India was prepared to offer the international community and what the non-proliferation regime was willing to accept. India’s offer could be termed ‘partial safeguards plus,’ because it does offer additional Indian atomic power plants to be put under international safeguards. But how many and what plants it wants to put under such international safeguards is up to India.

Under the deal, India will have to eventually identify which of its nuclear establishments are weapons-related and which are civilian, and put the civilian plants under international safeguards. This is far less than the current international non-proliferation norm, which requires international safeguards on all nuclear establishments within the country. In essence, what the deal does is to offer India the same consideration as that offered to the five states recognised as nuclear weapon ones under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Only those countries are allowed by the NPT to have nuclear weapons establishments.

Under this deal, India will be a NPT-recognised nuclear weapon state in everything but name. India’s objections to safeguards were always designed to protect our weapons establishments, not because we had any particular objections to safeguards per se. Of course, this deal does require India to separate the weapons and civilian establishments.

The other objection to the deal is that this requires significant additional work by the US administration to change domestic American law, as well as to work with its allies to make changes in the non-proliferation regime to accommodate India. That the US has got Mohamed El Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to endorse the deal, suggests that the US is willing and prepared to carry through this deal.

The writer is associate professor in international politics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi